In a Van Down By the River

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

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!

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

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!