Jalapeño Half Marathon

Aaron dragged his oldest brother, Nick into training and running a half marathon with him (Nick's very first). Training in this weather/heat has not been easy, but they both did awesome!! Thankfully, we had a break in the heat so it was a pretty bearable run. So proud of these two dads!
We had fun following and cheering them on!

Run Daddy!

Nick

I was scheduled to run another half back in April but the city had too much destruction with the tornadoes that hit during that time. So, I am running in September.

Swim Lessons

A friend of mine hosted swim lessons for a whole group of us mommas so she could have the instructor come to us! And Ms. Tabby was so worth having! After the first lesson with Cayleigh and Morgan together, I was impressed for sure, so I asked to add Brooklyn after she would finish with Art Camp each day.
Morgan was so confident in the water. She just went after it with no fear thanks to Cayleigh being an awesome example with her. Cayleigh has great technique except when she needs to breathe, so she worked hard on not losing momentum when taking a breath. And they all learned the breast stroke and back stroke and Brooklyn learned the butterfly. They did great!

Hein-Side Gathering

Over Father's Day, cousin Charlie was in town visiting. We got to spend time with him and all the Hein family at Uncle Nate's and Aunt Marissa's house. There was definitely some redneck behavior and lots of fun time! The girls begged to ride the "whirly bird" swing over and over, went swimming, gathered fresh chicken eggs and also chased them. It was a great time with family and lots of yummy food.

I actually ended up getting on it and it was scary for me (I don't like rides and such), it goes deceivingly high. And yet all three of the girls, yes even Morgan, swung full circle on this thing. My kids are crazy!

In celebration of Father's Day, all the Hein guys and their kiddos.

Dan, John (Gampa), Jonathon, Aaron, Nate  and Nick

Best Daddy in the whole world!

Two youngest cousins, McKenna and Zach

WAR!!!!

Sydney and Claire getting eggs

It was a hot but super fun time together!

VBS 2017

As the need continued to grow for teachers for VBS this year, so did the Lord's pull on my heart. I offered to lead a second grade class instead of just helping and it was such an amazing week! I had the best group of kiddos and helping teachers. It was so fulfilling pouring the Word of God into the children each day.

The girls, of course, loved every minute of it as well. Galactic Starveyors was our theme this year and it was out of this world! I will definitely take lead of teaching again next summer.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth,
visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-
all things were created through him and for him.
Colossians 1:15-16

playing in my classroom

Helping Mommy make Galactic rice for one of her activities.

Family Night on the last day was a huge success and so fun for the kids to sing all the wonderful praise songs from the week.

Kayleigh is top center and Morgan is just above the ladies iPhone

Brooklyn is center edge, second from tallest

Birthday Weekend for Daddy

We celebrated Daddy's birthday a day early this weekend (Saturday), so he was spoiled with soccer love and a super tasty dinner.
We started off at the pool with birthday donuts, spent the day together as a family and then had amazing steak and cake! I had made his cake the day before so it wasn't much of a surprise, but it was still just as fun.

The donuts turned out so cool!

Sunday, after church we were invited to Gamma and Gampa's where were had lunch, pool time and cookie cake!!

Attacking Gampa with the water guns!

Happy 10 Years!!!

Honestly, I am a little amazed that it has already been 10 years that Aaron and I have been married! I still remember the pure joy I felt on the day we vowed our forever to one another. The doors weren't even completely closed to the sanctuary when I excitedly yelled to Aaron, "We're married!" We were best friends, young in love, with grand plans! We never fully grasped that God's plans for our marriage and life were going to be far more fulfilling and fabulous!

We have been through so many ups and downs with our communication and ability to be "one." I would be lying if I said that we have always been on the same page and worked through issues easily. Somehow though, our experience with playing on sports teams and living with siblings has taught us patience and strength in working as a team. We understand that keeping score against each other means there is a loser, so instead, we value each others "talents" and dish out tons of grace. We are currently in the trenches of parenting 4 young children and most days, its really hard! But, we have grown so strong as teammates in the last 10 years of marriage and 6 years of dating before that. We are more madly in love with each other that we were 10 years ago! Praise God! We just thought we loved each other then and I can imagine that another 10, 20 years from now, we will look back thinking how immature our love is right now!

We were fortunate enough to celebrate our anniversary in Cancun, Mexico in April. Nana and Papa bravely took on the challenge of staying with all 4 kiddos while we stayed 5 days at an amazing, adult only (!), all-inclusive resort! It was absolutely gorgeous!

Tuesday: We arrived mid morning and walked into town to do some shopping at the local marketplace while they still got our room ready.

Our room was massive, luxurious and had a wrap around balcony so we could see both the ocean side and the lagoon side!

ocean view from our balcony

lagoon view from our balcony

We had a late lunch and just hung out by the pool and ocean for the remainder of the day.

Wednesday: We went for a morning walk on the beach (which we pretty much did everyday), brunch,  read by the pool and ocean, napped by the pool, drinks, and went to dinner. The food there was great and we had about 8 different places to choose from. 

The evenings usually had some time of entertainment that we didn't really partake in, but certainly would enjoy for a little while.

mariachi band performance 

Thursday: Repeat! We did a whole lot of nothing but relaxing, eating and enjoying time together! We did go to the bar this day to watch Arsenal play.

It was always super windy!

Friday: We did a couples massage and it was sooooooo awesome! We soaked up the 3 hours of relaxation! We were surprised with a dinner treat that evening.

Saturday: We woke early for the sunrise and stayed ocean-side all day before our late flight back home. It was an outstanding time with my most favorite person. Looking forward to going again soon!

in my sunrise swimsuit