Nick's First Holy Communion

We celebrated Nick's first Holy Communion on Saturday.  

We were happy to celebrate with Nick's grandparents and his cousin Emma and Uncle Dan.

Nick posing with his banner.

Nick and his buddies.

So much handsomeness!

The faithful brothers.

Nick and his Godfather, Uncle Dan.

Grandpa Dan and Grandma Jill.

The Horn Grandchildren.

Grandma and Grandpa Schraufnagel.

Showing their true colors!

Fr. O'Keeffe and Nick.  

Learn one, teach one. 

I caught Nick giving out "communion" to Sam.  

So sweet.

Puppies and piano

Ben loves snuggling with Louise.

Ben is becoming quite the pianist!

Easter 2015

The boys awoke Easter morning to 3 baskets overflowing with goodies!  Rainboots, summer pjs, bubbles, books and candy galore!

Next up was hunting for Easter eggs, where Nick found the most, as always! 

Too bad he can't seem to find regular items as quickly as he can the candy and money filled eggs!

We had a quiet and enjoyable day together after attending church.

Coloring eggs. 

Better late than never!

Thunderbird Mountain

On our final day in Phoenix we took the kids on a hike to the top of Thunderbird Mountain.  A mountain that Eric and I used to hike almost weekly with our dogs at the time.  

The kids did great!  They made it to the top with minimal complaints and were treated to a view of the valley.  You can see all the way to downtown Phoenix from the peak.

"Pretend you are a saguaro."  

What a treat to be back in Arizona for a week!  We enjoyed visiting with our Arizona family while we were there as well as a few friends.  Looking forward to our next trip back already!

Go D-backs!

What trip to Arizona in March is complete without a spring training baseball game?

The weather was picture perfect for a Diamonbacks' win over the Whitesox!  

Grand Canyon

We traveled by train to take in the beauty of the Grand Canyon.

The train left from Williams, AZ.  We made a long day of it leaving Phoenix at 5:30 am and returning back to our hotel at 10:30 at night!

We were treated to a wild west show before we boarded the train, complete with cowboys, horses and guns!  There was also talk of a train robbery.  We were apart of that on the return trip!  3 horses carrying outlaws rode up along side of the train, the train stopped and the outlaws boarded the train and made their way through the cars to rob the passengers, aka collect tips!  We assured the kids that it was just part of the fun, but I'm not so sure they totally believed us!  

Nick volunteered to play the maracas with the guitar player on the train.  There was all sorts of entertainment during our 2 hour trip to the canyon!

They even had a snack car! Which of course we had to visit!

Our first views of the Grand Canyon.  Truly amazing!  

It's hard to appreciate the beauty when you are 6,7 and 8, but I think the boys did well.  We were only at the canyon for about 3 hours, which truthfully was enough for my nerves!  It's a mile down to the bottom and there are not many guard rails!  Nick wanted to hike, so we did a short hike on the rim from one lookout point to the next.  Someday we hope to return to spend a longer time and actually hike into the canyon with the boys.  They will have to be a lot older!