Hi everyone! I’m Lisa, and I’m so excited to tell you a little more about my family this week! Matt is my amazing husband with a very business-savvy mindset, and I love how much he loves his family. Matt and I started dating in high school when I was a sophomore and he was a junior; I know how unlikely it would have been for us to stay together and get married, but we did! I was 22, and he was 23 when we got married, and we’re celebrating 21 years of marriage on November 10th; mind-blowing isn’t it? We’re still so happy and love each other just as much (if not more) now, praise!
Cole is our favorite firstborn who’s now 18; growing up he was always our baseball kid, and we did so much travel for that season of our lives; in high school, he started to fall in love with football which was so fun for us to get to watch. He loves working and making his own money, his truck, and his girlfriend. Cole worked with Matt’s brother during the pandemic doing HVAC work and learned a ton of crawling around in attics. After that, he worked with his friends detailing cars! He’s super independent, pays for his own gas….you know, the things that make a mama proud (among many others). Next up, he wants to start a pressure washing business in Arizona, where he’s going to school. I’m excited to watch his journey there! He studies business at Grand Canyon University in Arizona (yes, his dad and I are ridiculously proud) and loves every second of college!
Avery is our favorite secondborn and is 15; she’s at the age where she loves hanging out with her friends, is involved with high school cheer, and is on the varsity team. She loves tumbling and gymnastics and is looking forward to continuing it all through high school. She’s in her high school season for the next couple of years and wants to get a job (mainly to get her dream VW Bug) and just live this season happily with her family and friends. She’s still deciding whether or not she wants to go to college, and at this point, we aren’t pushing it, knowing that the right answer will come to her! We’ve done Orlando, Dallas, Atlanta, San Diego, Palm Springs, Las Vegas, and so many others for her cheerleading endeavors, and we’ve made many great memories at those events!
I can’t forget about our pets! We have two cats (a brother and a sister), who we adopted about seven years ago. We never wanted to have pets because we are always so on the go, but I grew up with cats and like having them around. My friend rescued a litter of kittens, and we got two of them, a girl (Cali) who is a calico and a boy (Boots) who is black and white. Cali loves being outside and hunting and is way more like Avery, carefree and wild. Boots is huge and likes to be in the house watching birds from the window; he’s way more like Cole in that he’s super cautious and loving. They are super easy with our busy schedules, and we love them!
We are such a tight-knit family, and every one of our family members is local to us! Literally, everyone is within a 5–10-minute drive. Matt has two brothers, and we all have lots in common with them; his parents live 5 minutes from us and are very involved with their grandkids (which is a feat, because they are always traveling and still manage to make it to every event they have). My sister, brother, and their families are also 5-10 minutes from us! It’s cool because everyone is so close that we can just go see them whenever we want, yet we’re all far enough away to do our own thing when we want to do that too.
It’s just the three of us now that Cole is gone, so there is lots of “trying” to eat dinner together, which doesn’t always happen because of Avery’s busy schedule. Still, at least Matt and I always eat together!
We love traveling to Havasu for full vacations or just a weekend getaway which is genuinely one of our happy places. We’ll always snag an Airbnb (is there anything better than a really great house while vacationing?) to lay our heads so we can all be in the same house, enjoying each other. When I think of vacations I’ll never forget, traveling to Aulani, a Disney Resort in Kapolei, Hawaii, when our kids were little will always be at the top of that list; we had so much fun and seeing the excitement through your kids’ eyes at that age is truly magical. This summer, we did Punta Cana in the Dominican which they absolutely loved (we did too). Man, it’s just such a beautiful place. We snorkeled, parasailed, and tried a lot of different food! We also block out dates in advance at our rentals for those traditional times we like to be there – if there is availability, we will always drive up to the cabin and hang out for a weekend! Our kids have been a part of what we do for so long, and it’s definitely been such a group effort, and I wouldn’t have it any other way!