Melvin Award!!!

At Blake's annual meeting his last project won the company Melvin award!! (If you want to know exactly what that means you'll have to ask Blake the details.)And a few months back the same project (McCarron Airport Terminal 3 foundation) won the Best of 2009 in the Southwest Contractor magazine. Here's the picture (Although don't ask him about the picture because this was actually taken after the next contractor started work on the next phase of the project and much of what McCarthy had done was already buried.)



So if you interested in what the article says, here it is:

This 125,000 sq ft project is the foundation for the new terminal at McCaran, encompassing ATS tunnel, service corridor, underground plumbing, under drain system, building and site retaining walls and 506 anchor bolt assemblies to receive structural steel for the future building package. The civil package also included approximately 1,200 drilled piers, an underground utility tunnel, a two-story underground automatic tram station shell, grade beams and pier caps, retaining walls and site utilities. Coordination with the myriad of projects currently underway at McCarran was a major task.
The team excavated 600,000 cu yds of material, but first they had to lower the site's water table by 50 ft. To do this, McCarthy created an extensive dewatering plan for the first 14 months of the project.
To help speed up the assembly of the ATS tunnel, the mechanical subcontractor pre-assembled hydronic piping to be hoisted into the tunnel rather than putting it in piece by piece. A section of the concrete roof was left off at certain intervals so pre-assembled piping could be flown in. After the piping was installed, the concrete team would pour back the lid. This method of pipe installation proved to be extremely efficient. In addition to the tunnel, there were 7,154 cubic-yards of piers caps and grade beams installed.
The judges were impressed by how well the construction team executed, staged and sequenced the project.

Our Annual Phoenix Trip!

Every year Blake has an annual shareholders meeting in Phoenix. And so I take the kids and spend one day at the Phoenix Zoo and 1 day at the water park. They love it! And so do I!

Our Easter this year!

Easter this year fell on the Sunday after Spring Break. So it was a busy week for us. My parents came down the weekend before and brought 2 of Kierstyn's cousins. We celebrated Kierstyn's birthday (a little late but she'd already had her birthday party).

Here they are The 3 Squirrels!


Kierstyn took this one with her camera.



We spent a few days enjoying the sunshine going to the park and the children's museum before the kids and I headed to Idaho with my parents. Poor Blake had to stay here and work. And lucky us the weather in Idaho was well terrible. It was the first and probably the only time this year the kids saw snow.



And so the easter egg hunt that all the grandkids had was inside. I had to laugh though because as I watched the other kids pick out treats to snack on, my daughter was picking broccoli off the relish tray.




The highlight of the trip at least for the kids was the airplane ride home. This was the first flight for Ben and the first Kierstyn can remember. They loved it! It wasn't a very long flight but of course they had to check out the bathroom and try it out.




Thanks Blake for letting us go and leaving you all alone. Your the Best!

Kierstyn's 6th Birthday!

Okay- so I know this post is slow in the coming put what can I say, life gets in the way! Kierstyn has been talking about having a birthday party for a long time and I finally gave in. She wanted to do a fairy party, so thats what we did.

Kiesrtyn helped with the invitations and delivered most of them herself. And in the end everything came together. We did a simple lunch and cupcakes.



We decorated fairy wings and played a few games.


She was so excited to open presents and loved all of them!


Poor little Ben was so excited about the party and we made him an elf hat because he didn't want to be a fairy. But when the day came he didn't feel very good and slept through most of it.


Here's all the girls with their fairy skirts!

Kids will be kids!

Yesterday, I was doing my best to get the laundry done as I knew Ben was out of clean pants. So late last night I finally got his clothes in the washer and then in the dryer right before I went to bed. This morning I got a wonderful surprise as I was putting away clothes and found that half of them were covered with chocolate!!!! AFter searching around I found that Ben had left a piece of his chocolate valentine candy in (of all places) a sock! When I asked him about it all he said was, can a eat a chocolate?

Ben's Birthday Party

I've never really been excited about throwing my kids a birthday party. Lets face it, I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I knew it would stress me out. And up until this year, I don't think they've even noticed. We always went and did a fun family activity together and then had cake & ice cream. But last year, my kids attended a few birthday parties of their friends and since then been asking me if they could have one too. So this year I gave in. I told Ben he could have just a small party with 4 of his friends. So we picked out a theme ( a dog party- ironic because he is scared of dogs) and I began planning. I thought I must have been crazy to agree to do this when I took Ben shopping for some things for the party and everything I picked out he threw a fit about. After taking a deep breath and ignoring his little tantrum I moved forward with the plans and I'm gald I did.

So here's the details.

We made invitations to look like dog bones, and Ben delivered them to his friends.


These are the cupcakes I made. Not as cute as the picture and alot harder to make than I anticipated but still fun. The idea and recipe came from bakerella, check it out for other way cute ideas.



These are the party favors. The little bags are full of scooby snack crackers. The pattern for the bags and dog came from Pebbles in My Pocket. Love that store!


This is the pin the collar on the dog came we played.

This is the relay race we had to fill up your dog bowl first. Kierstyn's team won probally because she was cheating, but it was fun.


We also played a find the bone game in which you can exchange every bone you find for some candy. And a version of duck, duck, goose (woof, woof, meow). This was the gang eating their cupcakes.

The kids had alot of fun and I loved it when Ben said to me "Mom, I'm so happy!"

Happy 4th Ben!!

Last Sunday we celebrated Ben's 4th birthday. Since it was also Super Bowl Sunday we opened presents at half time. But I think his favorite was eating the frosting!


This year Ben decided he wanted a dog cake. We looked for some ideas on the internet but decided to improvise our own. Turned our pretty good too!



And he got the gift he wanted (along with many others!) a new scooter!



Happy Birthday big guy!