Honors Night

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?