Happy 17th Beautiful Girl

Happy 17th birthday to our amazing baby girl! I don't know how 17 years have passed so quickly, but somewhere along the way, our tiny baby grew into the most smart, beautiful, kind, creative, responsible young woman. I truly could not be more proud of her or love her more. She has my heart, and will always be one of my favorite humans on this earth. 

Lexi and Jordan took Ava out after school today to take these great photos. One can't turn 17 without having a photo shoot, right? 

I picked Ava up from school today to go to Joe's Farm Grill for her free birthday lunch. This has become a bit of a tradition. She has done this at least 3 years in a row. When we went last year, it was after she had successfully passed her drivers test and got her license. I wonder how many miles she's driven in the last year--it's a lot! 

We took this photo together this morning. I also decorated her door with a poster filled with some of my favorite pictures of her. I also made her a birthday breakfast before she headed out the door for school. 

On Tuesday nights, Dave and his sisters (and a few friends, sometimes various kids) go to a sports bar for trivia, and the theme tonight was Diamondbacks trivia. Dave asked Ava if she wanted to do that for her birthday dinner or go out somewhere else. She opted for the trivia option so there was something to do besides just eating. Grandma Jean joined us, as well as some of the usual trivia folks. They didn't do very well with the trivia (unlike the night I went and helped with Schitt's Creek trivia and we got 100% right), but you can't win them all. They usually get at least 3rd place, but not this time. Afterwards, we went back to the house for cupcakes and ice cream. For her birthday, we got her laser hair removal treatments and a point and shoot camera. I figure as much as she's in a swim suit for work and swim team, that would be a good gift. It's one of the best things I ever did, and I wish I'd done it earlier in life. 

You might remember that this kid joined us for Ava's birthday dinner last year too, but then he wasn't around much after that. She and Aidan were dating this time last year too, but broke up shortly after her birthday. They recently reconnected after running into each other at a lifeguard training that he was participating in (and Ava was working). He's a nice kid so we're happy to have him around again. Hopefully she can find time for a boyfriend with her busy schedule! We sure don't see her much, but she's busy living he best high school life. 

I really can't say enough wonderful things about this girl. She is everything I could have ever wanted in a daughter, and she is truly an amazing person. She is very smart and responsible, pulling straight As in school. She works a decent amount of hours at the pool (been off and on during the off season) and will be full time again this summer teaching synchro, swim lessons and guarding. I've talked a lot lately about all of her friends, and how important that social aspect of life is to her. She makes time for me, which I appreciate, even when she could probably find plenty of other things to do. I love that she is willing to try new things and wants to have all of the adventures. It's hard to believe that she's closing out her junior year of high school and heading into her senior year. She will be involved in Student Council again, and she even ran for Senior Class President--which she won! I am so proud of her for taking on that role. As someone who has spent their entire career working in student leadership and trying to engage students during their college years, I am especially excited for her. I know how important it is to get involved and take leadership roles in school, and I could not be more proud that my girl is doing just that. 

I started this blog when Ava was born 17 years ago. In that time, I have posted 3724 times. I have written so many stories, shared so many photos, and did my best to share our lives and our memories. There's plenty that gets left out, and there are things I don't share intentionally, but this blog really has become such an important part of our history as a family. I won't keep it up forever, but we'll keep going strong at least until this baby girl graduates high school. Tyler and Ava have been my biggest joy in life, and I am so grateful to be their mom. Happy 17th birthday to the most amazing girl I know. I love you Ava. You make me proud to be your mom every single day. Enjoy 17, it's one of the best ages, and you're going to have so much fun this year. Make some great memories and enjoy it all. 

Here's a video I posted to my Instagram today. If you want to see the version set to music, go watch it there, it's in my list of reels. There were so many cute pictures to choose from, it was hard to narrow it down. 

Vintage baseball

Dave's vintage baseball team ends their season with a tournament in Globe, and today they defended their title from last year. The Mesa Miners defended the Copper Cup again this year, beating the Bisbee Black Socks. My mom and I drove up to Globe to watch the games today. Side note, if you've never made that drive, you should. It's beautiful up there. 

I think they played three games today, and they won all of them easily.  It's fun watching these games because the rules are obviously different than modern baseball. The biggest differences are that they don't use a glove and you can make an out by catching a ball after one bounce. There are a lot of other things that are different, no balls and strikes (to a certain extent), no umpire, can't run through first base, and more). These guys all play softball with Dave too, so he's been playing with some of them for a long time. 

Dave plans to step away from this team a bit next year, only playing with them occasionally. He has started playing golf more, with the goal of spending more time with his dad. He's joined the Dobson Ranch Mens League again, so will play in golf tournaments with his dad once or twice a month. It's nice that they have that together, and it'll be a good way for them to spend more time together. 

Congrats to the Mesa Miners on their win! 

Ava's birthday party

Tonight kicked off Ava's 17th birthday festivities, with a big party at the house with her enormous group of friends. I can't even tell you how many kids were there, 40-50? They weren't all there at the same time, and they mostly came through the side gate so didn't see them. She has a mix of different friend groups from various schools, mostly from MHS but several from Red Mountain and Westwood too. It's so fun to see her thriving in high school, making so many friends and having all of these experiences. 

These friends here are her ride or dies though, she and Jodi go back to age 6 in the pool, and Lexi and Jordan have been her other best friends since 6th grade. She'll have a lot of friends in and out of her life, but these three will likely be there for the long haul. 

I love that Ava has kept her connections to her friends from her previous high school, even after expanding her friend group so much. She makes the effort to keep these friendships, even if they don't see each other every day like before. 

She was using one of my old digital point and shoot cameras (that's what they use now instead of phones--they like the "vintage"look), and something weird was going on with the flash. A lot of these pictures came out way overexposed, so we had to do our best to make them usable, hence the black and white. 

For the party, we got some pizzas, made pizookies, and had a little soda bar. They mostly hung outside, and the party didn't end until after midnight. I was a bit worried about the noise and bothering the neighbors, but hopefully they weren't too disruptive. These are all good kids, it's nice to be able to trust that she's with friends who are (hopefully) making good choices out there. Bring on 17!

A huge trapeze win for me

Today was a big deal for me. You may know that I've been working on a new trick at trapeze, a half time hocks salto. I started working on this trick in an effort to give my shoulder a break, as I don't ever actually hang from my shoulders on this one. I jump straight into the trick without doing a swing (hence the "half time" label). I thought it would just be something new and fun, not really thinking I'd necessarily take it out of lines or catch it. I took it out of lines a couple weeks ago with the encouragement of my coach, and have been working on getting in lots of reps to get more consistent and comfortable with it. Katie and Petter (another catcher from Mystere) are here for another workshop, so this was a chance for me to throw it to a catcher for the first time since taking it out of lines. Unfortunately though, last night we didn't get to fly because one of the workshop students had her foot go through the net after missing a catch, making a hole in the net. They were able to patch the hole, but it took a couple hours meaning we weren't able to fly at all. Crazy that the net tore so soon, they put up this brand new net less than 2 years ago. It should definitely last longer than that, the last one went 10 years before needing to be replaced. I was bummed that we didn't get to fly because I wasn't going to be able to make it Thursday night due to a work commitment. When I told Katie that, she encouraged me to come during the workshop in the morning so I'd have a chance to try for the catch. At first I said no, I had an event at work and shouldn't miss the morning. The more I thought about it though, I realized that I'd done most of what needed to get done, and had plenty of time in the afternoon to do the rest. I took a few hours of time off this morning, and it was well worth it! I caught the very first trick I threw to Petter! I missed the return on that one (just surprised it happened and didn't work the return), but when I threw it to him again, I caught and returned it! It was so exciting! Now, granted, he's one of the best catchers in the world, so I had no doubt he could snag it as long as I threw him a good trick. I guess I did because he snagged it twice! I was so happy, and really proud of how well this trick has progressed. It was well worth missing work for this, and I still had plenty of time to do what I needed to do. It's so great having this awesome coaching, and all the encouragement from my team. Here's the video--I can't believe it's actually loading, I haven't been able to make videos load on Blogger for a long time. In case it doesn't work though, here's a link to it. The second time you watch it, be sure to watch Katie's reaction on the ground. She gets so excited when we make progress! 

I was bummed to miss out on the flying with my group tonight, but here's a photo of all of them that I wish I could photoshop myself into! I'm proud of this one, it was a big deal for me. Here's to more! 

Visiting old friends

My mom was out to dinner recently, and ran into some old friends. Dennis and Judy are the parents of my high school best friend, JoEllen, and they were like second parents to me during that time with JoEllen. With them being fellow swim team parents, I often went with them to weekend meets. I would stay with them, travel with them, and spent countless hours at their house with JoEllen. They were always so good to me. I've seen them just a handful of times in the years since I've moved away, but they do have a winter home just a couple miles away from my college. I randomly ran into them once at a grocery store a few years ago. My mom made plans for us to go visit them while they were in town for a short trip, and it was so nice to catch up! When I hugged Dennis, he said "it's my fourth daughter!" It was like I was an extra kid for them back then with all the time I spent with their family. As we all have again parents, it's really nice to have these opportunities to connect after so many years. I've had some really great people in my life over the years, and these two were definitely part of my story from those high school years. I'm happy to have had the time to catch up a bit. 

 

The circus is in town!

Our favorite little circus was in town today! We first went to the Venardos Circus back in 2019, and have seen them a few times since. The fun connection here is that I first met Kevin, the owner and founder, back in about 2014 shortly after I started flying. I was at the "pink rig" in California, and he happened to be on the board with me when I took my very first swing out of lines. After that, he started his journey to build his own circus, which has become very successful. He actually has two different tents traveling around the country at a time. It's such a fun show, with a lot of love for circus. 

My kids both agreed to go with, as well as my mom. Nadia and Robin, Rod and Linna, and Shay and her kiddos (a new person in our group) were all there as well. Kevin has someone else in the role of ringmaster now, but he did come out at the end of the show and talk to the crowd. He was outside the tent when we left as well, so we stopped and chatted for a bit. He's a great guy, and I couldn't be happier to see his success. It was a fun Sunday afternoon! Go see this show if it's ever near you! 

Ava's hike

When I was on the road up to Strawberry for my hike today, I got a text from Ava early in the morning. I was wondering why she was up so early, so I asked what she was doing. Turns out she was also on the road headed up for a hike. This plan was news to both me and Dave. I guess she forgot to mention that she was driving to Sedona with 30 other kids. Maybe that's why she conveniently failed to share her plans for the day. This was their "day date" with her prom group, and they were headed up to Sedona to do a short hike to a swimming area. I don't love the idea of her in a car with 7 other kids headed 2 hours up north, but I guess I need to let go of some of those mom worries and trust her. But, she did get hurt while jumping into the water, so I guess I still have some reason for concern when my baby is out exploring. They were taking turns jumping off the cliff, which was about a 20 foot drop. She jumped in with her friend Jodi, but Ava was a bit off to the side and ended up in a shallower area. She hit her knee and jammed her heal on the rocks. She had a pretty serious bruise on her knee and her heal was really sore. We were pretty worried about her, thinking of how much worse that could have been. People get paralyzed jumping off cliffs! Luckily she was ok but ugh, this is why we worry! Hopefully she learned her lesson, and luckily she was ok. She has other pictures, but here's one I screenshotted from her Instagram. Look at this group of beautiful girls! Ava is so lucky to have this awesome group of friends! The boys were all there too, but here she is with her girlfriends. Now, double the size of this group and you'll see the size of her prom group. Prom is in about 3 weeks, so that should be fun. Can't wait to share the pictures! 

Fossil Springs hike

Cara and I met almost exactly 13 years ago while on a hike to Havasupai Falls (unfortunately this post is missing a bunch of the photos, not sure why that happened to so many posts from that time perios) with the MCC Adventure Association, and here we are again, hiking with the club. Cara is the advisor for our college's hiking club, and she asked if I wanted to go along on a hike to Fossil Springs and help drive the school van. This is a hike that's been on my list to do for a long time, so it was an easy yes for me. This hike is about 2 hours away, and the appeal to this one is the swimming hole and waterfall at the end. 

The hike in is all downhill, which sounds great until you realize that you have to do the hard part of the hike on the way out, when you're tired and hot from playing in the water all afternoon. It's about 4.5 miles to the water, which means a tough 4.5 miles back uphill to get out. 

We had 9 students with us, which was great---but.....there was one student who was not prepared or really capable of doing this hike. He was a friend of one of the students, and we didn't have him on the list of people who were attending. In hindsight, we shouldn't have let him go. We didn't know anything about him or his abilities, and he hadn't received the preparation materials about the difficulty level of this hike or the list of things to pack. But, there was room in the van and we made the decision to let him go. More on that later, but here is the group when we made a stop on the way down.

As we got closer to the water, it started getting really lush and green, which is always a nice change of scenery. At this point, the hike was starting to feel pretty long, so I was ready to be there. 

Here it is, this is why people love this hike! To hike here this time of year, you do have to have a permit, which they limit to make sure it doesn't get too crowded. This is also a hike that has a high rate of people needing help, and someone even died here a couple weeks ago. People underestimate the difficulty of the hike, the effect of the sun, and the intensity of this waterfall. There is a "toilet bowl" area where people have gotten stuck and aren't able to swim out. When I was standing up here with a few of the students (actually closer to the waterfall), one of the students was talking about jumping. Um, absolutely not sir. You can do that on your own time, not on an MCC trip. Later in the day though, we saw some other young kids doing just that....no thanks. 

We hung out here by the water for an hour and a half or so. A few students went swimming, Cara and I got in to our waist, and a few others hung out on the rocks. The water was chilly, but it felt nice. I considered getting in all the way and swimming over to the cave, but I decided not to, not wanting to take the chance of hurting myself before having to hike out. 

It's fun to think that Cara and I started our friendship on a hike with this same club, way back when she was still a student. Here she is now, leading the group! It's pretty cool to see how our friendship has evolved over the years from me in a Student Life advisor role, to a co-worker, to a supervisor, and back to being a co-worker. 

At this point, it was about time for the slower group to start hiking out, and we were a bit worried about how the one student was going to make it 4.5 miles back uphill. He fell a couple times coming down, twisting his knee, and was simply unprepared. He didn't even have water! He brought a bag of chips and a 2 liter of ginger ale. Of course, we didn't know that until we got to the bottom. Cara headed up early with a couple of the slower hikers, and I stayed at the bottom with the rest for a little while longer. Here's our group just before they left. 

It didn't take us long to catch up with Cara's group. We found them resting, which they had to do about every 10 minutes or so. This poor kid, I was convinced we'd be calling search and rescue to help him get out. It was a hard hike out--I was definitely feeling it, and I'm in good shape and had the right hydration and nutrition. I can't imagine how hard it was for him to get out. I don't think his friend quite made it clear to him how hard this hike was, he invited him without considering if he could do it. He absolutely should not have been there. It was a learning experience for us as leaders, for the safety of him and ability for us to keep doing these things, we have to be better about preparing our students and making sure they are capable of this. I felt the same way about the last hike I went on with students. I know we want to include anyone who wants to be there, but we have to be honest with them when we don't think it's a good idea. This hike was almost 9 miles, which is one of the longest hikes I've done in many years. And again, I'm in good shape, and it was tough for me. I honestly didn't love this hike. I'm not sure I'd do it again. Yes, the water was great, but it wasn't worth it for the tough hike out. I think if it was reverse, with the hard part at the beginning, it would be different. I just don't enjoy it when the return trip is the strenuous part. But, I'm glad I could have the experience, and that I could help Cara with the drive home. She was the one who was hiking out with our struggling student, so it was a pretty stressful and frustrating experience for her. Kudos to her for her patience, and for sticking with him. As for me, checked this one of the list and no need to do it again. It was a still a fun day though, and I'm always happy to be out on a hike. 

Bruno Mars concert

A couple months ago, Ava send me a post with about a Bruno Mars concert that was coming to Phoenix around her birthday. I signed up for the ticket pre-sale, and then forgot to put a reminder in my calendar to buy the tickets. By the time I realized I'd missed getting in early for the pre-sale, I checked and saw that there were hardly any tickets left. Later in the day though, I saw that bruno added another date to Phoenix, and that tickets would go on sale the next day at noon. This time, I set a reminder and got in the ticket queue, not really thinking I'd actually be able to get any. Surprisingly though, I managed to get 3 tickets in the upper level. I was going to try to keep it a surprise, but I knew Ava would be excited so I told her right away. She invited Jodi to go with us, and we had our outfits picked out for a fun night! 

Two nights before the concert, my mom let me know that she found a single ticket and waned to join us. Her seat was much better than our! She ended up on the 100 level, while we were stuck up in the 400s, but she did pay quite a bit more for her ticket (worth it though). It was a long drive out to Glendale for the concert. That's one of the problems with going to concerts by some of these big artists--it took us almost an hour and a half to get there, and of course, the drive home is no fun. 

We all went out to dinner before the concert, and Jodi treated us all as a thank you for her ticket. That was very nice of her (but unnecessary of course). We ended up doing quite a bit of walking since we had to park and then walk to the restaurant, and then back to the stadium. These boots definitely were not made for walking, my feet were aching by the end of the night--but we all looked good! 

I ended up snagging this body suit at our clothing swap event this week. One of my student workers said "this looks like something you might like," and it was perfect for the concert. 

We had fun taking photos while we were waiting for Bruno to start. I love this one of me with my beautiful girl. She looked absolutely stunning tonight--we both did, right? We waited in the merch line for almost an hour while the opening act was performing, but by the time we got to the front, they had sold out of the t-shirts that the girls wanted. 

As expected, Bruno puts on a really great show! He is a very talented artist, and played a lot of his older hits as well as some new stuff. He has quite the dance moves! Unfortunately though, our seats were not good. They were soooo far up at the top that it makes it pretty hard to enjoy the show. Our section was pretty dead too, so it was hard to get too into the music. I guess I can see why people pay a lot of money for the better seats, it really would make for a completely different experience. I think they still had fun though! 

Here's a video of Uptown Funk, my mom's favorite song and the main reason she went with us tonight. Videos from concerts never seem to do the artist justice, and I didn't take many videos. It kind of drives me crazy that every concert you go to is just a bunch of phones being held in the air. I'm sure the videos are better when you don't have to zoom in 10x to see the stage. It was a long drive home and a late night, but it was a lot of fun to have a girls night with these pretty ladies. I hope they had a good time kicking off Ava's upcoming 17th birthday! 

As we were walking to the arena, Ava had me help her record a couple of TikToks, and this one turned out cute. I probably looked like a weirdo walking backwards to film it, and I'm really lucky I didn't fall over, but its a cute video! I love the friendship these two have, the way they look at each other at the end is just the cutest. Love these two! 

Easter Sunday

Our family celebrated Easter Sunday at Kathy's house this year, and as I've said before, they have the best party house. It was a really nice day. All of the "kids" were there except for Matt (who's in Flagstaff), so the cousins all had a good time hanging out. It's fun to spend time with all those kids as adults, and see the people they've become. It's also cool to see the relationship they all have. Our kids are very lucky to have grown up with all of their cousins so close. They don't get together as often as they used to, but it's always fun when they do. 

Don't my kids look great? 

My beautiful girl...we went shopping last weekend to look for something to wear to our upcoming Bruno Mars concert and we didn't have luck on that front, but she did find this cute dress. 

Ava wanted to take a picture with just Dave and me (we were all unintentionally coordinated) but Tyler didn't want to be left out. 

It's funny to watch Tyler around babies. He's not a fan. Sweet little Joely didn't quite understand why he wasn't interested in interacting with her. 

The Dairman's house has so many cool areas to hang out, and there are TVs everywhere. Tyler was hoping to have the Artemis mission stream on the tv, but he was stuck with baseball instead. 

It's not a family party without a few rounds of Codenames. The 1900s got beat by the 2000s in quite a few rounds. I think we finally won the last couple, but they did way better than us. 

They kids both got their Easter baskets this morning, and we put way too much stuff in them. Ava had told me that she didn't want a bunch of candy. She just wanted meat sticks and Barebell protein bars. I did that, but I couldn't resist getting all the usual candy treats. Dave did some shopping too, so they had more than enough. Tyler is surprised he's still getting an Easter basket, but I suppose he will as long as he's living at home, or maybe once they're both adults we'll stop. I had some old photos and videos of the kids finding their baskets pop up recently, and they were pretty cute. It was fun to see them getting excited about all the fun stuff they would get. It was a nice day with the family, as all these gatherings are. We also celebrated Lacy's 18th birthday, which is later this week. Hard to believe that there's only one left who's still a "kid." Ava will be the last of the cousins to become an adult, and she's only got one year left. Wild....happy birthday Lacy!