GREEN

With all the rain we have had the last couple of months everything is so green. We've only been here about 5 years but I've never seen it this green before. It's really neat! Pictures really don't do it justice but you get the idea.

The desert out by Greg and Laurel's. The mountain in the way back is Table Top.

Another view of the desert by Greg and Laurel's. That is Signal Peak Mountain in the background.

The mountain in front is Newman's Peak. Behind that is Mt. Lemmon and it has snow on it!

This is the Casa Grande Mountains. The view from the interstate.

Another view of the Casa Grande Mountains.

Poncho and Lefty

Today we took the kids over to Greg and Laurel's for a horse ride. When we left our house it was a beautiful day. When we got to Greg and Laurel's it was super windy and kind of chilly. Mike and Laurel got the horses ready and the kids all went for rides. Laura was the first to ride and she got Poncho (brown horse). Greg tried to put Maddi on Lefty (white horse) but Lefty wasn't in too much a riding mood today. He wasn't listening too well so Greg rode Lefty for a bit and then tried to put Little Man on him. Little Man went for a bit of a wild ride. Lefty was just dancing all around so Greg took Little Man off and we just stuck to riding Poncho. They think he was sort of spooked because it was super windy outside. Kenni was after Laura to ride Poncho then Little Man and last Maddi. They all had a blast hanging around the corral and being helpers with the horses.

I didn't realize it until I was sitting here doing this post but I didn't get a video of Maddi! Oops!

Flowers

Yesterday the kids and I were invited over to the neighbors to play. While we were there James went grocery shopping for us. We got home right before he did, just in time to bring in groceries and put them away. It's usually my job to put away fridge and freezer stuff. I was sitting on the floor putting away the freezer stuff and when I got up there were tulips sitting on the counter. James had gotten them for me while he was out. Also while we were at the neighbors Kenni found a orange flower and picked it for me. It was from another neighbor's yard! Oops! Since there is so much growing here Kenni has been really sweet always picking me something. Last week he picked me a whole bunch of "flowers" (weeds) from our backyard.

Flowers from James and Kenni

"Flowers" from Kenni

spring break 2010

This passed week has been spring break for the kids. Daddy even got a few days off. Unfortunately it was because he had strep throat and pink eye!!!!! We haven't really done a whole lot while the kids have been off. We have been cleaning and organizing the house mostly! Today we had a day out though. We went and got pictures taken and then to McDonald's for lunch. Pictures ended up going really well. Yesterday morning Little Man woke up with pink eye AGAIN (for the 3rd time) so I was afraid we were going to have to cancel pictures. I just kept putting drops in his eye all day and it looked much better this morning. When we got to pictures they were running late so we had to sit and wait. The kids did pretty good waiting considering the amount of time we had to sit there. When we finally got in the room to take pictures Maddi wasn't too sure what to do. We tried to make her laugh and she ended up crying. Then she got into her attitude mood and kept leaving when the lady was trying to take her picture. We bribed her with cookies and for the most part it worked. After pictures we went to McDonald's and that place was a zoo. We went later so I thought it wouldn't be so busy but I guess everyone else had the same idea. We had lunch, played, got ice cream on the ride home and that was our day! These are the pictures from today!

Pink Eye Rematch and Round 3 & 4

Sunday afternoon Little Man said he felt like there was a chunk of puss in his eye again. I looked and sure enough Pink eye was back! I don't know if I didn't put the drops in long enough and it didn't clear up all the way or what but it came back. Monday morning he woke up and it had spread to his other eye so here we go all over again! He's been such a trooper getting these drops in his eyes all the time. He doesn't like all the homework that has been getting sent home for him though! Also Maddi woke up yesterday morning and she has it now too! She let me put one drop in her eye and that was it. No more drops for her! She keeps tell me "I don't have pink eye Mom!" Hopefully these two are the last ones to have it and it doesn't spread to anyone else. Kenni says though that he wants pink eye so I'm hoping he hasn't done anything deliberately to get it! You never know with Kenni!!!!

Pink Eye Round 2

It never fails that when someone in our house gets something, they don't share it with the rest of us! This morning Laura woke up and her eye was completely crusted over. Once she got it open and we could look at it I knew for sure she had pink eye. So we immediately started the drops in her eye. It even looks like she might get it in both eyes so we put drops in the other one too.

Antelope Jack

Yesterday James and a buddy from his work, Tony, took the boys hunting for antelope jacks. They are a kind of jackrabbit rabbit found mainly in Arizona and Mexico. These rabbits look a lot like a regular jackrabbit but are bigger and have a different color to them. Also a better taste. Yuck!

Tony picked James and the boys up yesterday morning around 6 am! The place they went to was way down passed Tucson in the Sierrita Mountains. They weren't very far from Mexico at all. James said they found a gazillion backpacks, water jugs and old abandoned vans from people crossing the border.

They only saw a few rabbits and only shot one. It ended up having a worm so they left it for the coyotes to eat. They did see 2 herds of deer, very many wandering cows, a few empty horse corrals and one with about 20-30 horses in it.

Of course you can't have a day out in the desert with out an injuries. Thankfully they were all very minor. Kenni got a scratch on the cheek from a mesquite tree, Little Man got a thorn in his finger from a mesquite tree, James and Kenni both got caught by a cholla cactus, and Kenni wanted to know what would happen if he picked up a hot fire log. He sure found out and even hid it for a little bit!

From how they described it to me it sounded like a really neat place. These are the pictures James got.

While the boys were on their excursion the girls and I went and had a little fun of our own. James had the camera so I didn't get any pictures though. We went over to Greg and Laurel's and played cowgirl all day!!!! We cleaned stalls, washed horses, rode horses, fed horses, cleaned up the hay stack, rode the 4 wheeler and the girls even got to ride in a wheelbarrow! Little Miss Laura Belle is just the regular little cowgirl now. She hopped up on the horse and just rode around all by herself. She even got the horse up to a pretty good trot. It was so awesome to watch her riding!

So we all had a fun filled Saturday. So fun that we couldn't even feel that we were all getting sunburned!!! The boys got more than us though!

PHX Zoo

Well it was a close call but James was able to go on his field trip today! From the 1st thing this morning it was a crazy day! We woke up this morning and there was a fatal accident in I-10. I quick emailed James teacher because she has to come down from the direction of the accident to get to school. I didn't want her to get stuck in the traffic and I knew it would disrupt our route of travel also.

We all got ready then, dropped off Maddi at th neighbors and on to school. We were about 5 miles from the house and guess what?!?! James and I forgot our lunches!!!! We hurried and made a U-turn and sped home got our lunches and sped to school. And wouldn't you know it we also got stuck by a train! Thankfully it was going fast and wasn't too long. I was really worried we were going to be late but we made it there just in the nick of time!

When we got to school we all got our groups, instructions, maps, went potty and out to the bus. As we were headed out to the bus we got stopped because there was no bus. The whole 1st grade went to the zoo (3 classes) and the 4th grade went to some museum (2 classes). The school ordered 3 buses, one for 4th grade and 2 for 1st. The 4th graders got out there 1st and due to some lack of supervision each 4th grade class took a bus and left. One whole 1st grade and part of another 1st grade took the other bus and left the other part of the 1st grade and our class at school. We didn't know what the situation was for a while we just thought another bus was coming. Once we realized the 4th graders took off in our bus we then called for another one. We waited and waited and waited. Finally we went back to the class to give the kids something to do and wait for the bus. When we got back to the class we found out that the bus wasn't coming until after the regular school routs have been dropped off. Then a little bit later we were told that the bus dispatcher didn't dispatch the bus to the school and wasn't coming at all! Finally we got really got a bus on the way to pick us up. By this time 9:45 am ish the kids were all starving. We went ahead and fed them their lunches before we left that way we didn't have to take time at the zoo to eat and we would have more time to actually see the zoo. The bus finally came and guess what we were in the middle of eating! We had the kids just throw everything back in to their lunch bags and finish it on the bus.

Meanwhile we still had the detour of the accident so we had to go way out of the way to get to where we needed to go. Everything was going great when one of the mom's noticed we passed the exit to the zoo. She thought maybe the bus driver was getting off at the next one but she passed that one too. James teacher called another teacher on the bus (I know you are probably thinking how lazy but we were in the way back and the other teacher was int he very front). The other teacher said that the school nurse (who I ma not fond of to begin with, and she wasn't even on the trip so why were we getting directions from her and why didn't the bus driver know where she was going?) said to go up to the 202 which was way totally out of the way. So we had to get off and turn around a back track to the zoo. I think it was about 11:30 am ish when we finally got to the zoo.

We got off the bus and everyone just went literally running in all different directions so we could see the zoo. We didn't have very long to look because we had to be back on the bus by 1:15 pm. I had route mapped out but when we got to the zoo the map and the zoo didn't totally match. There were all these extras paths in between. Finally I just gave up and we ended up where we ended up. Unfortunately we didn't get to see a whole lot but we did at least get to go and see some.

The kids I had were super and it ended up that one of my kids' moms met us at the zoo so I actually had an extra set of hand to help out with the kids. I had two girls Abby and Cherish, James and another boy Kevin. Abby was super shy and quite and her mom is the one that met us there, Cherish I was warned about that she would probably be bad but really was awesome, and Kevin was a world of knowledge! Him and his family must visit the zoo all the time because that kid knew where all the exhibits were and all about each animal. He even had names for them all.

After we did all that we could do in the time allowed we headed back to the buses. May I remind you that it was almost 80 degrees today and we were running allover the zoo. And where do the bussed park??? Up a hill at the very end of the parking lot!!!!! It was so hot on that bus when we got on it that I thought the kids were going to have heat stroke! Once we got moving and opened all the window it was actually a beautiful ride home. We only ended up having one puker and he was on the back of the bus and we sat up front this time so we didn't have to deal with it.

We made it back to school right when dismissal was going on (so a little late but too terribly) but we made it home and we made it home safe and didn't lose anyone!

Oh and later on we also found out that the bus taking hte 4th grader on there trip was headed for the zoo!!!! That was because they were on the wrong bus!!!!!!!

So even though we had a rough day it turned out to be a good one.

James and Kevin

The Elephant eating hay

The new Komodo Dragon Exhibit. This guy was huge!

The giraffes and also some kind of bull looking things.

Snakes!!!! We had to see the snakes of course!

Gila Monsters

Javelina

Mexican Grey Wolf. Thses guys were very large!

The Mama cow and her calf at the petting zoo.

James, Kevin, Cherish and Abby