Vacation Part II - Arizona to see the Beals

Sweet baby Maklaine only less than 2 days old!

With her great grandpa

Eric fell in love immediately

The three amigos Brok, Lukas and Max

Kevin and Max

On the way home from Zion we stopped in Arizona to see my niece Ashley, Kevin, Brok, Lukas and newest member of the Beal family...Maklaine Lynette Beal. We were so lucky that Maklaine decided to come the day before we arrived so that we could meet her! She is a perfect little princess and is so loved. Her big brothers Brok (4) and Lukas (2 1/2) are going to be the best big brothers! Ashley and Kevin have a beautiful little family and we love them to pieces! Kevin is in the Air Force and is being deployed to Korea in June and we are thankful for his service to this country to protect our freedom. You don't realize what a sacrifice the members of the military make for us until it hits close to home. Kevin will be gone for a year so Ashley will have her hands full with 3 little ones but she will do great. Their oldest Brok is autistic and he has such a sweet and strong spirit inside that little body and when you look into his eyes you can see what an amazing little boy he is! I have not been able to be around him much but when I am, I feel the Spirit so strongly and I know that he is a choice Child of our Heavenly Father. It takes special people to be blessed with a spirit like Broks and it is obvious that he is very loved! It was fun for us to see Ashley, Kevin and the kids and for my dad to be able to meet his first great granddaughter!

Zion Part 2

This is the view from the family room in the cabin...floor to ceiling windows

Getting ready to go

This is part of the gang that was there

Max driving the Polaris with Brooke

Beautiful Zion Park

Vacation Part I - Zion Ponderosa Ranch

Max and Tasha

Max loved riding the quads!

There were deer everywhere

Tasha, Max and Eric

Me, Tasha and Max

We had a great time at Zion Ponderosa Ranch! My brother Eric in Las Vegas does camps there with the kids he works with and he was able to get us a "cabin" for the week.....now this is definitely my idea of roughing it! It was 5000 sq. ft., 7 bedrooms each with a private full bathroom, gourmet kitchen, basement with ping pong, big screen TV and surround sound, upper loft with TV and Foosball table, etc etc! I will "camp" there anytime! It was my brother Eric and some of his family, friends from Vegas the Longo family, and us. We had a ball! The scenery was breathtaking including frequest deer boucing across our path and in order to get there, we had to drive through Zion National Park which was beautiful. I forgot how much I missed the beautiful mountains!!!! We relaxed and watched movies, hung out, cooked yummy food, played games and best of all....we rode the quads! This was Max's first time riding and he had a ball. He wanted to ride and ride and ride. My hubby also had the best time riding and now of course he wants us to have a couple quads of our own. Anyway, one day my brother rented a Polaris (basically a 6 seater quad) so my dad could ride too and we all went out as a group and had a blast! It was a wonderful trip and fun time visiting with my family and friends!

More Bluebonnets

As you can see, it was a very windy day!

Bluebonnet Pic

We recently had some pictures taken in the Texas Bluebonnets and this is one of my favorites so far! Max loved running through the field of flowers and even as tall as he is, when he fell down you could hardly see him. This is one of my favorite times of the year here in Texas!

Always Changing Things!

These are my clearance treasures from Pottery Barn and Hobby Lobby

This is my Pottery Barn clearance lamp.....I have wanted this for a long time!

My Pottery Barn rug I bought on Craig's List....it was a STEAL!!!!

My thrift shop lamp and clearance Pottery Barn lampshade

This is the wall re-do behind the couch in the family room. I got most of the frames at garage sales and thrift shops and a couple came from Pottery Barn. I got the collage idea from the Pottery Barn catalog. The empty frames are waiting for our blueboonet pictures we had done this last weekend. Yes, I do have a Pottery Barn obsession as you can tell, but I only buy clearance items!!!

Most of you know how much I love changing things around my house and how much I love finding treasures at garage sales, thirft shops and of course the clearance section at Pottery Barn. Well, I recently changed some things around the house with some of my new-found and re-purposed treasures! My sweet husband never knows what he will be coming home to!

Max Loves Lemmons!

For our little family day a couple of weeks ago we spent the day over in Frisco at the big shopping mall. We had lots of fun walking around, shopping and best of all just spending time together! We decided to eat lunch at California Pizza Kitchen and Max got ahold of a slice of lemmon and he loved it!

Safari Park in Southlake

A couple of weeks ago it was a cold blustery day and Max was going stir crazy so we decided to go play at the indoor Safari Park in Southlake. Max had a ball! It was well worth the price of admission. They had bounce houses, play kitchens, train tables, animal rides, minature golf, a train ride, etc etc. he loved it all! I love that there are places like this we can go when we can't play outside.