November

In November we:

Visited the Fall Festival at Vertruccio Farms

Spent time at the parks. November is great outdoor weather.

Visited an outdoor art exhibit in Scottsdale called Canal Convergence. The highlighs for the kids were this light up board and the fire serpent that was set up in the canal and had fire coming out of it that was synchronized to music.

Celebrated Thanksgiving. Skye had a feast at her preschool. I had planned to cook and have Ivan and Venice over for dinner on Thanksgiving but our refrigerator broke two days before and so not having a way to keep things cold we opted to order dinner from a restaurant and pick it up. It was a little disappointing as the food wasn't that good but we still had a nice afternoon.

 Decorated for Christmas. Both girls were big helpers putting the decorations on the tree.

3 Weeks of Racing

Alisha says: I just finished up 3 Saturdays in a row of racing on the mountain bike. It was a lot of fun and good times.

Race #1: The Showdown 8 hour relay race as a duo with Dave. This was a super fun event that consisted of a 12 mile loop in Usery Park which is basically in our backyard. Dave started first and put in a great lap to get things started. From there we traded off every lap which was about 45-50 min. My first lap was my fastest and we just kept going from there. The cool thing about this race is that there are 4 timed segments out on the course and $100 is given to the fastest male and female for each one. Dave and I rode strategically and each gave it a go on the segments and we ended up taking home $600!! I won fastest lap, levee drag, cats peak, and cats peak bypass. Dave was the fastest on the levee drag and cats peak bypass. The other really fun part of this event is hanging out with all of our friends between and after the race. We each finished 5 laps (60 miles) for a team total of 10 laps (120 miles) in 8 hours to finish first in our category!

Race #2: Cave Creek Cycling Classic - C4. This was a 23 mile race in Cave Creek that I went and did by myself. I was super nervous at the start because I had never ridden any of the trails before, it was a mass start and there was a good field of fast women. I lined up early but the first 5 miles were still so crazy as we started out in town on paved roads so there was a lot jockeying for position and the group stayed together until we finally hit a little uphill into the single track. I was the first women into the single track and just tried to keep it going from there. The course had a little bit of everything, climbing, chunky loose rocks, downhill rock drops. It was a hot day and a hard effort. I knew I had won coming into the finish and although I have won other races this was the first that I sat up and actually put both hands in the air to celebrate! I have to admit that it was fun!

Race #3: 12 Hours of Fury at McDowell relay race as a quad female team with Victoria, Nicole and Lisa. This is another fun relay event around a 15 mile loop and with 4 people you get to hang out a little more between laps which is always a good time. It was a perfect day with temperatures in the 80's and some clouds. I started things off for us and had an good lap. My second lap was my favorite and the fastest female lap of the day. My 3rd lap was our last and in the dark. Everyone rode awesome and we were first in our category (unfortunately out of only 2 teams, but we did stack up well when compared to the other categories and was 22/100 plus teams) by finishing 8 laps (we probably would have had time for 1 more lap but we really didn't need it so we didn't). There is so much more to cycling than just riding a bike it is also the cool people you meet, friendships you make and experiences you have and it was fun to hang out and ride bikes all day with friends. Dave

4th Birthday for Skye

Alisha says: Happy 4th Birthday Skye! Skye is a little girl with big emotions so she was really excited for it to be her birthday and have a lot of attention directed at her. On her actual birthday she got to go to the jump place in the morning with a friend and then her cousins Jonathan and Ben came over in the afternoon for some painting and playing. She choose to go to Rain Forest Cafe for her birthday dinner and thought it was really fun when they brought out a cupcake with a candle on it.

A few days later we had a family dinner party where once again she loved being the center of attention. Her favorite things were blowing out the candles on her birthday cake and then doing "performances" for everyone which was dancing around with Rachel while Dave played the violin.

21 Months

Jade runs away whenever it is time to get dressed for bed, take a nap, brush teeth.

She hides her eyes with her hand and thinks that I can't see her. It is adorable

She is talking more and more and starting to put 2+ words together. If I pretend to sleep she will tap me and say "wake up".

She still loves little things like chapstick tubes and lids. She will find something little like that and then carry it around and take the lid on and off repeatedly.

She thinks she is just as big as Skye and copies whatever she does.

She is the cutest little dancer and has this one move that she does where one leg is kept straight and then she bounces up and down as the other knee bends. It's sooo cute.

She is generally really good and mostly sweet until you take something away from her that she has and then she gets really mad and can throw a good tantrum.

She loves lollipops, in the picture she has one in each hand.

October

Alisha says: Dave set up the tent in the backyard for a few days. The kids loved playing around in it. Dave tried to sleep outside one night with Skye but they only lasted a few hours before they ended up back in the house. Haha

We are so lucky to get to have regular visits from my mom. The kids love playing with her and Dave and I get to go on some great bike rides while she babysits. We love having her around. We took the kids to a art exhibit/experience called Candytopia. All of the art pieces are made out of candy (mostly gummy bears). It felt kind of willy wonka'ish and the kids really enjoyed it because they could touch things and in each room there was a treasure chest where you would get some candy (we ended up with so much candy between the four of us).

 Jungle room

The ocean room was my favorite

This room was full of confetti and it was being blown all around the room. We were covered from head to toe and will probably still be finding it in the diaper backpack for some time.

The last room was a giant foam marshmallow pit.

Halloween

Alisha says: Halloween was one party after another for a few days. Skye had fun painting a pumpkin and then helping to carve one with Dave.

We went to two neighborhood parties in Gilbert where Skye got to ride a horse

They got to dress up at preschool and have a little parade for the parents. It was super cute seeing them all dressed up.

They had a great time trick or treating around our neighborhood. There aren't many kids so everyone seemed happy to see them and they got a ton of candy. Jade would walk up to the door and say trick or treat. It was very cute.

They were very excited to check out all their candy