Road Trip 2014: Spartan Beast in Midway, UT

Here are the pictures I was able to capture of Andy during his first ever Spartan Beast race!  This one was held in Midway, UT at the 2002 Winter Olympic's Biathlon course.  It was pretty awesome terrain, spectacular mountains, and a very gorgeous little town.  A great & adventurous visit to Utah, at the very start of this year's long road trip to Oregon!

This one was my favorite of the entire bunch.  He just looks so happy at the finish line!  :)

Here are the rest in order of occurrence...

Hello Baby #5!

Yep!  You read that title right!  We are excited to announce that baby #5 of the Arizona Blatchford clan is on his or her way!  Baby is due to arrive Halloween 2014.  So most likely he/she will be a late October baby.  

We decided to do things a bit differently this time and wait to find out the gender until the baby is born.  We tried this with Roxy, but the ultrasound tech kinda ruined the surprise by showing us everything.  Not so much this time though!  Our tech was awesome & even turned off the monitor so we couldn't sneak a peek (which I totally would have done)!  

She also worked really hard to get us a profile picture.  Baby really didn't want to cooperate & was facing down so the angle was not ideal.  She worked for about 10min to get baby to turn it's head just enough to get this profile picture.  One of the best because it almost looks like he/she is sucking their thumb!  So cute!!  

The most important thing though, is that from all accounts, baby appears to be a healthy & happy 11oz & measuring right on time!  Only one measurement was at 18wks, but all of the rest were right on time within a couple of days of 19wks 5days, and the tech didn't seem concerned about the one smaller measurement.  I will be able to ask my doc what she thinks next week at my normal OB check-up appointment.  At this point though, all of our previous testing CVS/TSC/AFP and now this anatomy ultrasound, have all come back normal.

Happy Father's Day & Birthday Weekend!

Andy got some new & updated D-A-D pictures for Father's Day yesterday!  June also gave him a cute craft from school.  A picture of her holding a surf board, with a yellow popsicle stick frame saying "Surf's Up Dad".  

He also got a combined father's day/birthday gift from June & Roxy.  He got to go to the circus with them on Friday.  He said that the show was awesome!  June loved the lions & horses, and Roxy loved the popcorn!  ;)

And then from me, I got him a le cruset baking dish & made him a nice salmon dinner with a yummy Costco carrot cake.  I was also going to make him a nice breakfast on Father's Day, but it turned out that we didn't have enough eggs.  So I told him I owe him an omelet.  :)

I think it was a pretty good weekend for everyone!! 

Summer Time

One of the best parts about summer time is pool time!  Andy, Cora & June decided to take a sunset dip this evening.  As the day was the hottest yet here in Tucson (108 degrees), it was still over 100 degrees as the sun went down.  

We have been in the pool almost everyday since the temperatures rose above 90 two weekends ago.  And Andy was so excited to show June "the coolest thing ever" -- going down the slide into the pool.  June is the only one who loves the slide at this point.  Lincoln is okay with the slide, he prefers to just jump in and splash around himself.  Roxy is scared of the pool, and barely gets in with us at all, so the slide is out of the question.  And Cora loves the pool, but is kinda scared of the slide right now. 

Lincoln's Kindergarten Graduation

Today was Lincoln's Kindergarten graduation / 1st grade promotion.  Unfortunately, he was pretty tired and really wanted nothing to do with the whole event (although he didn't mind the cake at the end).  His face in the second photo says it all.  Poor little guy.  :(

June's Preschool Celebration!

June's first year of preschool is in the books!!  Here is my big girl during their class' end of year celebration/graduation.  We are so proud of her!  :)

Some Catch-Up

Andy continues to train for the longest Spartan race, known as The Spartan Beast, in the trifecta.  It is a 12+ mile, 25+ obstacle course in Salt Lake City, UT on June 28th.  Below are some pictures of him at the Spartan Sprint in Phx in February, taken by remote cameras on the course.  Then there are a few of him at the Las Vegas Spartan Super in April that I took. 

I finally got this vinyl made for June & Roxy's big blank wall in their room for their birthday present.  

Here is June enjoying her school field trip to the Tucson Zoo in April.  She loved riding the school bus & playing with her friends all day.  She is just finishing up her last week of school for her first ever year of pre-school.  She is really looking forward to heading back to pre-school for one more year with the same teachers and a lot of the same kids.  Roxy is making huge progress in the potty training department, so we are hopeful that she will be able to go to pre-school with June next fall (July 31st is their first day -- hard to call that fall, lol.)  And Lincoln will be headed back to school for 1st grade next year.