Summer here we come!!

We were all home from school early today as it was the last day for the 2010 - 2011 school year. We tried going to the pool but it was closed and was being cleaned from all the recent school rentals. So we made the best of it and played in the backyard and got in the kid pool and jumped on the trampoline with the sprinkler underneath.

Having a family and having a job where mom and dad are "off" for 10 weeks is great :)

Summer is just a week away! 5 more school days and this becomes our lifestyle for 10 weeks. Life is good.

Today we stopped at Wal Mart for some fruit and drinks to bring along with us to the pool. While Lindsey was attending to that I walked over to the cameras and I found an Olympus waterproof camera for a very good price! We had an Olympus waterproof camera for the last 2 summers but I left it in a taxi when we were in Vegas for Lindsey's marathon in December. I was super bummed losing such a nice and expensive camera. Well I found this one which has a higher megapixel than our previous one and it was on clearance for $50 when the original price was $150! Bam! I love a good deal.

So the Montoya's are back to taking pictures again. As I uploaded these I realized that the last pictures we took were in March?! We have 2 growing girls and we failed to take a picture for nearly 2 months! Time flies. Well hopefully this blog will be updated more often with stories and pictures of our summertime adventures.

Steven

After finishing in the top 12 at her school spelling bee, Emma moved on to the district spelling bee which was held at my school. This spelling bee was made up of the top 30 spellers for the district, with a little bit harder words. Emma make it through more than 10 rounds before misspelling the word "eight". She was so nervous as soon as she got the word. She was able to come up with "ei" but could not remember the rest. Her leg was tapping and she was trying so hard to come up with the correct spelling...she looked so cute down there on a stage in a big auditorium in front of a ton of people she did not know. She placed 7th overall. You are an amazing girl, Emma. I am really proud of you!

Emma is our Queen Bee....

Today Emma participated in the Kindergarten Spelling Bee. There was over 60 participants and she finished in the top 12!! All of the kids were asked to spell 3-letter words, except for Emma. Her last word for the day was Zero, which she spelled correctly! I am not sure who was more nervous, me or her! It was really cute watching the kids come up to the microphone and spell words. A friend of mine's son was really funny...he would cover his mouth before saying a letter because he did not want the audience to hear him sounding out the words. Emma, however, spoke so clear and only hestiated on one word. I am really proud of her for wanting to participate. It takes a lot of courage to get up in front of about one hundred other people and speak a loud with the chance of making a mistake. I sent her flowers and a panda bear to her class, which she did not put down until we got home. She was really proud of herself and wanted to be able to tell people why she had her gift! She will participate again May 5 at the middle school with a harder word list! Way to go Emma:)

Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional....

Love you Steven...Have a good day!

These are Grace's dance moves. Lindsey is trying to teach her the sprinkler but she hasn't gotten it down just yet. This is more of a fist pumpin' and booty shakin' get down.

Sorry it's sideways, I couldn't figure out how to rotate it??

This was picture from St. Patrick's Day so it's a little old but it's new to you!

Notice that there is actually grass in our backyard this year! Since we moved in to this house in 2007 the backyard has been an eyesore, full of weeds and goathead stickers. This summer we are putting some effort into stopping that and getting some more use out of our backyard. It's huge so we may as well get the most out of it.