Birthday movie shoot

Tyler had a very specific request for his birthday party this year. All he wanted was to get his actors together to shoot a scene for his Legion of Legacies movie. The day before his birthday, we got Lacy, Braden and Matt together and took them all to Stratum to play laser tag. After that, we went to Pei Wei for an early birthday dinner. Matt and Lacy both stayed overnight since they were going to be working on the movie the next day. 

Grandma Jean joined us too. It's not very often that she's in town for Tyler's birthday--actually, I'm not sure she has ever been!

Birthday morning rolled around and it was time to start shooting. Tyler got his props ready, which included a Molotov cocktail, a rock (spray painted sponge), a throwing star made out of an old CD, and $10,000. Ok, so it wasn't actually ten grand, but it was $298 (2 x $100 bills and 98 $1 bills). The other prop was candy glass, for the scene where they break the window on the van. What did you do for your 12th birthday?! 

It is June in Arizona, after all, so these probably weren't ideal shooting conditions. Dave set a table up with a giant jug of water so our actors stayed hydrated. The only non-family actor is Tyler's first friend, Camryn, who also happens to be a classmate. 

We got Tyler a giant green sheet (more like a sheet for a giant) to use as a green screen, and Dave spent quite a bit of time getting it set up just right in the garage. We also had to buy a steamer to attempt to keep the wrinkles out of the green screen. It looked pretty professional, this entire set up did!

Here's our birthday boy-writer, director, and producer--and everything in between. What a cool kid we have! Happy 12th birthday Tyler! I'm glad you got to do what you love on your birthday.

Here are a few of his actors after they'd been sprayed with pepper spray and hit in the head with a rock--don't worry, all just makeup.

Grandma Jean even got roped into being one of the actors. What was her role, you ask? Well, a bank robbing granny of course.

This part of the scene required the actors to be in the trunk of the car, in a 100 degree garage. Luckily, we did have a fan and swamp cooler running, so it wasn't too bad. He might need to think about paying his actors more for some of these scenes!

Here is the cast of characters from this scene of the Legion of Legacies. I'm excited to see what this movie turns in to! He is going to take some time off to wait until cooler weather, but hopefully he'll get back at it this fall.

It's hard to believe that we've been parents for 12 years. Our first born is growing into such a cool young man. He's smart, creative, and passionate, and he has big things planned for his life. He knows what he wants to do, and everything he does now is in preparation for becoming the successful filmmaker he hopes to be. Happy, happy 12th birthday Tyler. We love you!

Backyard badminton

How fun is this? I was at my friend (and Kristina's sister) April's house recently, and she had this set up in her backyard. I thought it sounded like a fun backyard activity that would work perfectly in our yard. We certainly have a lot of work to do to get very good at it, and we probably won't play it much until it cools off more, but hopefully we'll get good at backyard badminton!

Rockin' AZ Merits

Please allow me a moment to brag about my smart kids. Third grade is the first year they take AZ Merit tests, which are our state standardized tests. Well, I was certainly proud of Ava when I opened up her test results today. In Math, she was only 9 points away from the top score, which put her well into the Highly Proficient category, scoring 56 points higher than district average, 68 points higher than state average, and 76 higher than her school average. Clearly, she'll do just fine at Mesa Academy for Advanced Studies next year. Wow! Who knew she was so good at math?

She also did great on her English Language assessment, scoring a Highly Proficient score as well. Ava was once again significantly higher than the district, state and school averages. When she came home from school the day of her tests, she was stressed about her English tests. She knew she forgot to put a title on the essay she had to write, and was very concerned she was going to get a bad grade because of it. There may have even been tears. When she saw this score, she said she thought it would have been higher if she'd remembered to put a title on her essay. Regardless, Ava, we are so proud of how well you did on your first round of testing. You are going places, young lady!

And guess who else did great? Tyler of course. We got his results back quite a bit later, but since I'm 3 months behind on my blog, I can add these now too. He totally ROCKED his tests too, especially his English, where he was only 5 points away from perfect. Wow. Now, this isn't Tyler's first time taking these tests, and he does really well every year. Can you see where the school, district, and state averages are on here? Way below where our kids scored. Not to brag or anything, but dang, we have smart kids! 

Nice job, Tyler! You're an amazing kid in so many ways. 

Go Germany!

In all my years hiring student staff, I've never hired an international student. This semester, that changed with the amazing Helen from Germany. She was staying with a woman that works at the college, and when I mentioned that I was looking for one more person to work in my office, she introduced us. Helen was such a great addition to our team, and she made some good friends on campus. Well, as her time with us neared it's end, the Soccer World Cup was happening, and Helen was a soccer player. Germany was playing during her last week working with us, so we planned a morning watch party, and invited some of her friends from campus. We surprised her by decorating the student lounge in German colors, and I even borrowed some jerseys, a flag and some face paint from Tina who had them from when they lived there. Helen was definitely surprised! 

If you're wondering about the bear, he's become our unofficial office mascot after he was donated during our clothing swap event. Tina happened to have a jersey that fit him, so he was decked out for the party.

I wish Helen's team could have pulled it off, but they ended up losing. She was bummed, but she had fun sharing her sport with us and appreciated our support of her home.

This is the other big soccer fan in the office, so the two of them had fun chatting soccer throughout the semester. Luis was cheering for Mexico, who happened to be playing at the same time as Germany, so was watching it on a laptop.

After it was all over, Ava asked about the clothes she saw in the house, so she got dressed up too. Go Deutschland! World Cub soccer will always remind me of Helen, since she taught me so much about the sport. We'll miss her when she heads home!

Rocky Point--Day 4

We woke up to a much different kind of morning on day 4 in Rocky Point. It was so windy! We could see that the water was really rough, and things were blowing around down in the pool area. All of a sudden, we saw a giant poop emoji pool raft go flying in the air. It was pretty funny! We were glad the weather was like this on our last day, instead of on one of the days we were to spend at the beach. There is this tunnel walkway between the buildings, and when we walked through it, it was a huge wind tunnel!

Here's a little peak at what this condo looked like. I mentioned it before, but I didn't like this place quite as much as the place we stayed last year, but the pool at Las Palomas is the nicest one around. This was the master suite....

Here is the living room and dining area, with a huge sliding door out to the giant patio area. Off to the left is the second bedroom. 

Here is the kitchen.

And here is Ava's favorite thing about this condo--she had her own room, with bunkbeds and a tv! It was called a "bonus room" and was just right for her.

This was Tyler's room, with a door out to the patio and a view of the pool. 

Not bad, huh?! You definitely don't get this in California, unless you pay 3 times as much as we paid for this one.

We got all packed up and then headed down to the beach for one reason--so Ava could get her hair braided. She had been asking all through the trip, but I reminded her that if she got it done earlier, she'd have to worry about it getting messed up while she was in and out of the water. The later she waited, the longer she could keep it looking nice. 

You should see how fast this woman braided! It's almost like we sped up the video but that is literally how fast she braids. The video was too big to load here, but you should be able to click this link to watch. 

Tyler hung out here and relaxed away from the blowing sand on the beach. Man, it was so windy!

I didn't want to miss out on the fun. I decided to get a few braids too.

Pretty cool, huh? I liked it....

Ava did a whole headband of braids, and it looked so cute! I think I'd have her skip the beads next time. She had to sleep on her back while she had them in. 

After we were all done at the resort, we headed in to town to explore the shops a little bit and to get the fruit treats the kids like. They both got these giant pineapple drinks this time. It was a hot day, but luckily it was so windy and the breeze blowing over our sweaty bodies cooled us off. It also made those tiny little shops a little more tolerable.

One of our last stops was to the Friendly Dolphin for lunch. We tried going here last year, but they only take cash, and we didn't have enough left. This time, we were better prepared. They have delicious shrimp meals here. We had these bacon wrapped stuffed prawns, and they were amazing. It was a great last meal in Mexico!

We started heading out of town, and someone said something about passports. Dave looked at me and said "did you grab the passports?" My reaction was, "um, no....I never touched the passports while were were here." He had taken them out of the car and put them into a drawer in our condo. Crap! We checked out of our room already, so we really hoped some honest people were cleaning our room. We made our way back to the condo and after waiting awhile for the front desk to track down our cleaning crew, we found out that they did indeed find our portfolio with the passports, and had taken it to the housekeeping headquarters. Phew! That was a little scary! Lesson learned--don't check out of a Mexican hotel without first ensuring you have the one thing you need to make it home!

It was another fantastic vacation in Rocky Point. I don't know why we waited so long to start our family vacations here, but I'm so glad we did. We are very lucky to live somewhere that has a place like this within a few hour drive. It allows our kids to be exposed to a different culture, while enjoying a safe and easy vacation. I'd love to get down there another time of year too, so if anyone wants to join us, let's plan a trip! Who's in for a fall break trip to Rocky Point?

Rocky Point--Day 3

Morning 3 waking up next to the ocean. A cup of coffee, a book, and views of the ocean--I'd say those are the makings of a good morning on vacation. 

Ava got in on the action too, minus the coffee....

We spent a little more time in the pool during the first half of our day. We mostly left the kids to play in the pool together, and Dave and I hung out in the pool closest to the swim up bar. We were wearing wristbands with a barcode on them, so anything we bought at the bar got charged to our room. They had a couple of 2 for 1 happy hours during the day, so we took advantage of that.

Ava brought her Polaroid camera with, and got a few pictures of our view. I thought this was a cool shot. It was an other beautiful day at the beach--blue skies, little wind, and sunshine. 

Late afternoon is our favorite time out here on the beach. Long shadows and low tide, wind and water tasseled hair and sun kissed cheeks are all signs of a great day.

 Here is a family who has enjoyed their day at the beach!

Enjoying our last sunset in Mexico.....

For dinner, we headed over to the resort where we stayed last year. It's nice not to have to go all the way into town for meals every time. Not that it's far away, but it is just less stressful to stick close to the resorts. It is still Mexico, after all. As safe as we feel there, it's just a little more comforting to be in an area that we know is catering to tourists like us. We'll spend the morning here tomorrow, but will be hitting the road sometime after lunch.