Football!

Dallin has really loved playing football!  He has mostly been on the defensive team playing safety or corner back. He has great coaches and the other players on the team are really supportive and enjoy playing together.  Dallin has really learned a lot!  Rawhiders! #9!!

This Saturday he will be playing on the offensive team as running back!  He's been practicing all week and he's a little excited and nervous.  I'm nervous too! He's kinda on the small side and I'm afraid he's going to get really clobbered!

 This is we do during the many practices and games...

We take selfies,

 read books, listen to music, play on our phones, and try not to roast to death!  I'm looking forward to cooler temperatures!

Other random topics....

We had brussel sprouts for dinner the other night.  Maura wasn't too sure about them...

 and Dallin put all of them in his mouth at the same time to get it over with quickly.  

These kids just don't appreciate good food!

 We had a visit from our cousins!!

My sister, Jennifer, got tickets to One Direction for her teenage girls Blythe and Halle.  It was a big Christmas Surprise and they had been anxiously waiting to come to Phoenix for the big event ever since.  They came a couple weeks ago and spent a few days with us and we enjoyed being with them.  Katie and her kids hung out with us as well.  

Took a short trip to the Goldfield Ghost Town for the day.  It was super fun...and super hot!

 Cousins: Halle, Blythe, Dallin, Jeffrey

Adell, Damien, Maura

Jennifer, Me, Adell and Maura

We also took the teenagers to the temple to do baptisms for the dead.  I love that they are old enough to enjoy these kinds of activities when they get together! What a great way to make memories!!

 They also stopped by Grandma and Grandpa's old house to take a picture.  They have vague memories of being here when they were very very young.

 We've been doing a lot of swimming lately!

 Lastly,  Maura climbed to the VERY TOP of the zip line the last time we went to the ranch!!  It was quite the accomplishment for her! Next time we will try actually going down!

Life has been so good! We are so blessed!  We are happy!

Yep, we had a flood.

It all started when it rained like crazy...I'm talking Noah crazy.  It's rained hard before and we've survived it.  We've had our yard filled with water before too and our house has never flooded.  But this one really got close!

Once the rain stopped we thought we were in the clear.  Then the retention basin overflowed!  Evidently other flooded areas (other parks and the freeway) were being pumped into our park and it just couldn't handle it.  We were there to watch the excitement.

  My neighbor called to say there was water on the street so we went to take a look.  We walked to the end of the block and looked at the park.

Or, the lake...whatever you want to call it-but there was no grass or volleyball net or even basketball hoops any more!  Just water!  While we were standing there it kept getting higher and higher and then flowed over the berm and down the street!

 And it kept getting higher and higher!  At this point we decided we had better find the nearest sand-bag distribution to try and help some of our neighbors stay dry!  You can still see the grass in the background.  At the height of the flood water went all the way up to every door on the street!

 Luckily, our house is around the corner and just a little bit higher! We had water in our yard, but it never came up over the foundation and into the house!  Our shed got pretty wet though...

 Sand bags kept the water from getting into the garage.

 The threshold was high enough that we didn't need the sand bags, but they were there just in case!

 The water receded pretty quickly from our yard-but others were not so lucky.  We then had a power outage for about 24 hours.  Thankfully Clay had a generator we could borrow to keep our freezers going!  It was awesome!  I think that will have to be our next investment.

We had a pretty exciting week and thankfully we were relatively dry.  The water was great for our lawn and trees!