The Alts

The Rest of 2011

2012-01-06T21:43:00.000-08:00

So, we've been busy with everyday life. Nothing very exciting to blog about, but I'll at least post the last few pictures from 2011.

We rarely get photos with the whole family, so here's one from November - just hanging out at home.

Christmas was a lot of fun, as usual! With Christmas falling on a Sunday, we weren't sure how we wanted to plan everything around church. Church was only an hour that day, but it was a little tricky since it started at 11:00. We didn't want the kids to open everything beforehand and then have the fun part of Christmas be pretty much over when we came home from church.

We're lucky that the kids don't wake up in the pre-dawn hours and come get us on Christmas. Rob and I got up and got dressed/ready first and then the kids got up and came out to check everything out. There were way more presents under the tree than when they went to bed, and they had to see Santa's leftovers from his cinnamon rolls & milk:

The poor kids got to open one present each in the morning, and those presents were church clothes. Bummer. But they were actually pretty happy with their clothes and excited to get dressed! They knew they'd open everything else after church and they were OK with that. They do look pretty cute...

Also behind the kids, you can see the giant box of Nerds & huge roll of SweeTarts that Santa brought!

After church, we changed into comfy clothes and got to talk to Papa Bob and Nana Sandy in Illinois for a little bit. My parents came over right after that, and we opened presents.

The biggest deal for the kids this year was the Wii. We might be the last people on the plantet to have one, so they were pretty excited!

Rob and I cooked our first Turkey that day, and it was pretty good! No major disasters. Mom and Dad stayed for dinner and visited for a while. After they left, we cleaned up the present aftermath and played with everything late into the night. It was a good day!

The next day, Rob's family all came over for snacks/appetizers and we exchanged a few gifts and visited for a while. It was a nice, relaxing weekend.

We didn't do anything for New Year's Eve, although that day we all went to the driving range. The weather was awesome and it was nice to be out there.

You won't see me or the kids playing golf on TV anytime soon, that's for sure!

ASU Homecoming

2012-01-05T06:28:00.000-08:00

In October, we went to the ASU homecoming parade. While we were waiting for the parade, Rob walked down to the box office to price some tickets... he came back with four tickets, so we went to the game, too!

There's always lots of stuff to see and do during homecoming. It felt a little crowded to us this year, so we didn't really stop to see the booths.

The parade was nice. The kids were happy to see a few Angry Birds-themed floats. And Frank Kush handed Robbie a little football. He was the grand marshall of the parade, so he was riding in a car with Sparky. Reached down and handed a football right to Robbie!

After the parade, we found a pizza joint and had lunch. It was all maroon & gold and sun devilly in there, so we had one of the workers take our picture.

The game was fun, too. Especially since this was one of the games we actually won this year! Here we are with the new pitchfork logo on the field.

We love our Sun Devils, even the seasons they stink!

Softball in Cottonwood

2011-10-02T16:47:00.001-07:00

Last weekend, Rob played in a softball tournament in Cottonwood, so the kids and I tagged along. I spent a lot of time in the Verde Valley when I was a kid, but I haven't been there in years, so it was fun to go back. Plus, the weather was much nicer then Phoenix!

Robbie made friends with this little boy right away. We have no idea what his name is. But that's how kids make friends - they just play and have fun. These little guys ran around with sticks as lightsabers, shared candy, colored, played with trucks... they kept busy!

This was an all-day tournament, so we had lots of time to explore. The park was right next to the Verde River, so the kids and I went for a few walks along the banks. It was really pretty.

Erin got to play a little bit of catch between games. Here she is with Rob on one of the fields. You can see the town of Jerome on the hills in the background.

It felt good to be outside all day! There was a breeze and it was overcast off and on, and it was just really nice out. The kids took full advantage. There was a playground, plenty of room to run around, june bugs to check out, dirt to play in...

We had a little down time thanks to electronics. I did finally figure out how to French braid Erin's hair, so that was an accomplishment. I've tried before with disasterous results - much wailing and gnashing of teeth (and Erin didn't enjoy it either). But I can cross that off my list now.

Toward the end of the day, we were all getting pretty tired - and we weren't the ones running around playing softball! The team Rob played on hit lots of home runs, and in te last couple of games, we learned that if kids bring a home run ball in to the scoring table, they get a Tootsie Pop! This brought a new level of excitement. I'm not sure how many home run balls they got all together, but we had plenty of Tootsie Pops that afternoon!

Rob's team was undefeated and they won the tournament. Rob didn't hit as well as he would've liked, but he made some good plays and it was a good day.

We drove up to Jerome afterward, just to take a look around. We didn't really stay, since it was Saturday night and the hipster artsy scene was making it a little crowded. The kids were impressed with the roads and the precarious houses on stilts.

We were amused that Cottonwood has a Sizzler, so we ate there for the novelty of it. And no, it hasn't improved since the last time I ate at one 15-20 years ago. But at that point we were all starving, and mediocre was pretty good. Top that off with a dessert bar and things were great!

Fourth Grade & Kindergarten

2011-08-11T07:14:00.000-07:00

School started on Tuesday!

This one was very excited to start kindergarten!

This one feels like a pretty big kid because she's halfway through elementary school!

Robbie wasn't sad in this picture - he was head-over-heels elated all day, but the sun was too bright for him. It's the only close-up picture I got, though.

Robbie and I hung out til the bell rang, and then he ran to get in line. They went straight to their "Monday morning assembly" (which was held on Tuesday this week) for the pledge and the national anthem. Since Robbie was first in line, he got to hold Mrs. Jones's hand. She is such a good teacher! She was Erin's kindergarten teacher and we like her so much we requested her for Robbie.

After the assembly, they got in line again outside their classroom...

...And went to class!

I only got a little choked up and was able to hold myself together! Both kids had a good day at school, and that night Robbie told us, "I can't wait for school tomorrow!"

Other stuff we did in July

2011-07-28T06:21:00.000-07:00

Bleached stars on some shirts for the kids for 4th of July and spent the day at my parents' house swimming and eating and visiting with them, my sister, and one of my brothers and his family.

I made freezer paper stencils like the ones here - they're kind of fun!

Every July, Chik-Fil-A has "Cow Appreciation Day". If you dress up like a cow, you get a free meal! Even if you just wear one cow item, you at least get a free entree. We've gone the last few years, and it's worth looking ridiculous for an hour or so. I should have taken a picture of our tails. Next year I think we'll wear white shirts. If you've never done it, you should next year!

Our second camping trip was also nice. We weren't sure we were going because the whole state was under fire restrictions due to all the forest fires. But two days before we were hoping to go, they lifted the restrictions.

The lake was a little warmer than it was in June. We like to hike down to one of the legs of the lake, where it's pretty narrow and there are fewer people. We liked this family of ducks:

Last time, Robbie found a caterpillar that he played with for a while. This time while we were setting up, he found a buttterfly and was SURE it was his caterpillar. "Mom, my caterpillar turned into a butterfly!"

There were lots of butterflies, and he kept thinking it was all the same one. He named it Pickles. No matter where we were, Pickles showed up (he didn't know there were hundreds of Pickles look-alikes all over the campground). They were very friendly. Erin got them to land on her hands several times - never when my camera was handy, though. Here is Pickles sitting on Robbie's lap while he ate a Pop Tart.

We've had a good summer! Only two weeks til school starts. I'm not super-thrilled about homework and busy weeknights, but I'll be kind of glad to get back into more of a routine/schedule.

Erin's 9th Birthday

2011-07-26T07:20:00.000-07:00

Erin turned 9 last week! These kids are growing up!

We kept it low-key like we did for Robbie's birthday. She got to invite two friends to Big Surf. We had lunch at Red Robin and then stopped at home to change before picking up the other girls. Of course Erin got a birthday sundae and an embarrassing song at Red Robin!

I didn't want to deal with my camera at the water park, so the only picture I got of Erin and her friends was in the car on the way over. Erin has been friends with these lovely twins for as long as they could all talk. And boy can they talk - these three are little chatterboxes! Robbie had to get in on the action - or he tried, anyway... their chatting skills are superhuman.

(As a side note, Robbie may or may not have a little crush on one of the girls - the suspicion has yet to be confirmed)

Big Surf isn't a huge waterparks, so we spent four hours there and had time to do everything a few times. We even ran into a couple of girls from church, so they all played together for a while in the wave pool.

After we got home, Erin opened her presents and got to play with all her new stuff.

We're so lucky to have Erin in our family! She's a good example to her little brother and to her mom and dad. She's very smart, and she's a nice kid. It's a little hard to belive she'll be starting fourth grade in just a couple of weeks.

We love you, Erin!

Robbie's 5th Birthday

2011-06-27T06:27:00.000-07:00

Robbie turned 5 yesterday! FIVE, people.

Instead of a friend party, he got to invite two friends to see Cars 2 on Saturday. We went to an early show and the kids had a nutritious breakfast of popcorn, fruit snacks, and Sprite. He was SO excited to go with his friends, and he had a great time!

Later that day, we went to Baskin Robbins for his free scoop of ice cream and Barnes & Noble for his free cookie. Before dinner, even. We live on the edge.

Yesterday after church, most of the family came over.

L-R behind Robbie: My parents, Briana, Dan, Rob, Ayla, Sandy, Brigette, Steven, Kristil, and Erin on the floor.

Reycle bin ready for action!

He was VERY excited about his presents! Except the clothes. He hardly glanced at those as he moved them out of the way of his loot. Not sure he even looked directly at them.

He got plenty of Cars stuff, Legos, trucks and trailers, Hot Wheels tracks...

And then we sent him to the garage to find his new bike! He was really happy about that.

I'm hoping to get him on the bike tonight and see if we can't skip the training wheel stage all together. I'll take some pictures if we're not at the hospital.

Next, we had cake! He wanted a Superman cake, so I made him a SuperRobbie cake. We all had blue lips.
He was smart and didn't tell anyone his wish. He got some money in a couple of cards, so later that night I was trying to help him figure out what he wanted to buy. I asked him if he got everything he wanted, and his answer was an emphatic, "YEAH!" That was good to hear. And yes, he even likes the clothes. He checked those out after all the toys were put away. He had a fun day.

We love Robbie and we're very thankful to have him in our family!

Spring 2011 - Photo Goulash

2011-06-23T06:23:00.000-07:00

Well, spring did happen - I just failed to blog about anything for months! Here are a few photos taken during my unplanned hiatus.

The kids and I rode the light rail to the Aloha Festival again this year. We started at the park & ride on Central & Camelback, which is right across the street from Smeeks - so of course we had to go buy candy and weird stuff! That's a great store.

Riding the train home that night - some drunk ASU boys were chatting the kids up, and it was kind of funny because the kids had no idea they were drunk. After they got off the train... "Those guys were really nice!" And they were - it was amusing to watch the whole interaction.

Erin is starting to feel the wrath of her parents' genes. She got glasses in March. She only has to wear them to see the board in class, and sometimes she wears them to watch TV, but I'm sure it won't be long before she has to wear them all the time, like her mom & dad. She's OK with it.

Around the same time, the dentist put a palate expander on her teeth. We know she'll need braces in a year or two after all her baby teeth are out. After her palate is expanded, there will be more room for the orthodontist to work with, and it should make the braces less extensive. Her teeth have already separated and look quite a bit different. Pending orthodontia: another gift from her parents' genes.

In May, Rob and Robbie went to our ward's Father & Son's campout. They had a good time. It was on a ranch, and there were herds of deer close to where they camped. There were also puppies, which were a big hit!

Robbie really liked going camping with Dad; he felt like a big kid. He called me from the road after they left. He said he was holding the map and he was the gavinator.

"The what?"

"The gavinator! I'm showing Dad where to turn."

Here he is with one of the puppies.

Erin finished up 3rd Grade, and got to go to Honors Night for Prinicpal's Honor Roll again. Here she is with her teacher and her trophy. She's a smart girl.

It's hard to believe we're halfway through the summer! Not sure if we'll get to go camping again in July, since a good portion of the state is on fire. Let's hope for some rain between now and then!

Camping - June 2011

2011-06-16T06:18:00.000-07:00

We're back from our first camping trip of the summer! We went to Knoll Lake, as usual.

Rob's sister Brigette and her family came with us - except for Rett; he had to work. Erin and Robbie really liked having their cousins there to play with! The weather was great, and it was a nice, smooth week.

Walking to the lake

There are two ways to walk to the lake - one is on a nice little trail, and the way we usually go is straight down a ravine at a 45-degree angle. The kids all did great on the hikes and nobody complained.

Cousins on a log - Ayla, Erin, Briana, and Robbie

The kids did all kinds of stuff to entertain themselves. They explored the dry creek and played on the "tree bridge" (just a log that fell over the creek bed), played tag, colored, read, made sharp sticks... all the important things you do when you're camping.

Brigette and Steven at the lake

Robbie at the lake - always holding a stick!

We got a good campsite that had three tables. It was quieter this time than the last couple of years, and we were camped next to a group of boy scouts who were very well-behaved.

Our campsite - the grills, fire ring & screen rooms

Looking the other direction at the screen rooms, plus the kids' tents.

I didn't get a shot of Brigette & Steven's tent.

Our tent - You can fit two queen-size matresses in there and still have room to walk around!

Ayla and Robbie in the lake - MIND-NUMBINGLY COLD WATER!

This is where we jump off the rocks. It's a long swim across the lake to the rocks, so this time we brought two kickboards so it would be easier for the kids to get across. Rob would go with them and hang out at the bottom. He would toss kickboards to the kids after they jumped in so they didn't have to swim as much.

Robbie wanted nothing to do with it, but the other kids jumped several times. So did Rob and Brigette. Steven stayed on shore and took pictures, and I was too cold by the time I swam over there; maybe it will be better in July.

Erin on the rock, Ayla in the water

Coloring in the screen room - Erin, Ayla, Robbie, Briana

On the way home - looking off the Mogollon Rim

Rob's truck hit a milestone on the way home - 100,000 miles! (No, he didn't take the photo at 70 mph, that was me... leaning over him while he drove - maybe that's safer?)

Rob and some of the kids saw some deer on one of our hikes to the lake, and Robbie and I saw a big fluffy-tailed squirrel. We watched big birds swooping down and snatching fish right out of the lake - that was something new.

It was nice to have Brigette & Steven and the kids with us, and we couldn't have asked for nicer weather! Our family will go again in a few weeks.

St. Patrick's Day Hike

2011-03-17T19:39:00.001-07:00

This week is Erin's Spring Break. Rob and I were both able to take today off, so we had a nice day together as a family! We hiked up Camelback Mountain this morning. I hadn't done it for maybe 10 years, and I've been wanting Rob and the kids to go.

I guess this post is more for people who haven't hiked it, so you can see what it's like up there. The hike up Echo Canyon to the top of the camel's back is only a little over a mile, but it's tough. There are several places where you just have to tackle it hand & foot because you're just scramling over boulders.

You start out going up railroad tie steps for the first 1/4 of the hike, and then it gets steep. It pretty much stays steep after that. The fence below is to keep people from wandering down the mountain to the ultra-wealthy homes below, and to catch those who might slip and fall onto the ultra-wealthy homes below. You can see a handrail in the picture below. There are two spots with handrails.

Going up one of the less-steep handrail spots:

This cliff sort of looms over the trail after the handrail - probably over 100 feet high? The picture doesn't do it justice, so I took one on the way down of the same area.

I put a blue circle in this picture to show where we were when we took Erin's picture... a little better perspective.

This is near the top. Another blue circle around some people to give perspective:

At the top! So I'm the one who thought the hike was such a great idea, and I was the slowest one. I'm in much worse physical shape than the last time I did this!

We remembered to bring binoculars this time, so we got to check out the view for a little bit while we rested. I bought a hydration pack last night, and it was a good investment. Lugging water bottles up there would have stunk!

Erin on the way down. Downtown is on either side of her, right about armpit level. (No offense, downtown) The Estrella mountains are at her shoulder, and 44th Street is coming out behind her calf.

Robbie did great going up, but he was a little nervous going down. It's easier to slip on the way down. Rob hiked with him the whole way down and helped him when he got nervous. He was the littlest kid up there, except for a baby in a backpack carrier.

Here's a picture on the way down, looking at the camel's head.

We only had one minor casualty, and it was just a grand re-opening of a previous scrape. (I think she was a little proud of the blood trail, because several people commented on it on their way past)

We took our sweet time, going slow with plenty of rests, and it took 3 1/2 hours. We'll do it again sometime, but not soon. I'll be feeling this tomorrow!

I'm proud of the kids. They're good little hikers, and this was the toughest one yet. Nobody complained - a little nervousness in spots for Robbie, but they did it whine-free.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Tres Rios Festival 2011

2011-03-10T07:43:00.000-08:00

Spring has sprung! That means it's time to enjoy the outdoors before it gets hot. We spent last Saturday at the Tres Rios Festival. There are always interesting things to see and do there. The kids had fun, but Robbie wasn't feeling very cooperative with the camera most of the time. Exhibit A:

The first thing we did was fish in the little pool. It's a guaranteed catch for the kids, and the volunteers bait the hooks and remove the fish and everything.

...which was especially great in comparison to our attempt at "real" fishing. I am no fisherman! We basically just donated worms to the river because apparently I don't know how to attach them to the hooks well enough and we lost them with almost every cast. Many a worm died in vain that day. Still nice to be at the river.

We got to take a hayride from the festival to the river, which the kids got a kick out of. Kids just don't get to ride on open trailers or in the backs of trucks or ride their bikes off cliffs as much as we got to when we were little. So that was a novelty.

Robbie was disappointed that he couldn't do archery this year because he was too young. They let him last year, so I'm not sure what the new age cutoff is. Erin got to do it, though.

They had her hang around a little bit after the rest of her group finished so someone from the AZ Republic could take her picture. They posted it on azcentral here - she's in the fifth photo of nine if you want to check it out. She thought that was really cool!

Other stuff we got to see and/or pet: Burro, desert tortoise, monitor lizards, crocodile, pythons, rattlesnakes, scorpions, owls, burrowing owls, falcons, vultures, squirrels, prairie dogs, hummingbirds, various skins (wolf, javalina, mountain lion). And there were lots of neat displays by different wildlife groups, power companies, etc., etc. All of which had free crap - er, promotional items - to hand out. You know, pens & things that are kinda neat when you're there, but when you dump it all out at home you realize you brought home a bag of crap. But a treasure for the kids!

We had a fun day in the spectacular weather! Next up - the Aloha Festival.

Police & Marines

2011-02-01T07:16:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, Rob had to umpire and Erin went along with him. She really likes going with him, and it's probably good for her and Robbie to have some time away from each other.

So it was just me and Robbie. The Tolleson Police Department was having an open house of their new station, so we dropped in. It's a pretty neat building, and since we went near the end of the open house time, our little tour was just me, Robbie, and a detective. That was cool becuase he let Robbie push buttons & stuff. I ended up not taking any pictures because it seemed weird to take pictures while the guy was talking to just us. Anyway, Robbie loved the police station, and one of his new prized possessions is the badge pin they gave him.

After the tour, we went over to the Cardinals stadium because our nephew Rett was competing in this day-long event for all the Marines recruits in Arizona. We met up with Sandy and Dan there, and we watched some impressive rounds of tug-of-war between different groups of recruits. It was a great day to be outside!

None of my pictures were very good. It's hard to get a good shot when you're trying to photograph a huge group of hundreds of people. None of the pictures do it justice, but here are a couple of attempts. Here they are lining up to go inside for the closing ceremony:

And here's Rett's group. He's in the 2nd row, and he's the 4th from the left, including the guy holding the flag.

There was a bit of standing-around time between events or while groups took pictures, so Robbie and I explored a little and I got some pictures of him.

I think this next one is my favorite.

You can see the police pin on his shirt in this one.

Then we went inside. The grass was outside basking in the sun. I thought it was neat that they put the Marines logos up on the jumbo trons & scoreboards.

This was just less than half the entire group. I think Rett's group was the 3rd from the left, but it was hard to tell.

It was pretty cool. At the very end, they all stood at attention and the crowd stood while the Marine hymn played. Very patriotic and made us proud of Rett!

The Suns Game

2011-01-27T07:53:00.000-08:00

We got to go to the Suns/Bobcats game last night! For no apparent reason, our credit union mailed us two tickets a couple of weeks ago. We found two more tickets really cheap so the kids could go with us.

The credit union gave us lower-level seats right by the Suns tunnel, and the pair we bought were upper-deck. Erin hasn't been to a Suns game since she was a baby, so she didn't remember ever going, and this was Robbie's first time. They LOVED it!

The dancers were hanging out in the lobby taking pictures with people. Erin was happy to get a picture with them, but Robbie was too shy. (he'll kick himself when he's about 15!)

These were great seats! The Suns bench was just off the left side of this picture. Rob and Erin sat in the lower level and Robbie and I took the other seats.

The good thing about the upper deck is that you have a little wiggle room up there when the game isn't sold out. Robbie was SO excited! He's usually sort of embarrassed to cheer or clap along at stuff like this, but he was really into it. He liked yelling "DEFENSE!" and he always got excited when he saw Steve Nash. This was one happy boy!

Rob and I were going to trade kids at the 4th quarter, but the usher just let us go in and sit in the empty seats by Rob and Erin! So we got to enjoy the loss from the good seats. When the game ended, Rob brought the kids down by the floor for some high-fives. Erin was ecstatic that she got a high-five from one of the players! Robbie couldn't quite reach, but it didn't bother him. It was one of the bench players that high-fived Erin, but in the blur of people, we couldn't actually tell who it was. Erin squealed when she told me about it, and she was impressed that "His hands were huge!" It was pretty cool. Here are some of the players heading through the tunnel.

We had a great time! It was fun to see the kids getting into it. I think the Suns were only ahead once during the game, but it was nice just to be there.

Fat Man Revisited

2011-01-24T06:50:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, the kids and I went back to South Mountain to finish our hike to Fat Man's Pass. The weather was perfect! This was the hike that we failed to complete back in May because it was just too hot.

We hiked up from the bottom again. I mapped it after we got home, and it was about 4 miles round-trip. Not too gueling, but enough to work up a little sweat.

There are great views of the city the whole way up (although Robbie was disappointed that I forgot the binoculars). Once you get to the top, the trail winds back into an area called "Hidden Valley" and there are no traces of the city at all.

This is on top of Fat Man's Pass - really cool giant boulders.

...and this is why it's called Fat Man's Pass. There's a foot-wide opening where you can squeeze between the two boulders and continue on the trail.

After squeezing though, we got to explore under the boulders. It was a great place to cool off, with the breeze, the shade, and the nice cool rocks.

Checking out the boulders on the other side.

Looking down at the kids inside the pass:

We climbed up on top of the rocks and decided to hang out for a while before hiking back down. It would've been a great place for a picnic, but I didn't plan for one. We met this little guy up there! Isn't he cute? We also met several of his friends.

The chipmunks weren't too scared of people; I'm sure they've had plenty of snacks from hikers. We didn't have anything to offer, but he still approached us. He sniffed my hand and scurried away, so Erin patiently put her hand out the same way... and he took a little nibble of her thumb! She thought it was hilarious.

Of course, Robbie needed to do it, too. And our little friend happily obliged and nibbled his finger. It surprised him, so he sort of jumped & said "ouch!" and immediately started laughing his head off. He was thrilled!

Mother of the Year for exposing the kids to rabies or whatever ailments chipmunks may carry! But these kids love animals, so this made their day. I have to say I was pretty happy about it, too - I have a little thing for squirrels & chipmunks.

Then we headed back down the mountain.

Christmas 2010

2011-01-10T07:45:00.000-08:00

Christmas seems so long ago! Probably because it was.

Most of our shopping was done early and we were able to relax and enjoy the Christmas season this year!

My parents came over on Christmas morning. We stayed up pretty late Christmas Eve, so we had to wake the kids up. They certainly didn't have any problems getting out of bed! Here are a few pictures.

This one looks staged, but it totally wasn't! The kids checking out all the presents that weren't there when they went to bed.

Robbie with a new car carrier

Erin's big present was a Nintendo DSi XL - she really didn't think she'd get one! Santa Claus is full of surprises.

Robbie opening his big crane from Grandma & Grandpa - a week or so before Christmas (after all the shopping was done) he decided he REALLY wanted a "big crane". He absolutely loves it! Almost everything in the house has been hooked to the crane and lifted or towed somewhere.

Another one of Erin's favorites was her ASU hoodie. This has become her jacket, and she wears it as much as possible.

After stockings, we had breakfast and got ready for the day. We cleaned up the aftermath, and then we went over to Rob's sister Brigette's house for Round 2. It was a full day!

Erin also got a new dress, and Robbie got some new ties. He loves his new orange tie - he just didn't love having his picture taken the next morning before church. Can't say that I blame him.

We hope you all had a Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving 2010

2010-12-08T07:33:00.000-08:00

Just a few pictures from Thanksgiving.

We slept in, did some things around the house, and then we went over to Scott & Stephanie's (Rob's little sister) house in Mesa. We had a very yummy dinner and spent a lot of time visiting. We even managed to take a picture with all four of us:

Stephanie's back yard is perfect for the kids to play in, and great for everyone to sit around the fire pit after it got dark. Here are few pictures of the kids:

Erin

Robbie

The girls - Briana, Erin & Ayla

Robbie hijacked someone's Nintendo DS. I like this picture.

More DS action. I like how well the cousins like each other and play together.

(not sure why I can't fix the line spacing below - sorry)

Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of the adults, and somehow I missed getting one of Sydnie (Stephanie's daughter). Robbie really likes Sydnie. When the three older girls play together, he's happy to play with Sydnie and have all the fun a 4 & 2 year old can have together! They sure keep busy.

That weekend, we got all our Christmas stuff up (I say we, but Rob does most of it) and now I can't believe it's only three weeks til Christmas! I think it will be lots of fun this year.

I didn't write a big mushy Thankgsiving post about all the things I'm thankful for, but I'm sure I should. (Maybe next year!) Let's just that say we have a lot to be thankful for and we try not to take our blessings for granted. Happy Thanksgiving!

Arizona State Fair

2010-11-17T07:30:00.000-08:00

We went to the state fair a few weeks ago. We don't do much there since it's a wallet drain, but it's always fun to go. We went too late to see all the animals, so that was too bad because the kids always like the animals. We got to smell them - that's almost as fun, right?

The kids are big enough to ride just about everything by themselves now. It's a lot of fun to watch them! Robbie was a little nervous at first, but quickly caught on...

Exhibit A. Before:

Exhibit B. After:

On the bus ride over from the state capitol:

Erin finishing her ride on the zip line:

On the "crazy coaster":

The lay-down-and-fly-like-superman ride:

On the tugboat:

We finished off the night with some funnel cake and another bus ride back to our car. See you next year, state fair!

Halloween 2010

2010-11-01T20:15:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween!

This year, Erin was a hippie and Robbie was Superman. At the last minute, I got a costume and dressed up as a hippie, too. Rob was the grim reaper, but his makeup was off by the time we took a picture. These might be the coolest pants I've ever worn.

We went to our ward's Trunk-or-Treat, which is always fun. This year, Rob's parents and his sister Brigette & her family came, too! Erin had a lot of fun hanging out with her cousins. Of course we all decorated our cars and got to visit a little amidst the Halloween madness!

Dan, Sandy, and Rett in Rett's truck:

Rob with our car:

Steven with his car - Brigette snuck away before I could snap the picture!

For reasons unknown, our kids only went around trunk-or-treating through all the cars once. Whatever got into them, we were glad to have that much less candy coming home with us!

On Halloween, we went out for Round 2 while Rob stayed home to pass out candy. He always does a good job decorating the front door for the trick-or-treaters. Of course, it looks better than this in the dark, when the black light makes everything glow and the strobes are going.

The kids had a good time, and there were only a couple of "scary" houses that made them nervous. Erin made me proud at one house. There was a "Deaf Christian Center" van parked in the driveway, so I told Erin that the people at the house might not hear her. I told her to say trick or treat anyway, and if she could tell they were deaf, she should sign "thank you" to them afterward. So she did! She learned the sign in church a while back, and just that morning our music leader in Primary was teaching a song about all the different ways to say thank you. Yay for church! Anyway, when she signed "thank you", the guy got all excited and signed it back to her & gave her a thumbs-up. It made me happy.

At home, the kids admired all their candy and put a pretty good dent in it.

The end! Let's move on to November.

Wild Kingdom, Part 2

2010-09-03T06:21:00.000-07:00

Some of you may be familiar with our cat's hunting abilities. They consist mostly of staring and refusing to leave an area if she thinks something may be hiding there.

The cat really doesn't do much, and she eludes all visitors. OK she hides from them. Except for my parents - she comes out when they come over. She allows my mom to pet her and she bites my dad. He's the only person she bites. Maybe he should feel honored? Sorry Dad.

I digress. Living in Phoenix, we get the occasional lizard inside the house (like here and here). Several weeks ago, we found a semi-bloody lizard tail in the bathroom. Then we noticed the cat was obsessing over the cedar chest in our bedroom. She'd sit there for hours and just stare. Finally one night her hunting prowess kicked in and she shoved her head underneath for several minutes. Enough time for me to get my camera.

I love our kitty, but I was secretly hoping she would get stuck. Because THAT would be funny! No such luck. But she did come out with her fur all backward and dissheveled. Rob and I teamed up to corner the lizard, planning for one of us to scare it out an the other to catch it. It ran between my feet quick as lightning and under the bed!

We have plenty of stuff under the bed, so finding the lizard would not be easy. I like lizards, but I don't need one in my bedroom. And I really didn't need the cat to maim it and have it die/rot in there. So I dragged all the junk out from under the bed and began the search. (What kind of stuff do we keep under the bed, you wonder? A hammock chair, two giant cases of 90's cassette tapes that I refuse to get rid of, Rob's BB gun, picture frames that we'll never use and always forget to donate because they're under the bed, and dust bunnies...)

I digress again. Got all that junk out from under the bed and found the stupid lizard just out of reach under the center of the bed. When I turned to get a broom to scare it out, it disappeared! now the room was trashed and we were back at square one. With the cat pacing all around the bed and dusty junk.

Then it was bedtime and I needed to move all the junk from the middle of the room, so back under the bed it went. Yes, the picture frames, too.

The next day, the cat was stalking a different piece of furniture in the bedroom. This time, I was able to catch the poor dehydrated, tail-less lizard and put him outside.

FREEDOM! And either that lizard is fat or we narrowly escaped having several baby lizards living with us too.

The cat was TICKED that I took her lizard away. I know because she sulked into where I was sitting, turned around, and sat down for several minutes with her back to me and her ears flat, until she decided I had been sufficiently ignored. That'll show me!

Stupid cat.

Third Grade

2010-08-26T07:23:00.000-07:00

School started three weeks ago! Erin is in 3rd grade this year.

The first-day-of-school pictures:

I'm not too excited about being much busier now that school started, but it's nice to be back on a schedule.

And can I just say that I absolutely love school supplies? A lot. I may have a little problem. Some of my favorite stores are places like Staples and Office Max. So you can imagine my joy this time of year when ALL the stores are selling my favorite things, and for CHEAP. Yay! And then in a few weeks, it will all be on CLEARANCE! Be still my heart.

Happy Back-to-School, everyone!

Erin's Baptism Day

2010-08-18T19:15:00.000-07:00

About 2 1/2 weeks ago, Erin was baptized. In our church, kids aren't baptized until they're eight. For several reasons - but in general because they're more accountable and understand what it's all about. It's still hard for me to believe Erin is eight!

It was a rainy day, which is a big deal here in Phoenix. And boy are there a lot of people who care about Erin! My entire family came to see her, most of them from several hours away, and Rob's entire family except three cousins. We were so happy to have everyone visit. I hope Erin understands (or will someday) how neat it is to have family who loves her so much.

Here's Erin and Rob ready for the baptism. She was baptized by her dad, and it was very special. I probably take it for granted that Rob is a good guy understands the importance of doing things like that.

A few people from our ward (congregation) also came to see her on her big day. One couple used to be in our ward, but moved to another part of the valley a couple of years ago. When Erin was about 2 years old, she started mingling about and visiting with people before church started. She quite liked talking to the Halls. Sister Hall told me one day that Brother Hall started putting Tootsie Rolls or Starburst in his pocket so he would have something to give her when she would visit with them. Of course that kept the visits coming as long as they lived in our ward! But Erin loved them to death and was so excited when they showed up at her baptism! They even brought her a little gift and a couple of packages of Starburst. Very cute! Here they are:

The only drawback to having everyone come at once is that it's hard to spend very much time visiting with everyone - but I think everyone understood that & was just happy to be there. Another drawback is that our house is too small to hold so many people! So we used the church building to have pizza and a wonderful giant salad Sandy made and some cheesecake. This is just about everyone - unfortunately I didn't think to take a picture before Rob's sister Stephanie and her family left. What a group! I love these guys.

Thank you everyone for coming to support Erin! We're lucky to have such a great family on all sides. We love you! A couple of pictures of Erin before church the next day:

We're proud of this girl and love her very much!

Erin is 8!

2010-07-29T06:30:00.000-07:00

Erin turned 8 last Tuesday! She's growing up fast. We didn't really do a party for her, because we're going to have the whole family get together next weekend for her baptism. She was cool with that. But lest you think we skipped over her birthday, just know that she partied all week!

I took that Monday off, the day before her birthday. She picked out a color and we painted over the stripes in her room. In the afternoon, I redecorated the rest of the room and wouldn't let her go in there until Rob got home. The pictures I took weren't spectacular, but she was happy with her new room & sweet new saucer chair.

The next day, her actual birthday, my parents kept the kids all day. They did all kinds of stuff! They went to see Despicable Me, which was a huge deal because we never go to theaters - seriously, the kids have only been a couple of times. Needless to say, they LOVED it! They also went out to lunch, went shopping, and swam. That night, we had dinner at Red Robin. When we were finishing up dinner, Erin was happy to get a phone call from her Nana Sandy in Illinois! She felt pretty important.

After dinner, she opened her presents and we had caramel cheesecake (her request).

The party didn't stop there! The next day, the kids spent the day with Nana. They had cupcakes and brownies, and Erin got to open more presents! They went shopping and played and had a great time

A little about Erin:

- She is super smart! That kid can figure out just about anything, and she's very insightful. She thinks things through and figures out the "whys" and "hows".

- She has always been pretty grown-up. She started talking pretty early, and was never difficult to understand. She's easy to reason with, and was never a big fit-thrower. She's a good-natured kid.

- She has an insane memory! Erin can remember obscure stuff in great detail from years ago. She can commit stuff to memory after reading it once or twice (very handy when she has to memorize stuff for school)

- She is an extremely nice big sister. She has loved her brother since Day 1, and was never jealous of him. She is very kind to him and always makes sure he's OK. She shares with him, comforts him, makes him laugh, and teaches him stuff.

- She's not shy. I really admire this because I was really shy when I was a kid. She loves to mingle and visit with people before church. She orders her own food in restaurants, and she likes to do things like run in and pick up a pizza we ordered or grab something from the store while I'm pumping gas.

- Erin is funny. A little sarcastic & a little weird and a lot of fun!

Rob and I realize how lucky we are to have been blessed with Erin. She's a great kid, and it's certainly not our doing... it's just who she is. We love you, Erin!

Camping, Chapter 2

2010-07-05T12:19:00.001-07:00

We went camping at Knoll Lake again last week. It started raining just as we finished setting up, and it rained for a few hours, but it cleared up and stayed nice the rest of the time.

We stopped to look off the edge of the Mogollon Rim this time...

Erin found a swing to play on...

Rob taught the kids to shoot the BB gun...

We ate s'mores...

The kids hollered at each other through the pipes under the road...

We played cards & ate Swedish Fish...

One day we drove down to the store at Woods Canyon Lake & ate ice cream sandwiches...

The water in the lake was warmer this time, so we had a lot more fun swimming. Rob and I took turns swimming across the lake and jumping in off the rocks.

Now we're back in the Phoenix heat! I'm glad we both have today off so we could get everything cleaned up and relax after our vacation. It's always nice to ease back into the work week!

Robbie's 4th Birthday

2010-06-29T11:54:00.001-07:00

Robbie turned 4 on Saturday!

We blew up some balloons...

Covered a good portion of the floor with bubble wrap (the checkerboard pattern are squares of bubble wrap)...

...and had a few friends over to pop balloons, stomp on bubble wrap, eat cake, and play games.

The friends brought presents, which are always lots of fun.

We found out that Robbie is really good at making stuff with Legos! He got the little instruction manual out & followed it until he made the picture on the box. He needed zero help from Mom.

That Robbie, he's a smart kid. We love him so much, and we're glad he had a fun birthday! A little about Robbie:

- He is very kind. He pays attention to how other people feel, and tries to make sure nobody feels bad.

- He loves to figure things out. Always wants to know how things work and what they do. He absolutely loves the show "How It's Made" and will pay close attention when it's on. He's been drawing a lot of factories lately.

- He has always loved animals and treated them well. Some of this he learned from his sister, but I think he's also just naturally drawn to them.

- He has a lot of faith. Often times if something is wrong or if someone is hurt, he will light up and say, "I know! We can ask Heavenly Father to help!" And then after the problem is resolved, he'll remember where the help came from.

- He is terribly funny! And he knows when to tease or turn on the charm.

- He adores his big sister. That probably comes easily because she's super nice to him. As parents, Rob and I love to see how he looks up to her.

We love you, Robbie!

Camping

2010-06-16T19:12:00.000-07:00

We went camping at Knoll Lake a couple of weeks ago. It was nice as usual! It never rained, never got too hot, and wasn't super-cold at night. Not much to talk about, so I'll just post pictures.

Kids on a log:

Wildlife... lady bugs:

A caterpillar... Robbie let it crawl on his tummy & all over the place for about a half hour before I finally had him put it in a tree. He laughed his head off when it would crawl around his neck! He was very gentle with it.

We even brougt swimsuits and got in the lake this time! It was COLD. We couldn't stay in very long, but when we go back in few weeks, it should be better. I'm noticing how nasty and green the water looks in the pictures, but it really wasn't disgusting, I promise.

See? That's not gross.

We got a good campsite. Near the bathrooms, but not TOO near, if you get my drift. (and drift is exactly what I'm talking about - no thanks!) The kids' tent is behind the screen room, and you can see part of our tent off to the right. We love our new tent - I have to take a picture from the inside next time because that thing's huge!

OK, so that's a terrible picture, with the shadows & everything. I didn't take too many this time. We had a great time! Nobody was sick with the Plague of the Public Pool like last year, and it was just the getaway we needed.

We're planning another trip in July, so stay tuned.

Tres Rios Wetlands

2010-05-24T07:00:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, we went to the Tres Rios Wetlands area. It's been closed most of the spring due to flooding along the river, but it opened up a couple of weeks ago, so we checked it out.

It's an interesting place... not the most spectacular, but only two miles from home & it had some neat stuff. It's actually a wetlands reclamation area next door to a huge water treatment facility. So all the water is reclaimed (creepy) and sometimes you get questionable whiffs. But it was never all-out stinky, so we stayed a while!

One of the first things we saw was this boardwalk/pier that wound through a bunch of trees. There was no water under it, but I could see there had been at some point.

There are two large ponds, which are completely covered with bright green goo. You have to walk around a while before you can actually see the ponds, because the grass is so high. But there are several places where little piers go out onto the ponds, and one leads to a little ramada on the water.

Checking out the "water"... yeah, not a good place to see fish by any means! I guess it's a good place for throwing rocks.

So it's an odd place, but still kind of a nice oasis in some areas. One of the trails led down close to the river, and there were lots of cottonwood trees.

Caterpillars love cottonwood trees. They make these really gross sacs that look like spiderwebs, and when the caterpillars are ready to come out (hatch? whatever) they're all over the place. I can't remember what time of year they usually make their debut, but something was a-brewing here! Most of this path was covered in the stuff... looked like snow:

Conveniently, there's also a butterfly garden there. Here are the kids outside the garden:

Sitting still, watching the butterflies...

You can't tell from the picture, but it was a pretty little garden with lots of flowers. And there were a lot of butterflies and hummingbirds. it's not enclosed, so they come and go as they please. I managed to get a picture of one of the butterflies...

We also saw three bunnies and some bobcat poop. From their website, I see the bobcats like to come feast on the bunnies and the birds. Here are the kids checking out an egg shell:

So there you have it. We'll probably go back sometime. There are lots of picnic tables, and it might be fun to go early in the morning when more animals are out.

It's a strange place - some really pretty areas mixed in with creepy things and occasional views of the huge industrial-looking water treatment facility. We laughed, we cried...

But entertaining nonetheless, and very close to home!

In a Van Down By the River

2010-05-24T06:56:00.000-07:00

The other day, the kids and I went down to the Gila River.

Every spring, several people drown there - but it's usually people who are drunk or swimming at night (or both). The current is pretty strong, and it's easy to see how someone could be swept away so quickly. That freaks me out, so we never wade more than a foot or two in.

You can see the Avondale Blvd bridge in the picture above. There are several good places to access the river, but I like to go by the racetrack, since there's a parking lot. I feel better about leaving the car there than along the side of the road; although we've done that a time or two.

I don't know what it is with little girls and shells, but Erin went nuts with the number of mussel shells there! There were places where we were walking on piles of them, just like gravel. Erin was excited when we found a live one with its shell still closed. We opened it up, and I'm not sure what the kids had in mind, but I'm pretty sure the gooey slime of a mussel wasn't quite what they were expecting. They were still really interested, though, and we spent a lot of time raking our fingers through the sand to find mussels & re-bury them.

Here they are under the bridge with Monument Hill in the background. We hiked that a few months ago.

As much as I hate graffiti, the underside of the bridge was kind of pretty, with all the different colors of paint. It was kind of fun to climb up the embankment and get right up under the roadway. The cars souns like thunder when they go over.

Avondale Boulevard...

Here's a little wider spot in the river - if you look REALLY close, you can see the very light purple Camelback Mountian on the horizon in the center of the picture.

The best part is that is only a couple of miles from the house! A good way to get out of the city for an hour or two.

Fat Man's Pass

2010-05-23T15:30:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, the kids and I went hiking on South Mountain. I wanted to hike through Fat Man's Pass, but I apparently chose the more difficult of two ways to get there, and I did it too late in the day. We failed.

Now, I don't like to leave a hike unfinished, but this one might have to wait til fall, unless we go way early in the morning sometime. It's not a difficult hike at all, and it's only about 4 miles round-trip. But it was a LOT warmer than I anticipated, and there's absolutely no shade on that particular trail. We had plenty of water, but the heat was rough. Erin didn't complain one bit, but Robbie started having a hard time. He's usually a trooper, too. I think we were JUST ABOUT there when I decided we'd give up and go back down. So that stunk. But we did take a couple of pictures while it was still enjoyable!

If you've never been up South Mountain, you should go. If you're not a hiker, you can just drive right up to the top! We drove around all the TV & radio antennas not long ago, and Robbie really liked that. Right now, they close the park before sunset because of budget cuts, so you can't see the city lights at night, but it's still pretty neat. I was glad we had Robbie's binoculars so we could see everything pretty well.

After the hike, we went over to my parents' house to visit. On the way there, we saw an old lady on a go-ped. Erin thought it was hilarious, and since I had my camera handy...

That lady was cool. I hope I have a go-ped when I'm old.

My Dad was using a grinder to remove their old broken diving board. It was pretty spectacular, with sparks flying everywhere, and the kids liked seeing him take it apart. He did get the new board on, but not while we were there. But it's hot and I'm ready to use it next time!

We got to visit with my brother Chris and his family for a little bit on their way through town. It's always good to see them.

So now when we pass South Mountain, it mocks me. I'll post some pictures when we finally finish the hike!

Roommates!

2010-05-16T15:29:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of May, I got together with lots of my old roommaes from EAC and drove to Thatcher for a reunion. Yay!

Front: Kandice, Amy, Monica, Megan, Jeannette

Back: Becky, Mitch, Jodi

I had so much fun. We don't get together very often - although hopefully that will change - and boy did we have a good time. Sometimes when you get together with old friends, you run out of stuff to talk about after a while, but not with this group! We talked & talked & talked all day and a lot of the night. I like that we're still friends now, and not just old roommates who only have college in common. Okay, and one of them wasn't technically a roommate, but who cares?

Three of us rode to Globe together and picked up two more on our way to Thatcher, where we picked up two more, and one drove in from Willcox to meet us there. How's that for coordination?

Jeannette's husband volunteered to watch whoever's kids - if he wasn't crazy for volunteering, he certainly is now after watching four kids plus his own four! But we really appreciated that, and Robbie was especially excited that he let them all check out his DPS car and the lights & sirens. That was a big deal!

We ate some good food (...and some questionable food) and told lots of crazy stories. We even squeezed in a tour of the Gila Valley temple while we were there, which was very neat.

Becky, Megan, Jeannette, Amy, Monica, Jodi and Mitch, that was so much fun! What are we doing next?

Honors Night

2010-05-16T15:13:00.000-07:00

So this one is all about Erin. She was on Principal's Honor Roll all year, so a few weeks ago she got to go to Honors Night and get a trophy. She did last year, too, but I don't think I posted about that.

We really like Erin's school. It's been really good, and I think she would be bored to tears at another school. Honors Night is nice, because everybody dresses up for it, little brothers and sisters aren't allowed, you need a ticket to get in, and it really is focused on just the kids who are getting their awards. I liked watching the kids mingle & visit with each other before it started... telling each other how nice they look & everything.

Here's Erin with her teacher, Mrs. Petersen. She is such a good teacher! She's very understanding, patient, and funny, and she treats the kids very respectfully. The only drawback is that she's a U of A graduate and very much a Wildcat! BUT that means we've had plenty of fun teasing each other back & forth all year long. Erin doesn't let her get away with any U of A talk in class, either. From what I gather, she pipes right up like a true rival, and now she has a little band of Sun Devil friends who pitch in too, and they dish it all back to Mrs. Petersen. She's a good sport and knows just the right amount to tease the kids.

Erin is a smart kid, and she's always been good at learning stuff. I've always liked that she's logical, and we could reason with her from a very young age, so we never really had to deal with many tantrums & stuff like that. We are lucky parents! We love Erin and we're proud of her.

Easter

2010-05-12T07:51:00.000-07:00

The weekend before Easter, my sister and her kids came down to visit my parents and have an Easter egg hunt in the park. She had like 400 eggs that she filled with candy! It was crazy. Most of them were hidden, but with that many eggs, plenty were just out in plain view. The kids had a great time! And since the weather was so nice, we ordred pizza and had lunch in the park.

We had Easter dinner over at Rob's sister Stephanie's house again. It was fun! They have a really nice back yard for the kids to play in, and of course the kids loved hunting for eggs. Even Rett, our 17-year-old nephew got to hunt for eggs. His were camouflage, and they were hidden in places like the eaves and the very tops of the trees. His had a little more incentive to lure him - a few bucks here and there. Gas money, you know. Robbie really liked playing with his cousin Sydnie.

Of course the Easter bunny came to our house that morning, and the kids ate plenty of candy all day long. I think we still have some left...

Spring Saturdays

2010-03-14T19:05:00.001-07:00

We try to make the most out of Saturdays in the spring. Yesterday was a lot of fun. Well, for the kids and I, anyway... Rob did yardwork and then umpired.

We took the train to Tempe for the Aloha Festival. My plan was to stop downtown and get a sandwich at Blimpie to eat at the festival. I really like Blimpie, but there's not one close to us. But the one downtown was gone! Not closed, but flat-out gone. Hmmph. So we got back on the train with no lunch plans. Island food sounded really good, but festival food was not in the budget!

Waiting for the train...

But it was a gorgeous day, so we didn't go to the festival right away. We walked down Mill Avenue and did a little window shopping and people watching along the way. We ended up eating at Jack-in-the-Box, which is good, but I was still disappointed about missing out on the Blimpie sandwich.

We enjoyed the walk back to the festival - a good amount of tourists, college kids, honest-to-goodness hippies selling painted cardboard & playing guitar, a guy on a skateboard being pulled by a dog... glimpses of Sun Devil Stadium... it was nice. THEN I spotted it! There is a Jimmy John's on Mill Avenue. This was a sandwich shop I absoluetely loved in Urbana, IL while I was on my mission. There weren't any in Arizona... but now - yay!! Too bad we had just eaten lunch. But I'll be going there soon!

My dad rode the train to the festival & met us there. We arrived about the same time, and we got to see our friend Oliver and some of his group do a drum/dance demonstration. Oliver was one of my brother Keith's companions on his mission, and he came to live with us for a little while when I was about 14. It was nice to see him again.

Dad, Oliver, Robbie & me... Robbie wasn't sure about Oliver...

Erin wanted her picture taken with some dancers, and these girls were nice enough to oblige. They were really good!

The festival was BUSY. They estimated about 100,000 people there on Saturday! But there was a lot to see and do, and it was neat. We wandered under the Mill Avenue bridge for some shade, and we fed a couple of ducks.

The best $5 I've spent in a while was on a spectacular Hawaiian shave ice that we all shared. It's worth going to the festival just for that. We stuck around to watch Tausala, which is a Samoan dance group that Oliver and his wife direct. Of course there was a fire knife dancer - Robbie was pretty impressed with that! (might have to keep an eye on him when we go camping)

And one of their last numbers was specifically dedicated to the tsunami relief effort in Samoa. They invited people to come up and leave donations, and it was amazing how many people flooded the stage! It was very cool. Dad gave Erin some money to donate, and she was pretty happy to make her way up there.

We walked to the train stop together and got on trains going opposite directions. The kids waved "bye" to their grandpa for about five minutes solid.

We weren't quite ready to go home, though. When we got to downtown, I asked the kids if they wanted to get out and walk around. So we did. Here they are in front of the Hyatt, which has my favorite elevator. It's a fast one, and it's glass, so you can see out across the valley. There's a revolving restaurant on top that I've eaten at a couple of times, and it's just kind of a fun thing to wander into a hotel and ride the elevator.

The kids liked looking straight up at the Chase building, which is the tallest one downtown.

We ended up walking a little over two miles before getting back on the train to go to the car. Robbie really likes the tunnel on I-10 that takes you underneath 7th Avenue to 7th Street, so he gets a kick out of being on top of the tunnel. Poor things thought they'd be able to see the cars underneath us if they looked through the storm grates.

Here's Robbie at Margaret T. Hance park, on top of the tunnel. I was glad to get a real smile out of him, even if the reason behind it is sketchy. Ask me about if sometime if you must know.

We also got to check out a dead pigeon. Erin informed me that the ants had already eaten its eyeball. Just thought I'd share!

I wonder what we'll do next Saturday?

Tres Rios Festival 2010

2010-03-06T18:11:00.000-08:00

We went to the Tres Rios Festival again this year. It's always pretty interesting & the kids have a great time! It's usually held in the river bottom near Phoenix Int'l Raceway, but right now the river is too full from all the rain we've had, so they moved the festival to Estrella Regional Park.

There was plenty to do! We saw lots of animals... a ground squirrel, hawks, owls, falcons, hummingbirds, rattlesnakes, a chinchilla, a burro, and some fish.

Robbie loved the ground squirrel!

Feeding the burro...

The fishing booth was a lot of fun. People were there to bait the kids' hooks and take them out of the fish afterward. They also let the kids touch the fish before throwing them back. Here are the kids with one of the fish Erin caught.

The archery booth was cool. The guy who helped us was really nice, and the kids absolutely loved shooting the arrows! I thought it would be too complicated for them, but they did a really good job.

We also enjoyed watching the police helicopter land and take off a couple of times while they were trying to rescue someone who got his truck stuck on the other side of the river. (The rains always bring out the hillbillies who think their trucks are invincible) The helicopter was pretty much landing in the parking lot of the festival, so we got a pretty good view.

Of course, we came home with plenty of loot, too. Canvas bags, pencils, flashlights, pens, coloring books, squishy balls, beach balls, frisbees, even pizza cutters!

It was a good day. I love spring!

What we've been up to

2010-02-08T17:37:00.000-08:00

The kids and I hiked up to the waterfall in the White Tank mountains. None of us had ever been there before, but we heard the waterfall only runs after it rains. So after Noah's flood in January, off we went!

At the waterfall:

Climbing on the rocks:

It was a gorgeous day, and everyone else had the same idea. It was pretty crowded, but still nice. It's such an easy hike, and it was fun to climb around on the rocks. There are also a lot of petroglyphs to look at. The waterfall is kind of around a corner in the canyon, so unless we wanted to wade into the water, we couldn't really see the whole thing. I'd like to go back when it's dry so we can do a little more climbing.

In front of some petroglyphs:

Some of you may know I got a new job. I've been working part-time at Kohl's for almost a year, and I went back to work full-time in August at Express Scripts. It was a nice place to work, and I appreciated my friend Mary for letting me know about the job! We would've been in bad shape without it.

A few weeks ago, Rob's sister Stephanie took a different job where she works, and she told her boss she knew someone who'd be good to fill her old position (me). They interviewed me and now I'm working at EcoPlan. It's an environmental consulting firm, and they do a lot of work all over the state. I handle contracts & cost estimates - very similar to what I did when I worked for Phelps Dodge. It's been good so far, and the projects are interesting; I like learning more stuff about Arizona. Although starting a new job is always weird until you get past the learning curve. Hopefully that will go quickly! I'm enjoying it, and the pay increase has been such a relief. Thank you Steph! I was even able to put in my notice at Kohl's last week. I'll work there the next two Friday nights, and that's it. I will dearly miss the employee discount, but I'm excited to have Friday nights back!

Rob started umpiring fast-pitch softball in addition to the slow-pitch he's always done. It will open up a little more availability for him to umpire more often. He likes it so far, and he got to buy a whole bunch of new equipment (yay for tax write-offs). The kids like whacking him in the chest when he's wearing all his padding.

A couple of weeks ago, the kids and I went over to my parents house to see them and my sister and three of her kids, who were visiting for the weekend. We all went to Joe's Farm Grill, and it was gooooood! It's a pretty cool place & very yummy food. The weather was awesome again, and we had a nice time.

Erica, Robbie & Grandma:

Later that night, we went to see Rob for a little bit between games. He was umpiring at Papago Park. Since we were driving through the park on our way home, I stopped so we could hike up Hole in the Rock. The kids thought I was nuts since it was night, but the moon was so bright we didn't need flashlights or anything. They got a kick out of hiking at night & it was a pretty view of the city lights.

Well, I think that catches us up! At least on the things I have pictures of.

Christmas 2009

2010-01-09T21:22:00.000-08:00

Now that we're a week into January, let's talk about Christmas!

On Christmas Eve, we had dinner at Macayo's (mmmmmm) and came home to get the kids bathed & in their pajamas. Then we drove around looking at Christmas lights like we do every year. We had to head home when the radio started reporting that Santa was getting closer to the west coast. We had some late-night cinnamon rolls and left a few out for Santa.

Lo and behold, Santa came!

Good morning!

Every time Robbie opened a present, he said, "I don't know what this might be!"

Happy kids

THEN, during breakfast, someone knocked on our front door. We heard bells and "Ho ho ho"... and it was Santa! He said he forgot a couple of presents & wanted to bring them by. Erin knew it was our friend Rick from church, but she loved it & played along. He told Rob and I that he wanted to stop by on Christmas morning, but we didn't know he'd be STOPPING BY Santa Claus style! Robbie absolutely refused to look at him. But what a fun surprise! It was so cool that he did that.

We missed my parents coming over this year, but we were happy my sister got a turn to have them at her house! And since my brother Chris's son was getting baptized on the 27th, we got to see everyone for a little bit then.

After breakfast, we went to Rob's sister Brigette's house for Round 2 of Christmas! It was nice to see everyone there, and they had Christmas dinner over there. I worked on Christmas night, so Brigette and Sandy made sure I had a plate of food to bring along.

We had such a nice time. And now all the Christmas stuff is down & put away and we're moving on into January. My mom always said January is kind of a letdown after all the fun of Thanksgiving and Christmas. Kind of like a giant Monday.

Happy New Year! ha ha

Thanksgiving 2009

2009-12-04T06:42:00.000-08:00

For Thanksgiving, we drove up to Miami to eat with my family. Everyone was there except for my brother Chris and his family, because he had to work.

On the way up, we stopped by the Queen Creek tunnel on Highway 60 and hiked down the old highway through the old tunnel, just because.

It was nice to see everyone, even if it was just for a couple of hours. We always meet at the church in Miami and eat there. Of course we ran across the street and put a bunch of pennies on the train tracks, so we could collect the smashed results after the train passed. The kids really got a kick out of that!

After Thanksgiving lunch, we drove back to Mesa to have Thanksgiving dinner with Rob's family. We ate at Brigette & Steven's new house, and they did everything! Crazy, if you ask me. But it was really nice. The kids had fun running around in the back yard.

Erin's loose tooth held up through all that eating, but not for too much longer. It finally came out a few days ago, and now she's up to a grand total of 3 teeth she's lost. She's frustrated because some kindergarteners have more permanent teeth than she does! But it's OK, they'll come out when they're supposed to, right?

Halloween 2009

2009-11-01T19:17:00.000-08:00

Happy Halloween!

We had a busy day on Halloween. Rob had to umpire a few games in the morning, and I took the kids to the ASU homecoming parade & block party. I forgot how much STUFF they give away at that thing! We came home with lots of candy, of course, and tons of pencils & pens, two whole boxes of crayons, a frisbee, Sparky masks, coloring books, magazines, Sparky tattoos... I'm glad we brought a little backpack. Some of the stuff we did there:

Watched the parade

Sat on a police motorcycle & tried on the cop's helmet

I didn't get a good picture of Erin on it because the cop took a Polaroid. It wasn't until afterward that I saw it wasn't a great picture. (By the way, Erin had never seen a Polaroid before & she was pretty impressed with the "magic picture" as the cop called it)

Bounced & slid on a big ASU inflatable

Walked over the bridge that says ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY

After that, we had lunch at Boston Market with my parents. They were doing $1 meals all week, and there's not one on our side of town, so we had to take advantage. Then we hung out at my parents' house for a little bit before coming home to get ready for Halloween.

Erin wanted to be a devil this year. I probably should've painted her face & hair red, but it was so nice to not have to wash any off that stuff off before bed!

I found some firefighter-printed pajamas in Robbie's size for $6 and got a firefighter hat at the dollar store. The best part is that when we got home last night, all I had to do was take his hat off, wash his face & hands, and he was ready for bed.

We went to the Trunk or Treat at the church & it was a lot of fun. The weather was AWESOME! And we got 50-cent corn dogs from Sonic on our way over. This obviously isn't a good picture, but I still sort of like it. Maybe it portrays the overall feeling of Halloween (ha ha)

And of course, what would Halloween be without candy sorting?

Happy Halloween!

Ten Years

2009-10-08T00:00:00.000-07:00

Rob and I have been married TEN YEARS today!

We were married Friday, October 8, 1999 in the Mesa temple. Our reception was that evening, and then we flew to Cancun the next day for our honeymoon. Shall we take a trip down memory lane?

Engagement photos....

Now, having been to lots more weddings in the past ten years, there are probably some things I'd do differently if I were to plan a reception today, but it was nice. We had fun, and and our families and lots of friends helped us out in so many ways to make it a special day for us! It's kind of too bad receptions aren't longer so you can spend more time with all the people who help out or travel from out of town or go out of their way to be there for you. It's nice to read the guest list and think about all the people we love who came to be there with us.

A few interesting things from our wedding day...

Like the bride forgetting to bring her white shoes and only having BLACK ones to wear out of the temple...

And having a fountain punch bowl that LIGHTS UP RED when you plug it in!

And I had to include this picture because, well... look!

...cracks me up.

Rob sliced up his hand while cutting string off the car so we could get into it, and he did a good job not bleeding all over the white rented tux. "Are you okay? Don't bleed on the tux!"

We drove off into the night, happily ever after....

WAIT. Almost. We stopped by my parents' house on the way to our hotel so we could hang up my wedding dress and leave Rob's tux, and he discovered one of the car vandals' keys in his car! So he took off to bring the keys back to the reception while I changed clothes at my parents' house. He said he got some pretty confused looks when people looked into the "Just Married" car and just saw some poor guy driving along by himself.

Mind you, it really was a great day! But what would a stroll down memory lane be without some entertaining details? We can't forget that stuff.

We had a good time in Cancun & got to do a lot of interesting stuff, like swim with dolphins and ride wave runners without glasses or contacts (going without glasses or contacts is an adventure in itself for both of us!) and checking out the Mayan pyramids at Chichen Itza.

When we got home, both of our parents came over and we opened our wedding presents. Later, we had our first meal in our apartment: melted American cheese on hot dog buns. Then it was back to work and school!

We had a good start, and ten years & two kids later, things are still going pretty well, entertaining details and all!

Happy 10th Anniversary, Rob! I love you!

Fall!

2009-10-03T21:14:00.000-07:00

It's fall!! Either that or we're having a cold spell. The high was only 90 today!

Rob didn't have to umpire today, so he actually got to play softball. We went to a couple of his games. The kids loved riding their scooters at the park.

Then we hiked up Monument Hill. It's the point where the surveys for the whole valley started back in the 1860's. The whole city was mapped out from this point, and they have a little plaque and concrete compass rose right on top of the mountain. Erin is getting kind of interested in maps, so she got a kick out of that. We could see just about everything from up there. Downtown is just above Robbie's head, and Camelback Mountain is to the right of that.

Don't worry - they're not that sunburned. They just get pink in the heat like their mom.

Monument Hill also butts up against Phoenix International Raceway, so we got a good view of that. On Saturdays, they open up the racetrack & let people pay to drive their own cars in there. Kind of interesting to watch. Robbie really liked that, since it was so similar to the Cars movie. (Robbie really hated this cactus. I told him to be careful & not to touch it because it's pokey, and then he didn't want to go anywhere near it!)

The Base & Meridian wildlife area is right at the bottom of the hill, so we went down there for a little bit. We threw a lot of rocks in the water, and the kids put their toes in for a little bit. It's a well-used area, I'll say, because there were plenty of beer cans & grocery bags lying around. It bothers me to see so much crap around, but it's still a fun place to go.

Then Rob had a break between games, so we met him at Hungry Howie's for pizza. Pretty good pizza - same $5 carryout deal as Little Caesar's, but not quite as... well... Little Caesar's. You know.

We went home, had baths and cooled down for a bit, and then we went back to Avondale for Rob's last game. His team was undefeated & won the tournament, so that was pretty fun for him. Right now, he's proudly wearing the t-shirt he won (ha ha). Here are the kids watching him bat. (Not sure what's going on with the umpire & the catcher, though)

We're tired! But it was a good day, and I'm so happy the bearable weather is here!

Baseball

2009-09-13T19:13:00.000-07:00

Last night, I took the kids to the Diamondbacks/Brewers game. The kids had their free tickets from the summer reading program at the library, and I spent a whole $6 on my ticket. Rob didn't get to go because he umpired from 9am - 8pm yesterday! It was HOT outside, I felt sorry for him.

When I told Robbie that we were playing the Brewers, he got all excited & started chanting "Walkie Brewers!" I reminded him that we wanted the Diamondbacks to win, but he had his own idea. (Remember, he likes the Brewers since we popped in on spring training that time and the guy gave him a couple of baseballs)

Well, Robbie got his way, because it was a shameful 9-2 loss for the Diamondbacks! We left during the 7th inning stretch. We stayed long enough to hear a couple thousand people sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" though... that's one of the boy's favorites.

It was Hispanic Heritage night at the ballpark, so the team's jerseys said "Los D'Backs" and they played a lot of Satana & stuff on the sound system. They had a few mariachi bands & dancers out in the concourse, and it was pretty cool.

Here come the pictures...

Diamondbacks tattoos:

The gun show - BANG!

BANG!

We had a good time.

So my blogging has suffered lately because I went back to work full-time. I am working at Express Scripts in Tempe, and it's been pretty good so far. Although I'm still in training. My friend Mary works there, and she told me about the job. I totally owe her lunch.

I was nervous/sad about having to leave Robbie during the day, but my friend Alayna is watching him & he loves it! Her son started kindergarten this year, and her oldest daughter is the same age as Robbie, so they keep each other busy. Alayna is great & multi-talented. For those of you who don't know her, go to her website & check out the coolest baby toys ever: Zadyball.com

For the time being, I'm still staying on at Kohl's, but only for Friday nights. Rob thinks I should quit, and I will when I'm completely tired of it, but for now it's nice to still get the employee discount and to get my window shopping done while I work. Not to mention getting a few extra dollars every week.

Erin is tearing it up in second grade. She loves it! Her teacher is really good & Erin is excited about school every day. She got her first progress report the other day, and she has all A's and one B. The B is 96%, and four of her A's are 100% so that's pretty cool! We're proud of her.

So that's what we've been up to.

Second Grade!

2009-08-16T18:06:00.000-07:00

Somewhere in the middle of all the chaos of the last two weeks, Erin started second grade. Tuesday was the first day of school, and she's pretty happy to be in second grade.

Here she is before school, and with the backpack Mom customized for her:

Her teacher, Mrs. Petersen is very nice. We went to "Meet the Teacher Day" the Friday before school started, and after we left the classroom, I asked Erin what she thought of her new teacher...

"She seems nice! She seems like she's not one of those teachers who gets all up in your face."

Okay then! That's the type of teacher I like, too.

Kindergarteners and first graders share a playground, and when you go to 2nd Grade, you get to play on the "bigger" playground. Erin is pretty pleased that she gets to play on that one now, and she's excited about the idea of getting to read to the kindergarteners now that she's in 2nd grade.

Mrs. Petersen said she has good leadership skills, and that she scored the highest in the class on their spelling pre-test. I guess she only missed four, and there are 7th grade words on there! That made Mom proud.

Rob's dad, Bob, his wife Sandy, and Rob's half-sister Annalice flew down for Molly's funeral, and they stayed with us for a couple of days. It was nice to visit with them, because we haven't really seen them since we visited them when Erin was a year old. Of course, the visit wasn't under the best of circumstances, but we enjoyed having them, and we're glad they stayed with us.

Visiting...

Steven (Brigette's fiance), Rob, Brigette, Bob, Robbie (crazy), Sandy

Robbie, Briana (in pink), Annalice (on stomach), Erin, Ayla (rockin' out)

I'm sure I'm leaving stuff out, but catching up is tricky! I start a new job tomorrow, and I'll blog about that when I have something to write! I'll leave you with a couple random pictures I took of the kids recently.

Molly

2009-08-16T17:41:00.000-07:00

This is my niece Molly.

She would've been 3 in October. She is Rob's sister Brigette's youngest.

Molly went on vacation with her mom, her brother, and her sisters a few weeks ago. They drove to northern Illinois to visit Brigette & Rob's dad and his family. Molly got sick and had to go to the ER while she was there. After some blood tests revealed she probably had leukemia, she was admitted to the children's hospital in Milwaukee. She was diagnosed with leukemia and began treatment. She stayed there for a week while she was stabilized and began chemo.

She was finally able to fly home! This was about two weeks ago. She flew home on a Tuesday, had a great time with her family, and then died on Wednesday morning. We were all shocked! She was supposed to be getting better, but just like that, she was gone.

Needless to say, it has been a rough couple of weeks. This past Wednesday was her funeral. It was a very nice service, and neat to see so many people honor a little two-year-old. I gave the most difficult opening prayer of my life, and Rob dedicated the grave. He had never done that before, and he did a very good job.

Molly is a sweetie, and we will miss her a lot. Brigette and the kids are doing okay, and life has to go on.

I still say caskets should not have to come in certain sizes. It's very sad, but at the same time, we are thankful that she doesn't have to be sick anymore, and we know that she is with Heavenly Father and that we will get to see her again one day.

We love you, Molly!

The Science Center

2009-07-28T07:34:00.000-07:00

Rob was off yesterday, so our whole family went to the Arizona Science Center courtesy of the culture pass. Of course there is a lot to do there:

Watch a lady dissect a cow's eye, and then touch it afterward...
(with gloves on)

Throw balls into the nose until it sneezed again...

(Not as terrifying to Robbie as it was last time)

Toyed with peoples' emotions...

Looked at stuff made of Legos...

Rolled balls through PVC pipes stuck to a wall with magnets...

It was a little busy there; I'm glad we didn't try to go on a Saturday, like we were originally planning.

Afterward, we went to the Krispy Kreme downtown so Erin could get the free donuts for the A's on her report card! Then we just went home to cool down, because it was H-O-T out.

Only a couple more weeks til school starts! Summer has gone fast.

Happy Birthday, Erin!

2009-07-21T13:12:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was Erin's 7th birthday. She is growing up!

We celebrated her birthday at Rob's parents' house in Mesa on Sunday. Erin was born on Rob's sister Brigette's birthday, so they share a birthday. And her cousin Briana (Brigette's daughter) was celebrating too, because her birthday is tomorrow! July is a busy month.

We had pizza, watched the girls open presents, and had a huge cake with lots of candles!

Yesterday, my parents came over to celebrate. Erin opened her presents, and then we had dinner at Red Robin. (Mmmmm, Jamaican Jerk Chicken Burger!) We finished eating just in time to walk through a dust storm on the way to the car. Then we came back home to have cake. Although we were all stuffed!

Erin is a smart girl, and she's a very good kid. She's always been pretty well-behaved, so I am pretty impatient with her when she does act up or does something wrong. Rob and I both need to work on that & cut her some slack.

She has always been a talker, and it's pretty fun to have a conversation with her. She's down-to-earth and logical, and she's always been easy to reason with. She just gets it. She has kind of a sarcastic sense of humor (wonder where she gets that?) and she's so observant; she always has something interesting to point out.

She's a really good big sister to Robbie, and she looks out for him. She shares with him, and she is always willing to help him out or show him how something works. He really looks up to her.

In less than a month, she'll start second grade! I can't believe how fast the last seven years have gone by.

We love you, Erin!

Fourth of July and the Splash Park

2009-07-05T21:23:00.001-07:00

We didn't do much for the Fourth of July, but we did spend a few hours at the new Goodyear ballpark, where the Indians and the Reds have spring training.

Look how nice the grass is!

It's a nice park, and they had a lot of stuff set up. The fireworks show was really good, and it was the first time Robbie could really enjoy watching them without being terrified! (Although he was still a little skeptical, and he claims he didn't like the big ones)

Erin thoroughlly enjoyed the fireworks, and she had a lot of fun peoplewatching from our seats. She was happy that there were plenty of hippies to look at. I'm pretty sure she thinks that anyone in a tie-dyed shirt is a hippie. But there were definitely some characters out there!

They had 3D glasses to watch the fireworks with, which was a little stupid, but whatever. The kids got a kick out of them. And who doesn't want to look like this when they're out in public?

It was a little HOT out, but we were sitting in the shade, and then once the sun went down, it cooled off to less hot.

Just a few days ago, the kids and I enjoyed a nice, overcast day at the splash park! It never did rain that day, but the clouds were a welcome change.

Splash parks are great!

Happy Birthday, Robbie!

2009-06-26T19:34:00.000-07:00

Robbie is done being 2, and has moved on to 3.

He had a simple birthday - our families came over tonight for cake & ice cream. Both sets of grandparents, all but one of his cousins from Rob's side, and my sister were able to come.

A couple of months ago, he told me out of the blue that he wanted an ASU Sparky cake for his birthday. Saved me some trouble of figuring out what kind of cake to make!! So here's what I came up with. It wasn't quite what I invisioned, but we're just cutting it up and eating it anyway, right?

For extra staining power, it was red velvet cake inside.

He liked all his presents, of course, except for the clothes, which he tossed aside as tissue paper.

Here's a happy boy with a new car! (And a light shining out of his head)

We were too busy for a nap this afternoon, so he is currently running on fumes while he tries to play with all his new toys at the same time. He had a good day!

We love you, Robbie!

Camping

2009-06-10T17:08:00.000-07:00

We had a great time camping at Knoll Lake again last week! The weather was perfect, nobody was sick, and nothing went wrong.

Had something gone wrong, we probably would've been okay, since there were about a hundred Boy Scouts sharing the campground with us! We though "oh great" when we realized it was a week-long multi-troop scout camp, but they were great kids & didn't bother us at all. We saw them passing off merit badges for boating, fishing, cutting wood, biking, and (gasp) we heard them shooting rifles. They were a busy bunch of kids.

We hiked a little more than we usually do. The kids are good little hikers and pull their own weight.

Rob didn't bring his remote control boat this year, so we did other stuff at the lake. He doesn't like to eat fish, and I have not desire to gut & clean them anyway, so we don't fish. But the kids really like watching the schools of baby fish, and we caught a few with an aquarium net so we could check them out for a while. I named the first one Steve, and then Erin named the rest.

Here are Steve, Bob, Newton, Jamie, and Claude (the crawdad).

When we set them free, I let the kids (and Rob) each hold one in their hand for a few seconds before tossing them back in the water.

I realy wanted to hike up to the beginning of the lake and see if we could hike up the creek bed that empties into it. But there's not really a clear trail to get there, and it's a pretty steep gorge straight down to the lake, so it's kind of a hard hike for the kids. But they toughed it out, and nobody had to be carried. Here we are resting near the end of the lake, where it starts to get narrow.

From there, Erin and I went on to find the creek. The lake is fed just on snow melt, so both streams that empty into it were already dry, and we didn't bother hiking up them. But we made it to the end, and we got to hop across to the other side. We saw a lot of tracks in the sand there - elk, deer, and bobcat. Here's Erin at the very end of the lake:

We did remember to use the self-timer on the camera this time, so we got a rare picture of the whole family together. Somebody really needs a tan.

Robbie really liked this little tree just his size on the hike back up. You can kind of get the idea of how steep the slope is from this picture.

And of course we did the usual camping stuff...

Stared at the fire

Sang primary songs around the fire

Ate licorice (or lickerlish, as Robbie says)

Played with worms

No pictures of s'mores this time. Probaby because the photographer had a good amount of melted marshmallow on her fingers.

Rob and I got to use our new 8-person tent! We love it. The kids got to use our old 4/6-person tent. We wanted a huge tent so we'd have plenty of room inside for those camping trips when it rains and we all have to huddle somewhere. That wasn't a problem this time, but we were able to bring our chairs in there and we all hung out together while Robbie took his nap in the afternoons. Erin read to us from her Ramona books while he fell asleep, and then we would play cards or draw and color in there.

On the last day, we put the kids' tent away and we all slept in ours. It gave us a head start for packing up in the morning, and it was kind of fun to have a little slumber party.

Here's a not-too-great picture of our campsite. Our tent is behind the screen room, which is hiding one of the picnic tables. The kids' tent is to the right of the other picnic table.

So we're home, cleaned up, and back to everyday life again! It was just the right amount of vacation.

Catching Up

2009-05-16T22:31:00.001-07:00

We've been busy, but you sure wouldn't know it from our blog!

Today the kids and I went to the zoo courtesy of Culture Pass. I wanted to do it some weekend before it got "too hot". Ha! But we went anyway. It was only 102. Rob started umpiring softball at 10:00 this morning, he's still umpiring right now, and he should be done by 1:00 or so in the morning. I don't know how he does it! They would have to take me to the hospital.

Zoo pictures...

After the zoo, we stopped by Sonic for free drinks. I got a birthday coupon in my e-mail, and Erin had one of the free ones from school, courtesy of my sister (thanks, Kristil!) Then we met my parents for lunch at El Pollo Loco because they're honoring the ill-fated KFC internet coupons that KFC stopped honoring. I'm glad I didn't throw mine away! It was gooooood.

Then back to my parents' house to swim. The water was a little cold at first, but perfect after a few minutes! Just what we needed. The kids did great! Erin swam quite a bit on her own, although it's more fun to swim with the noodles & stuff. Robbie wore the arm floaties and just took off! No hesitation about leaping in off the steps or getting his face wet. We'll be forgoing the swim lessons at the public pool this summer, after last year's price hike and disease-ridden water that cost us many rolls of toilet paper.

We ate dinner at Jack-in-the-Box (love those weird tacos!) and had ice cream at Baskin Robbins. Here's Dad bouncing my heavy kids on his knees.

His poor knees.

...And here are some pictues of other stuff I've neglected to blog about!

Erin FINALLY lost a tooth! The poor girl is almost 7, and all her friends have been sporting their permanent teeth for quite a while. The darn thing didn't even get loose until the permanent tooth came almost all the way in behind it! So here's the picture with her gap - although her backup tooth was already there.

Erin also got to go to the Honors Night for school. If you're on the honor roll for three quarters, you get to go to Honors Night and get a trophy. Erin had principal's honor roll, so she got to get one of the tall trophies. I had to work that night, but Rob brought the camera. His step-dad and my parents were also able to go, so Erin was pretty happy to have a little entourage!

For Mother's Day, Rob got me the copper kitchen faucet I've been wanting! He installed it one night when I was at work (and then he re-installed it after I asked him to switch the sprayer and the on/off lever). The only thing we need to do something about is the air gap cover for the dishwasher. The old silver one is definitely out of place now and has to go. But it was a nice surprise & I really like my new faucet!

We went to the Arizona Science Center a few weeks ago, and Erin got to bring a couple of her friends. Robbie enjoyed hanging out with the ladies! Among the highlights:

Throwing balls into the nostrils of a giant nose until it sneezed

and lying on a bed of nails.

This Thursday is the last day of school. We're going camping in a couple of weeks, and we're ready for summer!

Diamondbacks Lose!

2009-04-27T09:50:00.001-07:00

Our neighbor gave us tickets to Friday's Diamondbacks game! We hadn't been yet this year, so we were glad for the chance to go.

Watching the roof open

The seats were upstairs, where it wasn't too crowded, so we had plenty of room to spread out. Rob and I both signed up as designated drivers, so we each got a free soda.

We lost pretty badly to the Giants, but we stayed for the whole game because they do fireworks on Friday nights. Robbie felt the need to cover his ears during the whole fireworks show, and Erin was really excited about the finale. The next day, she wrote a thank-you note and brought it over to the neighbors.

It was a lot of fun!

And here are a couple of Diamondbacks-related deals for my Phoenix friends. When we score at least 6 runs in a game (even if we lose) Taco Bell will give you 3 free tacos the following day if you buy a large drink. You don't have a to show a ticket stub or anything; just tell them at the register. We've done this plenty of times already!

The one I learned about on Friday is a free drink from Circle K. When we get 7 strikeouts in a game (I think 7 is the magic number, anyway) you can go to Circle K's web site and print out a coupon for a free drink. But it expires 24 hours after the game, so you have to do it right away. I didn't try it soon enough last time, so too bad for me. But here's the link if anyone wants to try it next time!

Speaking of free stuff, there are a few good deals this week! Check out my "free/cheap" list over there ----->

Downtown

2009-04-18T17:24:00.000-07:00

The kids and I spent the day downtown.

We went to the Children's Museum of Phoenix for free, thanks to the Culture Pass at the library. It's a pretty neat place! And it's cool that it's housed in the old Monroe School building.

What a place for kids to keep busy! We did a lot of stuff...

Drove through the car wash...

Painted a house...

Made caterpillars...

Ran through the noodle forest...

Tried on Size 18 shoes...

Cooked fabric pizza in the brick oven...

Went to the grocery store...

(I really liked this little store - very cute!)

Weighed split peas...

Worked at the loading dock in the back of the store...

Sat on an orange motorcycle...

And allowed Mom to take a bunch of pictures.

(Those are thousands of kid-decorated CD's hanging on the back wall)

We had a lot of fun!

After that, we drove through downtown and parked outside the Hyatt so we could ride the elevator inside. It's a fast one, and you can look out over the city on your way up. There's a revolving restaurant on top, but that sort of dining wasn't in the budget today!

Jack-in-the-Box was in the budget. We watched the cool cars coming to and going from a classic car show across the street while we ate.

Then on to Encanto Park. We didn't go to the little amusement park there, but we walked around the lake and the kids played on the equipment for a while. We watched the geese & ducks, and the kids liked spotting fish in the water. I liked looking at the nice old houses in that neighborhood.

I meant to go to the Whoopee Daze parade in Tolleson, but we didn't get out of the house in time. In eight years of living in this house, I've never been to it! One weekend every April, we see the signs when we drive through Tolleson on our way to church, only to realize it's over and we missed it. Every single year we forget. Oh well, maybe next year!

The kids are watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and I'm taking a breather. Later I think we'll go out for some ice cream. It's been a good day!

PS - I heard on the radio today that Streets of New York will give kids a free pizza & soda if they bring in their straight-A report cards! FYI - Here's the link. Pretty good pizza, too, if you haven't tried it. It's probably our second favorite after Vito's.

Who forgets to get the camera out on Easter?!

2009-04-13T15:54:00.000-07:00

Me. But I brought it with me on Saturday!

We went to Rob's sister Stephanie's house for a day-before-Easter get together. Rob's parents weren't feeling well, so they didn't come. And Rob's older sister Brigette's kids were visiting their dad, so it was just a few of us this time! But we had a good time.

Of course we ate ham and potatoes, and we had some yummy Jello cake. Rob's mom sent over some Easter baskets for the kids, which they really liked!

It sprinkled a little, but the grass was still dry enough to play outside. The weather was actually really good. I spent some quality time in the hammock.

Rob and Scott played horseshoes for a while. Robbie kept wanting to go get the horseshoes for them, though... yikes...

They had the kids sit on the pit until they were done throwing, and then they would take off for the other pit to go check out the horseshoes.

Erin had a nice time playing with her youngest cousin, Sydnie. Here they are with Brigette:

And we all had fun playing with Smokey. Smokey is deaf, but he knows quite a bit of sign language. I'm always impressed with how much he knows and how well he "listens"! He's a good dog. Scott taught Erin a few signs so she could talk to him. Robbie LOVES animals, and he especially enjoyed getting all Smokey's dog toys out.

Easter was nice. The Easter bunny came, of course, and the kids found all the eggs pretty fast. Erin gave a talk in Primary, and my parents came over to see it. They stayed for the last hour of church, and then we had roast/potatoes/carrots at our house for dinner. We were glad they came over! I told them they could peek in on Robbie's nursery class if they wanted to kind of spy on him and see him in action. When they did, he just happened to be facing right at the window, and they could hear him announce, "That's my Grandpa!!" Oops. He was a happy boy.

As my parents were leaving, my dad had an experience with a "friendly lizard" as Robbie calls it. This crazy lizard lept off the wall, ran across Rob's bare toes, and up my dad's pants leg (on the outside, thank goodness). Then it disappeared for a while! It was nicely camoflauged with his gray pants. Rob found it hiding under Dad's belt loop and then it moved down by his back pocket. When it was in um, a better location, I caught the thing and the kids had fun holding him. He was definitely friendly.

I was glad Erin was assigned a talk, because preparing it gave me a little extra time to think about what Easter is really about. Her topic was "I can live with Heavenly Father and Jesus again". So I got to think about the Atonement and Resurrection in very simple terms. And that's really what it comes down to! Jesus made it possible for us to overcome obstacles that we can't overcome on our own. I'm thankful for the gospel and for this time of year that we really focus on it.

The Air Show

2009-03-23T14:13:00.000-07:00

Well, we went to the air show at Luke Air Force Base on Saturday! It was pretty cool.

It was an absolute nightmare getting there, though! I really didn't think about how many thousands of people would be going at the exact same time as us. If we go next year, we'll go a lot earlier & hopefully avoid some of the mess.

My sister and her kids are staying with my parents this weekend because it's their spring break. So they came over and went to the air show with us. It was nice to see them again. Erin was glad to see her cousins and especially her Aunt Kristil. Robbie was happy, too, but we obviously don't see them often enough, since he just called everyone "Cousin".

All the parking was off-site, and the lot we went to had school buses shuttling everyone into the show. There were several crazy lines of people waiting for buses. After waiting about an hour, we realized the buses had stopped coming back to the parking lot. We found out that a head-on collision had closed off an intersection and none of the buses could get through. After waiting that long, we weren't about to turn around and go home! Lots of people did, though, and that made the lines shorter.

I was hot and crabby and impatient with my poor kids, but they were really pretty good; better behaved than me! So were Kristil's kids. Especially for just standing out in the desert with nothing to do for so long! Poor things. After another half hour or 45 minutes, we were finally on a bus! Crazy to wait so long? Probably, but I say it's crazier to wait that long and just end up going home. Robbie was really happy to ride a school bus like a big kid. He giggled and talked about the cheesy bus for the whole ride.

The ten of us put the bright orange port-a-potties through a rigorous usage, and we went inside the show. I liked that everyone could just wander around the tarmac and hang out in the shade under the planes & stuff. They let us go inside this big cargo plane, which was pretty exciting:

Here are a few pictures of the kids inside. I had the kids sit down, and I couldn't get Robbie to look up. After I took the picture, I realized he was trying to buckle his seat belt - Poor thing thought we were going for a ride! How sad is that. But he was OK, and we went to check out the rest of the plane...

We got to see a lot of planes doing aerobatics, and even a helicopter going upside down and doing rolls and a bunch of other stuff helicopters were not meant to do. And the jets were so cool! The noise scared the tar out of Robbie, but he got over it. We enjoyed most of the show from the shade under a plane.

Toward the end of the show, we noticed a really old guy shuffling around checking out the planes. He had a cane, and he was wearing his old pilot hat. I'm not one to start chatting with people I don't know, but I bet he would've been an interesting guy to talk to. He was really admiring the planes; I'm sure they were much different than what he flew back in the day!

We stayed to watch the beginning of Thunderbirds' show. We would've liked to have seen the whole thing, but there was NO WAY we were going to wait in line for a bus again afterward when everyone else was leaving too! So we left after the first few passes and watched some of the show from the bus.

Here's my filthy, sunburned boy thoroughly enjoying a ride on a school bus:

On the way home, we stopped at Pizza Hut because Kristil had some sweet hook-ups for free pizza. We came home, cleaned the top layer of dirt off the kids, and gorged ourselves on pizza! It was a long day, but pretty fun. I was glad I got to see my sister and my niece & nephews. I didn't get any pictures of us all together, though. Next time!

Spring Break

2009-03-19T21:39:00.000-07:00

Erin's spring break is this week. We didn't really plan anything to do, so most of the fun happened Wednesday and Thursday.

My parents came over Wednesday and brought us lunch. They stayed for a little bit, and then Erin went home with them to stay the night. Erin had a great time, and I'm sure my parents won't need to be inside another mall anytime soon.

They were going to take her to Chili's for lunch, but the one they went to was closed - like out of business - when they got there! So they decided to go to Red Robin across the street. On the way to Red Robin, Erin spotted a Taco Bell and decided she wanted that instead! Now, I do like Taco Bell, but who chooses that over Red Robin?! She's nuts.

Mom and Dad brought her back home yesterday, and we had lunch with them again. After they left, when we were coming back in from saying goodbye, we found a huge lizard on the sidewalk by the front door. My lizard-hunting instincts kicked in and I decided to capture the beast. I was good, too. I got closer and closer and the thing didn't get spooked. Because of my stealthy hunting prowess? NO - when I got real close, I realized this lizard was bleeding out of his eyeball and not breathing too well. My next move? "Erin, go get the camera."

OK, he's not huge, but pretty big. Since he was so lethargic, the kids got to check out his claws and his scales really close. I pointed out how you can see their little sides move when they breathe, but, uh... Hmm. His sides weren't moving anymore. Poor lizard. We relocated him to the grass (what was I supposed to do, throw him away?) and that was that for poor Mr. Lizard. We went inside to wash our hands of whatever he was carrying that caused him such ill fate. (although my guess is cat)

Then we went to this Spring Break Family Day at Westgate in Glendale (where the Coyotes arena & Cardinals stadium are). I thought it would pretty much just be a free movie with tons of wild kids everywhere. But it was great! There really weren't that many people, and it seemed well organized. We didn't play in the little fountain because nobody needs to be soaking wet in a movie theater.

When we picked up our movie tickets, they gave us a paper good for $10 at most of the businesses at Westgate. There wasn't really anything for the kids to spend $10 on, so we went into The Body Shop and got a $10 body butter. Erin loves it, and Robbie liked smelling everything in there. My total was $0.81 after tax.

Then they brought out free ice cream! It was little cups of chocolate or vanilla from Cold Stone! Mmmm. While we were eating, I found a dime in the grass, so my total amount spent went down to $0.71. After the ice cream, we watched "Race to Witch Mountain". I don't watch movies often enough to review them, so I'll rate it with one shrug. Meaning: It's a movie; it's entertaining. The kids liked it & had fun going to the theater.

On our way out, Robbie really wanted to go on the escalator. Erin was amused that there was an escalator outside. So I sent them on one ride up and then back down.

We watched the big fountain for a while (like the Bellagio's step-child) and then discovered they were serving free nachos! FREE + NACHOS = DINNER. A place called Moe's was doing it, and they had black beans and a white nacho cheese sauce that was pretty good. Robbie mostly ate olives. And they gave us bottled water. So we ate nachos by the fountain and listened to a some music. They had a couple of guys set up on a little stage with guitars and they were covering songs from groups like The Eagles and Jack Johnson - good stuff.

And Robbie liked that they were showing basketball on the giant TV.

Then we came home. That was 71 cents well spent!

The kids ran to check out the dead lizard again (Yep, still dead) and we went inside to relax. Well, I relaxed anyway. The kids had their second wind. I'm not completely sure I even had my first wind today! Whatever that means.

Tomorrow we're going to this.

Blogapalooza

2009-03-10T15:24:00.000-07:00

No, you’re not imagining it: three blog posts in one day! I’ve been hesitant to blog the last few days, so bear with me while I explain myself and make up for it.

The main reason I’ve put off blogging is because I feel somewhat guilty. A good friend of mine lost her very young son suddenly last week. She and her family have been on my mind constantly, and I guess I feel bad about posting about our everyday, silly goings-on when I know she is suffering through such a horrible time.

I’m not going to discuss her situation because I feel it’s inappropriate to write about someone else’s tragedy. However, the thoughts and feelings I’ve had lately are important to me and I feel I should get them out and share some of them. The things I’ve learned & reflected on in the wake of someone else’s misfortune.

I love my kids and I am very grateful for them. Period. There’s not a stronger way to say it! Today while Erin was at school and Robbie was napping, I had some quiet time while doing laundry and ironing. I folded Erin’s pants and was thankful that they will be filled with a wonderful little girl again. I ironed Robbie’s little dress shirts and was thankful that I was preparing them for church and not for a viewing.

I hope I don’t forget. Will I get mad at my kids again? Yes. Was I happy when Robbie let go of my hand and ran down the aisle in Target today? No. But I love them and I’m glad they’re mine.

Tomorrow I’m going to the funeral. I’ve been kind of trying to prepare myself emotionally, but you can’t. There are certain sizes caskets just shouldn’t come in. It makes my heart ache. I know my friend would be there for me if the situation were reversed. I pray that Heavenly Father will give her the strength and comfort to get through the service. And then to get home. And then to eat lunch. And to get up every day. And to enjoy her life, as different as it will be. I know He will. Maybe it will just be a little bit at a time, but I know that Heavenly Father blesses each of us more than we know.

Why on earth would I post about this on my blog? I guess I’m just thankful for a very important reminder of my priorities, and I want to remind everyone else. Now go hug your kids. Don’t take them for granted like we tend to do sometimes.

Now I’ve come to terms about posting about what we’ve been up to lately. I think that when bad things happen, we sometimes feel like moving on with our lives belittles the tragedy. I’m learning that is not the case. While we should reverence life, living it and enjoying it are part of reverencing it.

Here’s to living life…

Changes

2009-03-10T15:19:00.000-07:00

Now that I'm not babysitting, I find myself a little more free to go out and do things during the day. I also find myself without cash.

I picked up a part-time shift at the new Kohl's they built a couple of miles away. I'll be working from 8pm-12:30am after it opens on April 1st. I have an Ad-Set position, which is more behind-the-scenes, so I won't be running a register or anything like that. In the meantime, I'm working other random evening shifts, training and merchandising. The pay is low, and the hours are low, but the shift is perfect so I won't miss anything with the kids. Hopefully the paycheck will help to fill the gaps!

Baseball, Billy Goats, and Meat

2009-03-10T14:57:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, I learned that I wouldn't be babysitting during the day anymore. The kids I was watching are now going to daycare/preschool to get the four-year-old ready for kindergarten. So that was a little change for us! The gave us two weeks' notice, which we really appreciated, and the last day, they paid me and didn't bring the kids over (on purpose). I thought that was a nice gesture.

So I had a day with just me and Robbie last Friday. Erin's class was doing a reader's theater at school that day, so we got to go to that. After dropping her off at school, Robbie and I killed time before going back for the rousing rendition of "The Three Billy Goats Gruff".

We went to the Wal-Mart in Maryvale to buy Ziplocks and managed to spend plenty of time looking through the store. Good thing that one still has fish to look at.

After that, it was off to the library for the remainder of our time! But alas, the library's hours have been cut ala recession and they weren't open yet. I didn't want to go to the park because Robbie had flip-flops on (not too park-friendly). Then it occurred to me that we were right by the Marvale baseball park where the Brewers have spring training! Robbie? Baseball? Perfect! Off we went to watch batting practice. We walked along the outside fence, peeking in through the air holes in the batter's eye and through the gaps in the fence.

Robbie was pretty happy to see "baseball guys" in their uniforms and doing their thing! Finally a ball rolled over near us, and this guy picked it up and handed it to Robbie with the instructions to not break any windows. He was pretty happy! "Official Major Leage Baseball" it says beneath the grass stain.

After that, we went to sit in the grass behind the outfield and wait for something to come over the fence. It wasn't too long before one sailed out and Robbie got to run after it and field it. Two baseballs! He had a good day.

We picked up a Five-Dolla Footlong and went to Erin's school. The kids were cute, reading their parts from behind their goat and troll masks. Robbie liked seeing Erin in her classroom, and she was happy waving back to him. We ate lunch, and Erin's old kindergarten teacher came over and visited with Robbie for a little bit about his ASU shirt. He replied with "Go Devils" and produced the pitchfork for her. She's a cool teacher, and I hope she's still around when Robbie is in kindergarten!

Rob's step-dad sells meat, so we always buy in bulk from him. We used some of our tax return money to buy lots of meat from him, and he came over to deliver it to us later that afternoon. Robbie got to see his Papa Dan, and we had a nice little visit. And a fridge full of meat. (See why we needed the Ziplocks? To divide & freeze insane amounts of ground beef)

It was a good day. Baseball, billy goats, and meat. OH, and Rob shampooed our living room carpet that night. It was MUCH-needed!

The Carnival

2009-02-28T21:17:00.000-08:00

Rob didn't have to umpire today, and we didn't have any plans! He knew there was a little carnival in the parking lot at Arizona Mills mall, so we decided to check it out. Plus, Erin hadn't been to a mall in a while and has been wanting to go.

Erin was big enough to ride just about everything! And she was brave enough to ride a few by herself. (We told her that Dad or I could ride with her, but if she went by herself, she could go twice or ride another ride... she liked that)

Robbie was pretty patient while we waited for Erin to ride things. He got to go on several things, though. There were a couple of rides that he could go on with Erin and didn't need a parent. It was cute to watch both of them! I rode a couple of rides with both kids, and I learned that rides that spin in tight little circles (ala Disneyland teacups) have much more effect on me than they used to! No, I didn't get sick, but wow.

After all the rides, we went inside the mall for lunch. Pizza for the kids, Steak Escape for us. Then we walked all around... Rob was a good sport because he HATES walking around malls, especially on Saturdays when they're busy! Erin brought some money from her piggy bank and shopped tirelessly at Claire's. Robbie brought some quarters from his piggy bank and shopped at the gumball machines.

Outside The Rainforest Cafe are some animal sculptures - giraffes, elephants, monkeys. And the creepy alligator that periodically growls and lunges forward with his mouth agape. We all waited paitently for this to happen, and when it did, Robbie screamed in sheer terror and held on to Rob's neck for dear life! Sobbing. We had no idea it would scare him that much! Poor little thing, he was really terrified. It took a while for him to recover from that one.

Later in our shopping - much later - we walked by it again (not so close) and Rob sort of talked him through it. Robbie got to see that it wasn't going to get anyone and it wasn't going anywhere. He was OK, but a little indignant, and as we left he proclaimed, "Naughty alligator!"

We were tired when we got home. But we still didn't want to sit around the house. The kids got their scooters, and we walked down by the new high school, hoping to check out the football field. It was all fenced off, but we had a nice walk around the park and back.

After that, we went to Cold Stone for some ice cream! I was happy that they added mini marshmallows to their collection of stuff they'll mash into your ice cream. Or maybe I never noticed them before.

We had a good day! It was nice for us to spend a whole Saturday together.

Lawn Mowing Shoes

2009-02-21T16:46:00.000-08:00

...so during our hike, the kids and I developed an aroma. One that deems us unfit to go back out in public for the day. Sitting around indoors would leave me sound asleep within minutes, with my children left to their own devices. Not good! So I decided to do some other smell-appropriate activities.

I donned my lawn-mowing shoes. I think I got these shoes in 1999... great shoes, but they've since been replaced by younger, more attractive shoes, and they've assumed the (important, mind you) role of the shoes I don't mind messing up.

As I was tying my shoes, I remembered an exchange I had with Erin one day last summer when I was getting ready to mow the lawn. It went something like this:

Erin: "You used to wear those shoes all the time when you were skinny."

Me (keeping a straight face): "Huh. Yeah, I guess I did."

Erin (reflecting): "It's been a long time since you wore those shoes."

Awesome.

Thunderbird Conservation Park

2009-02-21T15:35:00.000-08:00

Another good day for a hike! Rob is umpiring all day at Victory Lane again, so the kids and I went up there to see him for lunch. This place is WAY on the north edge of town - 43rd Avenue & Pinnacle Peak.

We drive right through the Thunderbird Conservation Park on our way to the softball park, so I thought it would be a good day to explore something new. There are several trails that wander all over the Hedgpeth Hills. There really aren't any trees, so definitely not someplace I'd go in the summer! But still interesting.

The only trail map I could find wasn't great, so I'm not sure how long our hike was. My best guess after piecing together our route is about a mile or mile and a half up to the top and then back. So maybe just under three miles total. It took us a little over an hour, going at a 2-year-old's pace. The trails were pretty easy.

We saw some quail, a chipmunk, and of course lizards along the way. The chipmunk was our favorite, and I was happy to get a picture of him stretching like a cat before we inconvenienced him enough for him to run off.

At the top, the view is pretty good! Camelback Mountain (at a weird angle) is to Erin's right, and you can barely see downtown (blending in to South Mountain) to her left. We meant to bring Rob's binoculars, but oh well. We saw everything from the freeway on our way up, right?

On the way home, we stopped at Baskin Robbins for some ice cream. The kids got to use the gift certificates Grandma & Grandpa gave them for Valentine's Day!

I hope this awesome weather lasts...

Mini Hikes

2009-02-07T17:25:00.001-08:00

It was supposed to rain this afternoon, but I'm glad it didn't! We had stuff to do.

Rob was umpiring at Papago Park today. I haven't spent much time there at all, but it's a cool place; we'll be going back. The kids and I had a picnic by one of the ponds, and of course we fed the ducks.

Behind them in this picture, you can see "Hole in the Rock". Take a wild guess why they call it that. After lunch, we went to check out the hole. A very easy walk! The kids liked it. Oh, they're sitting in a cool chair carved into a palm tree stump, armrests included.

Here are a couple of pictures of them in the hole...

Once again, we ended up at ASU! Only today, it was to climb up Hayden Butte, aka "A" Mountain. It's paved most of the way up, so it's pretty easy. And Robbie liked looking at the light rail coming and going down below while we worked our way up. Here are the kids hanging out right on the A. Go Devils!

Then we followed the trail on up to the very top. This is a cool place to watch planes coming in to Sky Harbor; they go right over you and you can get a good look at their tummies. (We always ask Robbie what color the plane's tummy is - not sure why. We did it with Erin when she was little, and it kind of stuck.)

Here are the kids on the very top. The very highest rock we could find to sit on! Tempe Town Lake is to the left, and to the right you can see the seats in Sun Devil Stadium and the "bubble" football practice facility.

These are both pretty cool little in-town hikes! Perfect weather today, too. I suspect I'll have to clean the tub after their baths tonight... a clear sign of a good day!

Smothered by Elmo

2009-01-25T20:37:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, the kids and I headed over to ASU for Channel 8's (KAET) birthday party (our PBS carrier in Arizona). When I was going to ASU, a lot of my classes were in the building where the studios are, so it was kind of fun for me to go back.

Grover and Elmo were there. Robbie was a little nervous of them at first, but Erin was a good sport and took him over to see them so I could take a picture. Big furry characters aren't her bag anymore. I only got one picture, so here here is Erin being tolerant, Robbie getting a big hug from (being smothered by?) Elmo, and some kid we don't know. I personally don't like Elmo one bit, but Grover is cool!

They had little masks the kids could cut out and affix a nice PBS pencil to. And they had one of the talk show sets open so we could check it out. I was surprised that they had several TV cameras set up and they were showing the kids how to work them! That was pretty cool. Here's Erin filming.

And here are the kids at the news desk. They had a closed-circuit TV set up so they could see themselves on set.

We had a piece of cake after that and went on our way!

Then we walked around campus a little bit just for the heck of it. Erin really liked the student union. After she saw the Cold Stone, Chick-Fil-A, Burger King, and I told her about the game room downstairs, she told me she definitely wants to go to college at ASU! (Little does she know she won't be able to afford to actually buy anything in there when she's in college! ha ha)

Here are the kids atop Hayden Library.

After ASU, we went to my parents' house for a visit. My oldest brother Keith and his family were there, so we had a nice time visiting with them. Erin and her cousin Amanda latched onto each other and talked pretty much all day long! Robbie really warmed up to his cousin Sarah, and she entertained him the whole time. He was kind of sad when we had to leave.

Here are Keith's kids and my kids... Michael, Sarah with Robbie by the pool, and Erin and Amanda going really high on the porch swing.

And I liked this picture of Sarah and Robbie blowing bubbles in the pool through one of those hollow foam noodles.

Poor Rob was umpiring all day. We were all tired and ready for bed Saturday night!

Go Cardinals!

2009-01-18T08:27:00.000-08:00

The Light Rail

2008-12-31T19:15:00.001-08:00

Today, the kids and I took advantage of the last day of free rides on the new light rail. It was pretty busy, but not bad. We stood a lot, but standing up in a moving vehicle is a novelty for the kids, so no complaints.

(Don't worry, they're not leaning agains the door as the sign forbids. Just close)

We rode almost the whole line; from the second stop on the west side to the second stop on the east side. That stop is about two miles from my parents' house, so they picked us up and we hung out at their house for a while. We had lunch with them and visited for a little bit, and then they drove us back to the train stop.

I wanted to get on the train by 3:00 so we'd be on the way before rush hour, but that sort of backfired. Turns out the Insight Bowl started at 4:00, so ALL the fans were riding the train to Sun Devil Stadium. Oops.

We had to wait at the stop for two trains before there was one with enough room for us. Then there were more people getting on at the other stops, so we were packed like sardines! But that was only for a couple of miles and most of them got off. We got to sit down for the last half of our ride home.

It was a different way to spend the day. We had a good time & saw a lot of stuff!

Christmas 2008

2008-12-31T18:43:00.000-08:00

It's about time I post about Christmas!

We had a great Christmas. Santa was good to everyone, the kids were happy, and the parents were happy.

We drove around on Christmas Eve to look at lights and get the kids sleepy. Then we came home and ate cinnamon rolls, and set one out for Santa. The kids had to go to bed right away so Santa wouldn't have to eat a cold cinnamon roll. The note Erin left let him know his cup of milk was in the fridge. Why would Santa want tepid milk?

My parents came over at 7:00 on Christmas morning and we got the kids up. Santa left a pretty good spread, and of course we all enjoyed opening presents.

After presents and stockings, we had more cinnamon rolls for breakfast!

Grandma & Grandpa went home after breakfast, and we got all the paper, packaging, etc., etc. cleaned up and presents mostly put away. Including all those wretched little plastic bits and rubber bands that secure every inch of children's toys to the packaging... I hate those.

Then it was off to Mesa to see Rob's family. We did stockings, presents, and lunch. Everything you need! I brought my camera, but it remained untouched. Erin had a fun time playing with her cousins, and it was fun to see Sydnie (Scott & Stephanie's 4-month-old) on her first Christmas. We stayed and visited for quite a while, and Erin ended up staying the night. We got home around 10:00 or so and we were glad we had put all the Christmas morning stuff away!

The next day, we got everything else put away and organized, and we just enjoyed our stuff and not having to really do anything. Robbie likes to wear his scooter helmet at random.

Rob's mom & Brigette and the girls brought Erin home that night, so we had another little visit with them.

It was a busy couple of days, but in a good way! We love Christmas!

Snow!

2008-12-20T20:21:00.000-08:00

Today, we drove up toward Flagstaff to play in the snow. This was the kids' first experience with snow! We had a nice little patch all to ourselves. It was pretty powdery, so snowballs only went about as far as the fingertips, but we did everything else you're supposed to do in snow...

Snow angels

Eating snow (Robbie probably ate several pounds)

A tiny snowman, complete with baby carrot nose (we didn't have high enough expectations to bring a full-size carrot)

A 6-1/2 - foot pillar of crusty snow chunks courtesy of Rob

The best part about driving up to the snow? Leaving it there when we're done!

We had a great time, and the kids were happy to finally experience this mysterious snow they've heard so much about! Rob and I were happy that we both still fit into our ski pants. Something for everyone!

"Kiddie Tag"

2008-12-18T12:57:00.000-08:00

My friend Alayna tagged Robbie with this one... what parent can resist this?

Five neat things about Robbie:

1. He's a multi-sport allstar. He always surprises us with what he knows about sports - like he knows to hug the football tight when you fall so you don't fumble. He recognizes Amare Stoudemire, Shaq, and Steve Nash. He will talk about hockey and the Cardinals when we drive past the arena & stadium on the 101. Surprisingly, this isn't because his dad ingrained it into his brain; he just picks it up.

2. He knew the entire alphabet before he could really speak words. In order, out of order, you name it. I know Erin taught him some, but he also spends a lot of time studying the alphabet blanket my mom made him when he's supposed to be taking naps.

3. He's very gentle with animals. Kind of surprising for a little boy with tons of energy! Our cat who is afraid of everything regularly follows him around for attention.

4. He loves music and regularly requests specific songs when we're in the car. Right now he's all about Vampire Weekend's A-Punk and Rihanna's Disturbia (don't worry, he hasn't seen the video; I just saw it myself - yikes)

5. He is a sweetie! If someone gets hurt, he's the first one to run over and kiss the wound. If he accidentally whacks the wall with something, he'll say "I sorry, wall" and go kiss it. (He's also a little weird)

Thanks for the tag, Alayna! Now I'll tag some friends' kids...

Canyon Brimhall

Julian Avila

Isaac Larson

Zachary Busch

Maxson Daley

Tell us about your kids!

Beauty School Dropout

2008-12-11T08:39:00.000-08:00

I am mourning the loss of my boy's hair this morning. Yesterday, I gave him the worst haircut ever and ended up having to trim it all really short.

The hair on top was about 3" long, and I was going to trim about an inch or so off. I had cut his hair before with the clippers and did a pretty good job (if I do say so myself) so I didn't have any reservations about yesterday's haircut. Just like before: shorten the top to help manage his cowlick, taper the sides & back, and trim around the ears & the bottom.

Mid-haircut, I noticed that the hair right on top was like 1/4" long! The clipper guard hadn't slipped, so I have no idea what happened. My stomach sank and I knew I needed to trim the rest to match. How sad. I wanted to cry!

Yesterday, his hair was shiny. You could run your fingers through it and it would fall back down into place. It was pretty when it was tousled. This was a few days ago:

Now it's fuzzy.

Rob says it's fine, but I was just so sad. It took him long enough to grow that hair, and now it's gone! On our back lawn, in fact.

The cowlick isn't a problem anymore. And I've heard it grows in thicker & more even after it's trimmed really short. But for now, I'll continue to mourn.

Tucson gives me the creeps

2008-12-06T07:34:00.000-08:00

Here's a little something to get us in the right spirit... for the ASU vs. U of A game today!

I tried & tried to post the video, but Blogger isn't cooperating, so you'll have to use this link.

Side note: if you ever hear Robbie talking about "stepping on the naughty bus" this is why. Enjoy!

In all fairness, here's a list of things I actually like about U of A:

There you have it! Go Devils!

School Portraits: The Legacy Continues

2008-11-21T11:29:00.001-08:00

So, we got Erin's school pictures back the other day.

AWESOME.

I see she inherited my super powers! So this post is the sequel to this one.

We didn't bother with re-takes; we mostly wanted her class picture, and that one was OK. Re-takes would've cost $10! That's crazy. Not a gamble I care to take, either. I don't like the odds.

Running with the Devil

2008-11-17T11:57:00.000-08:00

We spent Saturday at ASU! It was homecoming, so there was a lot of stuff going on. Lots of booths & things to look at. We went to the parade. The kids had never been to a parade, so it was a new experience. Erin was pretty happy about all the candy they threw! (check out the knees of her jeans from her clamoring to get it)

We walked down Mill Avenue for a little bit, and Erin got to see lots of hippies.

After lunch, we walked over to the stadium for the game. The shade crept over our seats just before the game started, and the weather was perfect! We beat Washington State 31-0, so the game was a lot of fun.

I was sick all weekend, so that probably wasn't the smartest way to spend Saturday, but I'm glad we did!

Robbie has been singing "Fight, Devils, down the field" over and over since Saturday. That boy needs to learn the other lines to the song.

Only one more home game left this season!

Wild Kingdom

2008-11-14T12:11:00.001-08:00

OK, I think I'm a pretty good sport with all the creatures that live around our house - lizards, cicadas, worms...

But do they seriously need to come INSIDE the house?

This lizard has been living under our oven for the last two weeks. In the afternoon, when the patch of sun reaches the oven, he comes out to sun himself. What is this, a resort? Does he brag to his lizard friends?

Granted, I haven't seen any crickets in the kitchen recently, so he's earning his keep. And I like lizards. I just don't think I need one in my kitchen. The kids are pleased.

The little stinker never comes out very far, so I can't quite get my hand behind him before he scurries back under the oven. I try several times a day. At what point do we just decide to consider him a pet?

Speaking of pets, the poor cat. If she gets a peek of the lizard, she'll hang out in the kitchen for hours, staring at bottom of the oven. A while back, we had another lizard in the house, and I don't think she has ever forgiven me for relocating it outside. She just doesn't see that much action in here, you know? She tries, but I think our lizard is pretty safe.

So in the meantime, I'll have to be OK with a creature under my oven. But every afternoon when the sun patch gets closer to the oven, you know either the cat or I will be in there, ready to pounce.

Behind the Scenes

2008-11-12T12:03:00.000-08:00

Bear with me, because who knows how this will turn out! I think one of my favorite things about old pictures is looking at all the stuff in the background & piecing together all the memories. (i.e. "I remember that Michael Jackson poster!" "Look at our huge console TV!")

I took a picture of Robbie cleaning up after lunch today. When he eats something especially messy (mashed potatoes today) I'll take his shirt off, and I'll let him play in the leftover bubbles from doing the dishes (makes cleaning him up easier).

So when I uploaded the photo, I was looking at the details. I think I'll ramble about some of them! In no particular order...

1. Window open, partially dressed kid, November 12! Arizona is awesome.

2. I like my purple kitchen. It looks dark in this picture, but it's pretty bright. I painted it before Erin was one. Above the window, I have vinyl lettering that says "Many have eaten here, few have died".

3. By Robbie's head are some glass vegetables. The tomato's stem is the perfect home for my wedding ring when I'm washing dishes or doing messy kitchen stuff. There is a bell pepper, a carrot, and a chili in a copper bowl behind the tomato. When I was working for Phelps Dodge (now Freeport MacMoRan) in their old Tempe office, I would meet my parents for lunch pretty often at Casa Reynoso on Mill Ave & Southern. Sometimes my mom and I would look around in a dollar store that used to be in the same strip mall - that's where the glass vegetables came from. I just liked the bright colors.

Casa Reynoso! For my Arizonan friends, if you like the Mexican food in Globe-Miami, this is it. It's the same family that runs Chalo's in Globe. For anyone else heading to Tempe, you can't go wrong with the red chili or bean burros, and the gollo burro is my favorite (green chili, whole beans, pork... mmmmm) It's also a good place to run into people from home.

Back to the kitchen.

4. I see Robbie's underwear band peeking out from his shorts. Completely potty trained for a month. Yay!

5. He's standing on one of our dining room chairs. My parents bought the table and chairs for us when we got married. From Smitty's, even! Before they were all Fry's. We furnished our first apartment pretty well from family. Our living room furniture and our bed all came from members of Rob's family, and I still have the dresser I used since I was a little kid.

6. The phone (sticking up behind Robbie's head) was a wedding gift from my friend Brian. My EAC friends will remember him! Unfortunately, we've been out of touch except for occasional e-mails or running in to each other. He's the drummer for The Cremains - although I haven't seen them play for almost 10 years! Nice guy, super smart.

7. The copper bowl holding the glass vegetables... I have two of them. The other one is always full of M&M's on the counter. One year my mom and my friend Cyndi from work both got me the same exact bowl for my birthday. They both knew I love copper stuff, and I was glad to have two! It was great. I always kind of keep my eye out for stuff to add to the copper collection in my kitchen.

8. The day we moved into our house, our cat got stuck in the corner of the cabinets just behind where Robbie's standing. I opened the lower cabinets to let her check everything out (you know how weird cats are in new environments). Well, she disappeared. We thought she got outside somehow, and I felt terrible because we hadn't updated the tag on her collar with our new phone number yet. I was imagining this poor kitty wandering an unfamiliar neighborhood & being eaten by dogs or run over or just being scared. It stunk! Later that night when Rob and I came home from one of many trips to Home Depot, we finally heard her meowing & after about a half hour, Rob figured out where she was. There was a gap in the side of the cabinet's interior that led to a no-man's land between the two banks of cabinets. She's not the sharpest crayon in the box.

And now I think I've exhausted every detail I can possibly talk about in the picture. :) Maybe one of you will post a mundane picture & ramble on about what's going on behind the scenes!

Fourth picture in the fourth folder...

2008-11-12T08:44:00.000-08:00

I saw this on Summer's blog & thought I'd see what I came up with. Post the fourth picture from your fourth folder!

This was after I painted our cardboard haunted house for the Trunk or Treat, and I had just taken some pictures of the kids I babysit so they could make a little Halloween craft with their photos. Robbie needed to have his picture taken, too.

With his car. Notice how he carefully placed it facing the camera. Good shot of the birthmark on his leg, huh? He thinks it looks like a football.

Happy Halloween!

2008-11-01T10:27:00.000-07:00

We went to our ward's Trunk-or-Treat last night. (I think everyone knows about these. But if not... everyone in the parking lot decorates their trunks and the kids go trick-or-treating to the cars.) It was a lot of fun, as usual! They had hot dogs, popcorn, homemade root beer & cotton candy, and of course lots of games.

Erin got to run around with her friends for a little bit, and Robbie got really good at saying "Trick or Treat" and "Thank You"!

I am currently typing very slowly as I eat the chocolate off a little tiny Milky Way.

The kids were chickens for Halloween. I guess Robbie was actually a rooster.

I duct taped pom poms along their belts and on some old shirts. They wore orange pants, I spray painted some old shoes orange, and I made chicken feet out of foam paper. Erin's face paint stayed on really well, but Robbie's was pretty spread around by the time we got around to taking pictures!

Here's a closer look.

Thank you to Rob for getting all the pom poms! The kids and I didn't go to the ASU/Georgia game with him a few weeks ago, but I told him to get a whole bunch of pom poms if they were giving them away. He ended up with 52 of them! We picked him up after the game, about a mile and a half from the stadium. He walked all that way with pom poms stuffed in all his pockets... people honking at him & stuff. Hard to look cool when you've turned your shorts into a hula skirt.

And here's our trunk. Of course the lighting doesn't show up, but we had some black lights & strobe lights to make our cardboard haunted house extra spooky. Our dangling bats didn't show up in the photo. Erin was making quick work of her cotton candy, and Robbie had been freed from his costume and was happily munching on a Dum-Dum. What more do you need?

The kids had a great time! We had a hair-washing-and-bath marathon, and we all went to bed tired.

Gila Valley Temple

2008-10-30T10:29:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Monica for this information! The Gila Valley AZ temple was announced several months ago, but I've been so curious about where exactly it will be.

Monica posted lots of details here today if you'd like to read about it!

San Diego

2008-10-15T12:39:00.000-07:00

Rob and I spent the weekend in San Diego for our anniversary. Just the two of us - we've never left the kids, so that was kind of strange. Rob's mom took care of the kids while we were gone. They had fun playing with their cousins and Nana's dog (Robbie's favorite part)!

It was so nice! The weather was great (a little windy, but nice) and it was relaxing to just wander around and do whatever. We don't have too many pictures, because we're not huge fans of asking random strangers to take pictures of us in stiff poses. Just one - this is us on a horse-drawn carriage through the gaslamp district and Seaport Village.

A group of like 30 teenagers spotted us on the carriage ride, and while we were stuck at a red light, they all started chanting "Beso! Be-so!" (Spanish for kiss) so we had to oblige. They all cheered. Just a little embarrassing, but hey, that's not something that happens every day!

We went on a boat tour of the harbor, we went through the USS Midway museum (a decommissioned aircraft carrier - pretty neat), spent a lot of time at the beach on Coronado Island and Mission Beach, and Rob took me for some yummy seafood at Anthony's even though it's not his bag. We also got some good use of the hot tub at the hotel! Every time I'm in one, I wonder why we don't have one.

On the last day, we went golfing at Sycuan Resort in El Cajon. Rob loves golf. He's pretty good at it, too. I'm not so good at it, but I can get by & it's nice to be out on the course. It was a beautiful golf course! I hadn't golfed or even swung a club in years, so I didn't have great expectations. I did, however, get a hole in one... teed of right into a tree, and the ball dropped straight down into a squirrel hole.

We could totally see the ball down in there, but we couldn't get it out with our clubs; just pushed it further down. So I lost a ball, and probably confused the poor squirrel.

Now it's back to regular life! It was a nice little vacation, and I'm glad Rob thought it up & planned everything out. For anyone wanting out of Phoenix for a little bit, it's just a 5-hour drive - go for it!

Nine Years

2008-10-07T13:23:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is our anniversary! Rob and I were married Friday, October 8, 1999 in the Mesa temple.

We met while attending the University 2nd Ward (U2) in Tempe. "A bunch of us" were getting together at Golfland one night, and that's where we met. (I put "a bunch of us" in quotes, because while that's what it was supposed to be, it ended up only being like four people.) I was wearing my University of Illinois shirt (a shout-out to my mission) which caught his eye since he's from IL. We started talking, and we played mini golf and air hockey the whole time.

Neither of us was really looking to date anyone at the time. He was tired of psycho girls, and I was just enjoying dating & not having a boyfriend. He started picking me up for firesides and little get-togethers... "Why don't I pick you up? It's on my way." ...and I guess the rest is history. After a while, we realized we were pretty much seeing each other exclusively, and shortly after that, we were engaged! Just kind of snuck up on us. Good thing I lived on his way to everywhere.

A good way to get a guy to bring you flowers is to have surgery. I had my ACL replaced (knee surgery) shortly after we met; here's the card that came with the flowers Rob sent. See, I'm awesome.

Some more relics...
Our "take a number" from the courthouse when we got our marriage license:

My parents had Chinese food shortly before Rob proposed, and this is what their fortune cookies revealed:

Now nine years and two great kids later, it just keeps getting better.

Happy annivesary, Rob! I love you.

Helicopters and the Zoo

2008-09-29T10:08:00.001-07:00

On Saturday, Rob was umpiring softball again, and the kids and I went to Bass Pro Shop and the Phoenix Zoo. We were happy that my parents came along with us!

They were doing a family preparedness day at Bass Pro Shop, so there were all kinds of fire trucks, police departments, hospitals, etc. with little tables set up. And the Chick-Fil-A cow was there, which meant coupons for free kids meals! Take a wild guess where we ate lunch.

They also had the Med Evac and Native Air helicopters in the parking lot. Robbie has been really excited about the color yellow lately, so the two yellow helicopters were pretty cool for him. The kids got to climb inside and check them out. I liked it myself! I guess I've never actually been that close to a helicopter before. Here are the kids with the helicopters - don't you love the "squinting in the sun" faces?

If you haven't been to Bass Pro Shop, it's a cool place to look around. It's a lot like Cabela's. There's a lot of stuff to look at - plenty of dead, taxidermied stuff, a big fish tank, a fish pond. On Saturdays, they let the kids feed the fish in the pond.

By lunch time, we were all sweaty, tired, and probably dehydrated! But we felt better after eating and after plenty of refills, and off we went to the zoo.

The Smithsonian was doing Free Museum Day, and the zoo was included, so that's the whole reason we went. We only had a couple of hours before the zoo closed, and none of us really felt like walking around the whole zoo. So we saw all the exciting stuff - the giraffes, tigers, monkeys, elephants. Here are the kids up close & personal with the mandrills:

(Side note: The mandrill in the back was picking through the other one's hair and eating his bugs. I alwyas get a kick out of that)

It was so HOT, though! I probably should've brought my parents back to the Med Evac helicopters afterward. We were pretty wiped out. See?

Hot, sweaty, and smelling like the zoo!

It was a fun day, though.