Diamondback

So this weekend we spent most of our time outdoors. It's just too beautiful to stay inside (and my kids beat each other up if kept contained indoors for too long of a period). On Saturday, I decided to take the kids for a bike ride through the desert trail paved paths in our neighborhood. I was on the bike and they were in the attached bike trailer. We started out on the path in the wash right behind our house. I quickly found out that we weren't the only creatures out enjoying the weather. However, we were the only creatures that walked on 2 legs. The rest had 4 legs...or no legs. Seriously. We were in the middle of a creepy crawly rodent, lizard, bunny, snake freeway. I literally was Moses parting the Red Rodent Sea! Creatures were darting everywhere. I was so creeped out and was pedaling my fastest so nothing would jump up and eat us. The kids were clueless of the dangers that lurked nearby and were more concerned about who was touching who's drink and toys. I turned around briefly to warn them to be nice to each other or else. When I turned my head back forward....I ran smack into this guy. I wanted to die.

This beast, which for the record I have lived in Arizona for almost 14 years and NEVER seen one, was stretched across the entire bike path. I had a second to react. I swerved to miss it but I was sure the bike carrier, which is wider than my bike, probably hit it. I was hoping it was dead. But rather than keep pedaling along to safety. The intrigue got the best of me and I had to stop and gawk. We watched it for a bit. Eventually it's tongue starting spitting and yep the beast was actually alive. I hurried and warned a fellow hiker and her little dog to stay back. I also whipped out the camera and snapped a pic to prove to Jer! Then that beast eventually slowly slithered it's way back off the path. Lovely. So reassuring to know these things live 15 feet behind my backyard!!!!! Just thinking of it makes my skin crawl all over again! Needless to say, I surely got my exercise as I kicked into lightning speed to get the heck out of there and back home to safety! Geez, I can't even handle grasshoppers or moths...or cats or dogs for that matter! lol So this was definitely out of my comfort zone.

And to think we have 2 professional Arizona sports teams named after these things?!

Ready for Summer

We've had some major Summer Fever! Anden's been begging to break out the water toys. Seeing as it was a beautiful sunny 85 degrees on Saturday, we did just that! We started out simple with the new sprinkler toy. You put the balls in and the water blows them out. I figured this would keep them entertained for a good 20 mins!

Anden loved it and turned it into batting practice.

Taylee mostly loved her chair.

Excitedly pointing in all directions (at the same time!)

Then she figured out you could fill 'er up...

...and guzzle 'er down!

Even I joined in and was humbled when my athletic abilities fell short.

When I finally did make contact, I hit it straight on top of the roof.

Game Over.

Painting

I temporarily relinquished my OCD tendencies to allow Taylee to paint all by herself.

She was thrilled.

And while I was trying to teach Taylee that painting on paper was in fact more fun than painting on her arms; Anden finished his masterpiece.

A Pink Transformer.

Player

Anden is quite popular with the lady folk.

One night he was having a drive in movie with Grace

(he picked the location and turned on the fireplace!)

The next day he was bonding with Molly

It's all innocent right?!

Or do we have a Player in the making?!

Scout Camp Out

On Friday, Jeremy and Anden went camping with the scouts. They loaded up an entire SUV and trailer full of stuff....for their less than 24 hour trip. Anden could barely contain his excitement. You see, he's definitely not old enough to be a scout. But since he's the self proclaimed Assistant Scout Leader, of course he got to join in the fun.

When they returned, Anden was still on Cloud Nine! He seriously gave me a 5 minute story about every single picture! It was adorable! His favorite part was, of course, the bow and arrows!

This pic was one of his faves....not so much mine!!
He said he named the snake "Mr. Daddy". lol ok

Geared up for the hike!

Um, is he flashing gang signs??! WWWEST SIDE!

I guess he only made it 5 mins into the hike before he rotated from shoulder to shoulder.

Pro Kayaker.
Maybe next time they'll actually untie him.

Thank You Scouts for letting our 3 yr old tag along! It was the highlight of his year.

You've also saved us a lot of money.
Now he only wants to go camping rather than to exotic beaches.

Easter 2010

I love Spring! I love Easter!

This year Easter fell on General Conference Sunday.

Twice a year we're lucky enough to get to stay home and watch "church" on TV!!

No waking up cranky kids at 6am, throwing them in church clothes, shoving breakfast down their throats and racing out the door for our 20 minute drive to church; that starts at 8am.

Instead it was a day of relaxation. No schedules. No responsibilities.

Easter Morning

After the morning session of conference, the Easter Bunny finally came and hid eggs in the backyard! Anden had impatiently been asking, since the moment he awoke, WHY the Easter Bunny hadn't come yet. We told him he was at church.

The Egg Hunt

This year, Anden was more concerned about the actual "hunt".

Whereas Taylee only cared about the contents within the eggs while loving carrying her basket.

Did you say there's MORE candy??!

Hee hee I ate Anden's candy too!

After the hunt, we broke out the bouncy house. Anden carefully removed Taylee's shoes.

So that he could use her for target practice.

I even got talked into joining the fun.

After lunch and naps, we had our friends the Mortensens over to play.

We had another Egg Hunt.

Anden capitalized on his previous experience and scored 90% of the eggs.

While the kids were examining the contents of their baskets, we watched in horror as the Mortensens puppy was poking at something (ok more like eating and coughing it up). Sweet, now the adults had something to examine too. After much debate, we realized it was a newborn bunny!! Wow, how appropriate that their dog found a poor dead newborn bunny during our Easter Egg Hunt!! Sadly, this is the 2nd one we've found! I'm so glad to know there's a bunny maternity ward in our backyard.

So after that festive addition to our day,
we had a yummy dinner and then walked over to the park.

What a great Easter!!

One more thing, I would like to apologize to our family and friends that spent Easter in the cold and snow!! If that isn't a reason to move to sunny Arizona...then I don't know what is!

But hey at least you didn't have to deal with this?
(I know, hardly a consolation prize! lol)



I joked with my brother in Idaho about the melted chocolates.
He kindly reminded me they had to remember not to put jelly beans in their eggs...because they'll freeze and break their teeth. Ouch! I'll take the melted mess!

A Honest Day's Work

Our "holiday weekend" turned into a spontaneous manual labor slave camp. As we were breaking our backs picking the millions of weeds (that appeared overnight...in the EXACT spot I just picked 2 wks ago!), our neighbor leans over the fence to ask if we wanted help to finally pull out the tree that was geniously planted right in front of our RV gate. He had some extra rock he had cleaned out of his backyard that he needed to dump in the tree hole. Jer began to make up excuses as to why today wouldn't work. I stepped in and graciously accepted the idea (on Jer's behalf!). Hello?! If someone is offering to help, then you better jump on it. So the next four hours changed dramatically from what I envisioned our Easter Saturday would be.

You see the job of "tearing out a tree" actually meant tearing out 2 trees, throwing one away, retransplanting the second tree in the first tree's spot, borrowing tools from every neighbor in a mile stretch, conning more neighbors into helping, making multiple home depot runs, borrowing more tools upon finding the first tree hole had a HUGE boulder/meteorite that had to be jack hammered, forgetting to apply sunscreen and eventually redesigning the irrigation drip system. Good times.

The First Tree

The Second Tree

(otherwise know as the Pain in the A** tree)

Jeremy seriously wanted to take a victory lap around the neighborhood with the tree.

I guess the Neanderthal gene still exists.

The Transplant

SUCCESS!!

We have a lot of pressure to keep this dang thing alive....seeing as ALL our neighbors stopped and gawked at one point during the process!

Luckily I didn't take a picture of the tree roots...that are half buried and half still poking above the ground. Hhmm, I could be wrong but I think that's NOT the most nutrient way to flourish.