Best Day at the ZOO

The Zookeeper let us go into the enclosure

 This tortoise loved Brig, and it was fast! It tried to climb right up his chest and at 70 lbs Brig got a bit nervous.  When it was straddling his leg Brig looked at me and said, "A little help here...!" He could not get it off :)  (I took a few pics... then I helped)

The same extra cool zookeeper asked the boys if they wanted to see a snake.
Did he even need to ask?

The boys were too little to hold it, I kindof wished I was to  little too.

Of all the animals at the zoo, Brig insisted on taking this shot.  We see coyotes almost daily in our backyard
What about a picture of the Tiger?

I don't know how we hooked up with the coolest Zookeeper in Prescott, but it was one of our best visits to date!  I only wished we had more time!

FALL BREAK

You can tell the boys are SUPER excited...( this is 1/2 hour into our trip)

BRIG, PORTER, and FRIENDS

But once we got on the boat...they livened up

JONATHAN and COLDEN getting warm

We camped for 3 nights at Lake Pleasant, the weather was beautiful, the friends were fun, and the wildlife was a little strange (we were woken up by a heard of wild, braying donkeys at 3 am, woken up the next night by two skunks, partying it up right next to our tent, this included odd sounds and terrible scents!

CHELSEA could not be shaken

JAKE made it look easy

JAKE jumped off the ramp

MAX popped up his first try

Even JAY still had the moves

 Max and Jake had fun flipping and pushing each other off the dock.  I must say here that I totally got up on the wake board, I know there are no photos to prove it...but it happened!  All in all it was  a great little trip and after our fun at the lake I headed down to Mesa to visit Chelsea and the rest of the Tipton Crew.  The kids enjoyed cousins and finally got to go to Jump Street.

Extra Curricular Activities

So lately I've been thinking about how much time I spend going to "Extra Curricular Activities"...

with 5 kiddos, most of whom do more than one extra activity, I am constantly going in a million directions! (Don't let this post fool you.....I love it!)

Jake runs cross country, I have traveled to Cottonwood, Sedona, Clarkdale, and Camp Verde to watch him run. Go Jake!

Jonathan finishing up his eagle scout! He collected money and toy donations for the outpatient cancer clinic at Phoenix Childrens Hospital. This pic is some of the toys he will deliver.

Jake played with a local band at a block party here in Prescott. He had a couple of awesome solos and he really rocked it!

Chelsea was Belle at the Best of Arizona festival, she made the paper and did a Belle show where she sang several songs from Beauty and the Beast. She looked beautiful and lots of little girls were so excited to meet Belle:)












Max joined the swim team for the high school this year. It's been so fun to watch his meets, he is a really good swimmer.























I didn't get pictures of Brig doing his activities, he goes to piano on tuesdays and he just started scouts which he LOVES.


On top of this, Chelsea is cooking at culinary school and I have traveled to Scottsdale to eat her delicious creations. The culinary school runs a restaurant. Yum!


Max also goes to drum lessons, and has been drumming for about a year, I'll have to get a pic of him jamming out.