Mark Turns Thirty!

Thank goodness my gorgeous husband has entered the dirty thirties with me! I hate being older and the last six months of being 30 with a 29 year old husband has been torture! Mostly comments from him :) Mark doesn't like a lot of hoopla for his b-days so we decided to do dinner at Houston's, last minute. Luckily, his sissy offered to watch the munchkins so we could REALLY enjoy ourselves. Mark's fav dish is ribs, so he enjoyed those and I grubbed on some spinach and artichoke dip. YUM! Afterwards we had a mini-photo shoot in the parking lot, just being silly. Here's our silliness . . .




BTW . . . I adore my husband and I am beyond grateful and thankful that he was born and somehow blessed me by being mine forever! I love you baby. Love, June.

And the start of summer continues at the Jones home!

The other pool we mooch off of is my sister-in-law's. Swimming at the Jones' home is fabulous! Their kids and our kids are bff's and here are some pics of our fun afternoon! Thank goodness for family!





As I was setting up this picture, Gracie was singing "Row, Row Row Your Boat", and when I snapped the photo, she got to "and life is but a dream". Looking at these faces, the joy and happiness, life really does feel like a dream.

My Heart

an you see my heart? It's with two little bodies every day . . . You can see it in the two sets of brown eyes that hold wonderment and innocence . . . My heart is with them, every minute of every day. I can't believe how much love my heart can hold for two small beings . . . Just two little people walking around with my heart.

Bounce Jungle, Baby!

ow much do I love my friends, especially my buddy Candace! I met Candace ages ago, when we worked together at SW Dental. She and my other buddy took me over to Glovsky's office with them and we worked together until she had Miss Hannah. I am so thankful that we have stayed close even though we don't work together (I'm at a completely different office now) and she is with her girls at home. Our kids play really well together, they are all different ages, but it doesn't seem to matter. Candace, Hannah and Molly have all the BEST places scoped out, so it's so much fun to see where we will be going to next! This past Friday we went to Bounce Jungle. It's a place that has two huge rooms of tons of bouncy things; slides, mazes, bounce house. Fun! The kids had tons of fun of course and here are the pics to prove it. Thanks Candace, I love being your friend!

Summer Is Here!

So we have a newer house, and it's cute, and we really like it . . . but what's BEST about my house is my neighbors! I don't know how we got so lucky, but we did. We have two families right next door to us that are amazing! They each have one kid who is Karsten's age (all three kids will be going to kindergarten together next year) and one of the families has a younger baby too. Both fams are fun, laid-back, caring . . .everything you would want in a neighbor, and friend. My immediate next door neighbors, the Giglio's also have a pool, as if they weren't the best already! Sunday, was the first pool party of the season, and we rocked it out! My sister and her husband came over (which was so generous of the Giglio's to have them) with little Ava and all the kids had a great time. The pool was still FREEZING, but they played on the beach step and we drank and ate and drank and ate. There is nothing better than a Sunday Funday Pool Party! Especially when it's right next door! Here are some pics from the partay and thank you to my awesome neighbors!





Karsten and Taylor (future bf/gf)




These are my girls . . . Summer and Jen




My sister, Megan, and Ava




Taylor and Tony

I miss you Nana

y Nana (my grandmother, my mom's mom) was amazing. We had a very close relationship. As a young child, my sister and I would spend countless nights at her house; watching old movies, playing dress up in her high heels and furs, popping popcorn and eating chocolate covered graham crackers. As we grew older, we would spend our summers volunteering at The Scottsdale Public Library; she was the head librarian there. As I got even older, my Nana and I enjoyed dinners at AZ88, burgers and martinis. My Nana was amazing. She was a huge women's and human rights activist. I cannot tell you how many Martin Luther King and Pro Choice Abortion rallies my sister and I attended!

She passed away the day after 9/11 - on September 12, 2001. My family was devastated. We knew she was sick, she battled emphysema for years, but the knowing of the disease did not make the passing any easier. I was 22 years old. Right after she died, I met Mark (my love) and I knew she would have LOVED him! Soon after, Mark and I were married, I had Karsten, we bought a house and so on and so on. So many life milestones that she missed and I missed having her there. I believe people can still feel loved ones around them after they've died, but I haven't been so fortunate to have this happen yet. There were so many times where I've wished with all my heart she was with me, but she wasn't. My heart hurts.

Two nights ago, she was in my dream. I wish I could tell you it was a nice, happy dream, but it wasn't. Before Nana got really sick with her disease, she and my Papa would take long road trips in their RV. They would travel the country, taking pictures, meeting new friends, buying us little trinkets from weird places. In my dream, my Nana was about to leave for a trip on the RV. I knew once she did, she would not come back, I knew she would die. I begged her not to go, to stay with me. She wasn't upset while I was, but she said she had to go, she was excited. I left her and ran down the sidewalk sobbing, sobbing so hard I couldn't think, breathe, function. Mark came up to me and I kept saying over and over how I knew she was going to die if she left on her trip, she was going to leave us.

I don't know if she actually was in my dream, her spirit, I would like to think she was, but I don't know why the dream would be so sad. I know she died, but I just want to be with her again. I didn't think I was going to post about this, but I started to cry in the shower this morning and I think I need to process through this to be able to move on from the dream. Maybe it has been too long since I had really thought about her and I needed to. I am just sitting here crying at my computer, I can't see the screen! It's been eight years since she died and it still hurts so much. I sometimes feel silly admitting how much it still hurts, she was my grandmother, and grandmothers die all the time, that's life, it's natural. But it doesn't feel natural, it feels really bad.

I did not mean for this post to become so negative, but I am letting it all out. Take it or leave it, just like my good friend Cece, may say. I am opening up my book (my life) for reading in hopes that someone may take something from it and I know it helps me tremendously! So, on a lighter note, I am posting some photos of my amazing Nana below. She truly was amazing.

This was my Nana and I (in the red pj's) on top of a float at the Parada del Sol. We were characters from nursery rhymes. She was Mother Goose and I was Little Red Riding Hood.


My Mom and Nana on Mother's Day 1999.


My Sister (nice hair!), Mom, Nana and I


My Nana - 30 years old, circa 1963

Desert Botanical Garden

n Friday, Karsten's class had a field trip to the Desert Botanical Garden. I am embarrassed to say, I have never been. Though I have heard so much about the glass art exhibit, Chihuly, I've been wanting to go. The reason for the field trip for Kar's class was to go to to the Butterfly Pavilion. I was hoping we would be able to see some of the glass art while we were there also. Kar's class was split into three different tours. Luckily, the glass art is EVERYWHERE around the gardens so I was super excited about THAT! The tour was great, we had a nice leader and he really interacted well with the kids. He re-named the cactus, "plantimals" and categorized each how they looked like an animal; there was an elephant, caterpillar, cow, bunny, etc. It was cute. As I said before, as we walked around to each different cactus or plant, we were fortunate enough to see the Chihuly glass art. There is only one word for this art - AMAZING! I have never in my life, seen something that compares to this! The exhibit is only up until May and if you haven't gone, please do! It is something that needs to be seen!

All these pictures are glass . . .








After walking for 30-40 minutes we headed to the Butterfly Pavilion. I wasn't sure what to expect, as I was too concerned with making sure I was going to be able to see the Chihuly glass art. We waited in line for just a few minutes to enter the pavilion. We were instructed to watch where we stepped, the butterflies could be on the ground, and if one landed on us, we could not touch it or brush it off, we had to find an employee to take a soft feather duster to take it off of us. When we stepped into the pavilion, the one word that comes to mind to describe it is, MAGICAL! There are flowers EVERYWHERE! There are ponds and koi fish and trees and BUTTERFLIES! EVERYWHERE! Beautiful, colorful, magical butterflies! We just walked around and around, looking at all the butterflies. The gorgeous flowers were just a backdrop to the beautiful butterflies. We were given a guide, so we could identify each butterfly from it's color. We loved it! We would point and look and figure out each butterflies' name. One even landed on Karsten's shirt! It was so cool! Aahhh, what a wonderful experience. The whole trip was great! If you'd like to spend an hour seeing AMAZING art and plants and experience MAGICAL butterflies and flowers, then get yourself to DBG!









The BEST teacher in the whole world!




My little caterpillar . . .