The Beach!

Living away from family brings much more meaning to the words "cousin time"!  And being able to spend cousin time at the beach is a double bonus.  The girls couldn't wait to see their cousins and from what we hear Kip couldn't wait to get together with "the real Kate"!  We spent several days in a row soaking in the sun while the kids played in the sand and water.  Neeley just loved boogie boarding and spent most of the day there.  She even convinced me to go in and stay until my hands and feet were numb.  Kayla was a bit more cautious and spent most of her time in the shallow waves and digging in the sand.  Lilah bathed in the sand the entire day and Kate, she was happy with Kip.  As for the adults we enjoyed catching up and getting a rest.

That pretty much sums up the trip.  Days at the beach, nights at good eats and a trip to the 99 cent store for cookies!

A trip to California wouldn't be complete without going to San Diego.  Jeremy has to get his deep dish pizza fix.  We even happened upon some Halloween festivities!

Fishing/Turtling

We are lucky enough to have two fishing ponds right in our neighborhood.  So on Saturday we took the girls out for a day at the "lake".  All I have to say is Jeremy gets a medal for patience with taking five girls fishing, none of whom will touch worms or fish!  All was going well until our last cast.  Kate's first time fishing and her first catch, she was so excited to have one on the line.  That is of course until we found out it was a turtle!  She just starred at it in disbelief, as did the rest of us.  At lease we can say we got a close up look at a turtle!

Zootastic

Phoenix zoo is now our favorite zoo!  The exhibits were beautiful and seemed more natural. It was a perfect day to spend together soaking up the Arizona sunshine!  Our favorite had to be the turtles, maybe because we were able to get to close to them.  It was also fun to go to the petting zoo and brush the animals.

conference sunday

Conference sunday is a special tradition at the Dopp's house.  And even though we were far from home, that didn't stop us from carrying the tradition on!  We started out with a special breakfast then snuggled in to watch conference.  I loved watching the girls watch the entire first session. Taking notes with  their new notebooks  and pens Grandma had sent them made it that much more fun!  Grandma would have smiled at the site!

Rainbow Delight!

Kate was so excited to turn four and have a rainbow birthday party.  It was a perfect success but with ten four years olds there, I was quickly reminded why I never was a preschool teacher!  Everything we did was colorful of course.  We made fruit loop necklaces, played with colorful play dough and even had magic rainbow punch!  They just couldn't figure out how every glass of pop poured out a different color.  That magic alone would have kept them busy all day!  Kate had a wonderful time celebrating with her friends!