Hot like Africa...oh I meant Arizona :-)

It's a dry heat, that is the first thing people say when you are going to Arizona to spend time in the desert. They are correct as the heat sucks every bit of moisture out of your body so sweating is not an option.

We spent the week in Arizona with our company for our annual outing with our reps. A great time is an understatement, you mix my favorite things together and you get an awesome time! Laying by the pool should be my job...why you ask? Because I am good at it, so good that I can spend hours listening to my ipod, watching the chicklets swim, chatting with my Florida/Michigan BFF Heidi on how to take better pics, eating salads, drinking Malibu Rum and of course trying to get a nice mocha color (safely with SPF :-). Cam almost got shipped over the Mexican border he was so brown. Cait however is a lovely shade of vanilla and enjoys umbrella time with me listening to Miley Cyrus - Party in the USA (over and over and over) Mom and Dad came out which made life easy for us and they got to see the desert for the first time.

This is the one time of year that I get to hang out with Heidi and I do believe the universe crashed us together. I love this girl, not only is she an amazing photographer, mother, wife and one of the most caring people I have ever met...but she is a close friend to my heart. I literally pushed Jeff aside when I saw him looking for her :-) Over a few months back I had peeked into one of Heidi's friends blogs and she made the comment "Everyone should have a Heidi", I couldn't agree more!

Cub Scout Mania

Camping can be something I do as long as their is indoor plumbing :-) I am not a fan of outhouses or the bugs that inhabit them. I met Tony at Cross Country Camp, we bathed in the lake for a week straight and made friends with an outhouse.

Tony and I have been camping quite a few times and we definitely roughed it, hiked 10 miles to put a tent up in the middle of nowhere, siphen my water from a pond (hoping not to catch a tapeworm) and poop near a tree.

Soooo when Cam joined Cub Scouts this year and all I heard all year long was Camp Camp Camp, all I could think of was my trips of the past. Which believe it or not always make me smile and laugh as we did them with friends and there was always alcohol involved. Maybe the alocohol killed the tapeworm :-) Anyways we did our first Cub Scout trip this year and we went to the Mud Hens game in Toledo where they have a campout on the field after. We had an amazing time, Cam loved it and I think he fell in love with baseball again...Uncle Brian will be happy. What a great family trip to wake up next to my babies all snuggled next to me in a tent...a memory I will never forget. Just for the readers pitching on a tent on a soft baseball outfield is about as good as it gets when sleeping on the ground.

Coconut Run, Pineapple Juice and a shot of Cranberry...

Tony and I spent the last weekend in April at a conference in the Bahamas at the Atlantis Resort...AMAZING! We went there for a work conference but had our afternoons completely open for sun and me laying like a lump in a lawn chair. My favorite thing to do is to lay there and feel the sun beat down on me...of course with my 33 SPF on :-) I burnt in weird places because I still haven't mastered the whole sunscreen thing and my winter whiteness was in full effect since tanning booths give you cancer! (probably not but the dermatologists hate them and now I have to listen) I loved every minute of it, the weather was warm and the breeze kept you cool. This vacation made me long for summer and what it feels like not to care about anything but what the next song is on your IPOD. I found my new love summer drink...coconut room, pineapple juice and cranberry...could have drank them for days, oh wait I did!!!

Coach Divi's Soccer Training

Cait started training on Saturdays with Coach Divi, the Brazilian soccer coach from Wide World. Every Saturday has been the worst weather, the theme in Michigan lately is to beautiful during the week and horrible on the weekends. Cait is a talker just like me, but she never says a word during practice and only pays attention to Divi which is great! I think she will fall along in her brother's foot steps and fill my weekends with soccer games...who knows she could always be a ballerina or Hannah Montana :-) I love these pics of her, my little monkey is growing up!

Three weeks until summer...yahoo!

Whenever Cait gets excited, she says yahoo! I adopted that feeling today when we went to check on our new lake house. Builder Bill says three more weeks and we will be able to move in. It has been a long 6 months but really has been a lot of fun. Until this experience, I would have rated building a house right there with child birth on the pain factor. But this truly has went smooth and he is an awesome guy to work with. We are now at the point where I just can't wait, I want to decorate, clean, put up all of the pictures I have been taking, and lastly just sit back, relax and watch the boats go by...

Easter the new Christmas

Easter has started to become the new Christmas in my family. The kids woke up early and when I say early I mean like 6:30am, the Easter Bunny was sleeping still. Luckily, the kids went back to bed and we were able to get up and get things ready. The Easter bunny hid eggs all over the backyard and the kids had a blast running around grabbing each and everyone of them. Inside there was a basket from Mom and Dad full of things the kids love like books, Hannah Montana karaoke CD Cait and a Speed Beetle yoyo for Cam.

We then went to Uncle Brian and Aunt Liz's for another Easter Egg Hunt along with a room full of presents. We overdue holidays in the Colpaert family and we always have. Easter is full of new clothes from Grandma, water guns and cool toys for the summer. Harley and Kathy are always there and somehow Kathy always tops herself from the year prior getting the kids the coolest things, like kites and pinwheels. Grandma and Grandpa got Cait her own Princess fishing pole...yahoo!

We then top the evening off at the Bacarella's where I try to eat more after I just ate a full meal earlier in the day and the kids run outside for a great Easter Egg Hunt. I just want a Grandma Tina cannoli...which are the best in the world. The Easter eggs have money and candy which seemed to be the theme at all three egg hunts...we were never this lucky! It was great to see Conner our great nephew walking this year and all of his excitement. I don't like be called his Great Aunt Jen ( I am way to young to be called that), so I am Super Aunt Jen :-) In this family we do crazy things like my niece Alanna having a hard time always deciphering between her three aunts as our names are Jan, Jen, and Jeanne....so I let he re-name me last year to Aunt Marissa. I asked her where she thought of that name and she said it was because I looked like a Princess...sooooo Aunt Marissa it is, I always wanted to be a princess.

Happy 5th Birthday Cait

Well Cait celebrates her birthdays like I used to...for like two weeks! We started out this year's celebration with a birthday party at Uncle Brian and Aunt Liz's, where we celebrate three birthdays, Cait, Uncle Brian's and mine.

Next we went to Jungle Java with all of her friends, which was a blast, 22 kids, and three hours of pandomonium. The first and last of the big birthday parties, so we made sure to invite all of her friends from school.

We then took the 24th off and picked her up early from school. From there we went to Build a Bear and ate a yummy pretzel from Auntie Anne's. The pretzel place is Cait and I's secret vice...they are so good but so bad for you!!! Tony wasn't impressed. We picked Cam up from school and went to Red Robin...where we all sat at the bar, Cam swears it is quicker up there.

Lastly, on Easter we celebrated her birthday with her cousin Alanna with all of the Bacarella's.

My little one was so excited to be 5, and I was so sad to think that it has been 5 years since I held her for the first time. Time flies...but it speeds by when you have kids. She is so beautiful because her heart is soooo big just like her eyes. Having her brings so many things to us, but the ones that stick out in my mind are: how she stops to pick every flower she walks by only to give it to me, how she collects rocks on the playground and brings them home for the washing machine to clean, how she holds her baby doll and you can tell how great of a Mom she will be someday, hugs and kisses whenever you want them or least expect them, the expressions and faces she makes, and lastly without Cait I would have never got to enjoy or see how great of a big brother Cam is. The last 5 years have brought us countless memories of life with a little girl...