Happy 31st birthday to me!

Yep, it's true....I am now officially 31!!! Actually it was June 22nd. At this point in my life, I feel so BLESSED! And defintely much younger than "thirty-something".....;) I love my life! I truly wake up every morning and thank God for where I am and the amazing man he has put beside me......and our beautiful 2.5 children!!! And, of course our beautiful families that are an amazing support system for us.....we are loved! Our journey has been amazing so far....Life is good!

I am of course behind on my blogs from being on vacation for a month straight now! I really need to get better about staying on top of it! It was such a great day, I wanted to post some pictures and remember my day.......

It's so cute how Halle and Costa get so excited for birthdays now! Everybody's! I love it, they make birthdays so much more special! So cute. They asked me for weeks how much longer til my birthday. The morning of my special day they helped Grandma Gloria bake me a coffee cake. YUMMY! I woke up to the wonderful smell of butter and cinnamon baking in the oven.....so delicious! The kids and Erik had my cards ready for me to open and my awesome mother in law bought me some super cute jammies and a little dress I can wear prego. It was a perfect morning and I felt so special!

Erik and I took Halle, Costa, Niko and Gabey to see a movie early in the day and then I treated myself to a fresh hair-do!!! I was WAY over-due, once again....lol. I always feel guilty spending that kind of money on my hair, so I thought it would ease the guiltiness a little bit to do it on my "birthday".....my present to myself;) It's the best feeling in the world to have fresh high-lights and a cut! I felt great, it was worth it! Happy birthday to me!!!



That night we celebrated with close family and a few friends at The Old Spaghetti Factory, one of my favorites. I have so many wonderful memories of this restaurant in Spokane as a kid, and am excited to share this with my own children. Erik, the kids and I took the metro downtown to the restaurant. It was fun! The kids really enjoyed it.....I personally enjoyed people watching...hehe. So many different walks of life! I had been craving mizithra pasta......and hhhmmmm was it ever so satisfying!!! It was a pretty relaxed day, but completely perfect in every way.

Change of plans...

So, 2 days before we were planning on starting our big drive back to arizona for summer break we had a slight change of plans!!! We had been hearing all kinds of crazy scary things about the drive but were trying to stay positive and not really talk about it. It's so expensive to fly into Phoenix, so that just isn't an option for us....not to mention it is nice to have our own car when we're home.......We had been planning this drive for awhile, we did it at Christmas time, we could do it again. I happened to talk with my friend Mady on the phone a few days before and she was telling me the reason why they weren't driving home this time. She said they had read the letter sent out by the U.S. Consulate explaining what had been going on in the state of Sinaloa.....I told her to email it to me so I could read it myself.

This is just a little part of what I read:

"This Warden message informs U.S. citizens traveling to and residing in mexico of the ongoing security concerns for travelers driving the Maxipisto Benito Juarez toll road in the State of Sinaloa. This highway is known to be particularly dangerous night when roadside robberies occur. Sometimes criminals create a roadblock and stop as many cars as they can catch, and then rob the travelers, usually at gunpoint, sometimes also taking the car. Other times the criminals drive up behind a vehicle and divert the victim's car to a side road where they rob the travelers. For this reason, U.S. Consulate General Hermosillo strongly advises all travlers to travel during daylight hours."

Yep, that pretty much did it for me....seeing it first hand. SCARY! This is crazy! So.....as much as I knew this was going to frustrate Erik, I knew I had to tell him about what I'd read and that we FOR SURE weren't going to be driving through the night like we did last time. When he got home from school I had him take a look at the letter and just like I had predicted.....total frustration, for both of us. Ugh. No bueno. Why can't they just have a cheap flight directly into Phoenix? Why does it have to be so difficult?

So, he left to go study.......we were both angry. I hated that. Should I have not said anything? I started second guessing myself! So annoying, I hate it when I do that! Then I quickly reminded myself...."HECK NO!" Mexico is dangerous right now. This is real stuff and we need to take precaution. I did the right thing....we'll think of something.

When Erik got home, he immediately started checking the internet for airline tickets, exploring our options. Thankfully, we found some that would cost the same to fly into TJ as it would to drive.....with gas, tolls, hotels and food. We bought them right away. Thank you GOD! Peace of mind.

We flew into TJ and it was just as easy as it was last time. Again, it felt amazing to be across the border and to be in the good 'ol USA. Les and Alex drove over to spend the weekend with us and then drove us back to arizona on sunday. We had such a great time! It was SO awesome to hang out and see them after 5 months! And, Les is prego too....so we of course had lots of fun comparing bellies and eating lots of sweets!!!! We hung out in pacific beach on saturday......found a place for fish tacos for lunch and then headed down to the beach to let the kids play for awhile.







That night, cousin Kelli and her friend Tyler came over to have dinner with us. Uncle Dirk hooked it up again with amazing food! He's the best! We truly are so spoiled when we're in the Stump household! Love you Uncle Dirk!



It was another amazing weekend in the Diego.....but we were SO excited to get back home to AZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Back patio springtime fun

It's been miserably hot here this spring so awhile back I decided to buy the kids a little pool for the back patio. It was definitely one of the best $80 pesos I've ever spent;) They've had a ball playing for hours back there, staying cool. Halle's kind of over it now.....so thank God we're headed home this weekend so she can have fun in big girl pools....as she calls them.

This is what spring time looked like on our patio, before the scorching heat came and dried everything up.......even watering everyday isn't enough for our poor plants and flowers! I wanted to remember how pretty it looked at one point! We spent one saturday morning completely cleaning the back patio....the kids were great helpers and helped daddy scrub the barbequer! It felt so nice to do some spring cleaning.....we really miss that! At one point we even had a beautiful lush green mint plant, a tomato plant that grew a few small red ones, a green plant that literally grew on it's own(we have no idea what it is, but we re-planted it into a pot) and a chili plant too! The kids and I made some yummy mojitos with the leaves of the mint plant, their's of course, virgins;) I wasn't prego......yet!

Little skater boy

He just looks so cute all geared up for his skateboard I just couldn't resist blogging about it. It's been pretty hot here lately, but awhile back he was all about his board. He's pretty good too! When he asked for a skateboard last christmas, I'll admit, I was a little hesitant about getting it for him. But, it was one of the only things he asked for so we decided as long as he had all the padding to protect him he could grow into it. Our little skater boy! My baby boy is growing up...such a big boy! I can't believe how time has flown and he's going to be 4 next month. I love you so much Costi.....and no matter what you'll always be mama's boy.

Emilio's birthday

Costa had a fiesta for a buddy in his class, Emilio this last sunday. As I've mentioned before, the party's here are a big deal! It was a sit down dinner, shrimp ceviche as an appetizer, a delicious fish for the entree' and shrimp burgers for the kids. They had servers with a full bar....crazy! We were all invited and made it a fun afternoon. It was hawaiian theme and they had a couple little pools for the kids to get wet. They also had 3 pinatas, of course! Oh, and 2 cakes! The kids had a great time! I really hope Halle and Costa have at least some memory of all these fun mexican fiesta's we've gone to!

Costa and Emilio~Costa was so cute....I told him I wanted a picture of him and Emilio and he came back 5 minutes later with Emilio! Thanks Cost!

Tooth #2

Halle lost her 2nd tooth last night! She came home from school yesterday with it barely hanging. She told me her friends were coaching her at school......telling her to keep wiggling it! And, if she got it out her mom would give her a surprise.....I said..."don't they mean the tooth fairy?" TOO funny! Guess it worked! She actually let her daddy pull this one since I got the first one. It was no big deal, not even one tear! Our brave little toothless girl!

She decided she wanted to write the tooth fairy a letter first this time and ask her if it would be ok if she kept this tooth......she wanted to take it to school and show her friends! What a lucky girl, the tooth fairy said yes! She's so special she even got another little note......oh, and $50 pesos again~lucky girl! This is what the note said:

Dear Halle,
Wow! You lost another tooth! So special! I am so proud of you again for being
so brave! Sure! You can keep this tooth if you want to!
I'll be back again for the next tooth!
Love, The Tooth Fairy

Last day of gymnastics

We had our last day of gymnastics last wednesday. The kids are so sad! They've been asking me everyday this week when they have gymnastics again. I keep telling them....."we're done with gymnastics for summer guys." We are leaving for arizona next friday, so I didn't want to pay for the month of june, knowing we would only be there for 3 classes. It was the best thing for them this year. They truly loved it and learned so many new things. I'm so happy I pushed for them to do it, even though they both fought me in the beginning. I really enjoyed watching Halle perfect her cartwheels and becoming so much more "graceful" on the balance beam each time they had class. And, my little monkey Costi jump up by himself and grab the rings. I love the discipline gymnastics has taught them as well. They both strived to be their best at each class in hopes of receiving a listone at the end of the month. We finished strong, receiving listones for the month of april AND may. Halle ended up with 4 listones, only 1 short of a MEDAL......GO Halle and Costa.....mama is so proud of both of you! We'll have to see what the next year brings.....ballet for Halle? Some sports for Cost? Can't wait!