Father's Day 2016

For Father's Day last week I made Joel and the kids go outside for a little photoshoot! It was only 105 degrees fahrenheit... or 41 degrees celsius! I wanted a few pictures to remember this day, and they turned out so cute I want this to be a tradition every year! For me, pictures are soooo important and I try very hard to capture moments! Then the hard part is keeping them organized, am I right??

Oh how I love this little family of mine! Having Joel as their father, leader, and example has brought me more joy than I could have ever imagined. Watching him love the kids and in return, them feeling confident and loved is more than my mama heart can take. I really can't describe how blessed I feel, but all I know is I am beyond grateful for this life I have with him. Joel is probably one of the most optimistic people I know. He is such a natural leader, and it makes his whole day if you give him a sincere compliment. I love his outlook on life, and his strive to improve himself as a person. Since he is a natural leader, he does a good job by leading by example. He is my teammate, and my person. Love you my dear.

Showing off his tan line ;)

Looooove the way little William is looking at Joel here!!!

F O U R Y E A R S

Last week we celebrated our 4 year anniversary!!! As we were getting ready to leave on Sunday, I was so proud of myself for keeping our anniversary date a surprise! Well, Joel knows me well enough that if he wanted to find out he probably could have, so he doesn't probe when I have a surprise for him thank goodness!

I surprised Joel with a date on a Venetian style Gondola Getaway! The "rules" I came up with celebrate our anniversary was 1) it had to be kid friendly, since I didn't want to have to stress about finding a babysitter 2) romantic 3) random enough that Joel would never guess what we were doing and 4) something we could only do in California. A friend of mine recommended this Gondola ride, and it was absolutely perfect. Our boat ride was an hour long, and was steered by a guy who had actually just moved from Italy 8 months ago! We couldn't have possibly gotten closer to Italy without physically being there ;)

Our Gondolian boat driver Fabio took us through the Naples Canals and talked about all the different verrrry expensive houses, and oh gosh I wish I would have taken more pictures of these huge houses. In the few pictures I got of them, they don't look too big from the back because the houses are actually quite long, or deep however you wanna look at it. Fabio also told us about different traditions! Like kissing underneath all the bridges ;) Emma is so funny because she wants us to kiss, and is always pushing out faces together! So she quite enjoyed that part haha! We also ordered a little appetizer to snack on during our boat ride which consisted of bread sticks, salami, ham, and different cheeses. I think the hardest part for us was it was quite bright for little William. I tried to keep a hat on him, but the little stink was always taking it off.

I am so glad we went out of our "comfort zone" to try something new! I think that's the perspective that we need to have this summer with Joel's job. It is so easy to not do something just because it would be harder to do with kids! I had no idea what to expect with Emma on this boat ride, but she ended up LOVING it. She was pointing to things and oohing and aaahing over random stuff, and she always had this content and happy little smile on her face.

If you are in the Long Beach area, have small kids, and want something relaxing to do I would totally recommend this! I found this boat ride so romantic, even while having our kids with us ;)

The one picture of us together as a family and it is out of focus... oh well ;)

For some reason I love that every house has its own private dock!

I loooved these flowers at the front of our boat! Such a perfect touch!