Pumpkin Carving

The boys spent the night at Nana's on Saturday so that mom and dad could go to a Poker Game with friends. For something to do Nana let the kids pick out pumpkins at the local Walmart. Jeremy helped carve the pumpkins and even roasted some seeds. The next night we took the Jack-o-Lanterns home and placed the lights inside. Bryce had the Pumpkin headed man on a horse and Kyle had the Boo Ghost.

Geocaching

To kick off the "Walk Across Arizona" we joined in on a Geocaching event. During the next 8 weeks all 4 of us will be recording our "steps" and watching as our steps add up to walk the 410 miles across Arizona. The boys were super excited to do their first Geocache event. If you are unfamiliar with what Geocaching is it is like a modern day treasure hunt. The goal is to find a Cache with a Handheld GPS unit and then remove an item from the box. Typically you replace an item with something else but since this was a special event it was just the fun in finding all the treasure boxes and finding what is inside. The 1st box was a bit hard to find but once we did the boys we ubber excited. It was a HOT day but we found all 8 boxes and we had walked over 4000 steps in about 2 hrs.

The boys are HOOKED. We are now looking into Caches near our home and will be looking for Caches when we go off-roading.

Crazy Hair Day

Today was Crazy Hair Day at school and since I was an organizer of the event and co-president of the PTO I figured I would get in on some of the fun. Last night I did some internet searches for ideas to do for crazy hair day and found a great tip for keeping a lot of hair sticking straight up on my head. Since I wanted to do something with some Dum Dums I bought at the store I thought of a DuM Dum Sucker Tree. So I placed a water bottle on top of my head and rubber banded my hair to the top of the bottle. IT WORKED. So Mark drilled some holes in the bottle so I could stick the sucker sticks in the bottle. This morning I placed the bottle in my hair then sprayed it pink, hunted for holes to stick the suckers in and then sprayed it again with a glitter spray.

EVERYONE loved my hair. Tons of kids asked for suckers! I really did have a great day and even wore it that night to Halloween Bunco.

Sept 11th Field of Flags

We headed down to Tempe this evening to see the field of flags that were displayed for the individuals who lost their lives on Sept 11th. Each flag had a description of the where the person lost their life and a short bio about them. Mom and Jeremy went with us and we all walked thru the flags reading the bios and reflecting on their lives. At 7pm there was some key speakers and music along with a candlelight vigil. It was a sad but also a great learning experience for the kids.

Micro Burst hits Home

When we got home from our day trip the kids and I went outside to let the dogs in the house and to survey the storm damage. In the dark the first thing we noticed was hmmmm no trampoline and all the patio furniture is blown around and laying on the ground. While Mark was still putting away the Rhino I continued walking around the yard to see what else was wrong or damaged. Bryce told me that the tree was leaning against the house so I wandered over to take a look and found some things on the ground that looked like wood. Turns out they were roof tiles. So I ran to get Mark. We did the best we could in the dark to assess the damage then we went inside to make sure there was no water damage due to the missing tiles. Mark used the Rhino to finish uprooting the tree so that it would not do damage to the house should we have another storm. There really was no saving it anyway. I was sooooo sad :(
In the morning I got up and took pictures for us and for the insurance claim if we end up filing one. Then we took the Rhino out behind the house to find the Trampoline so we can bring it home and take it apart.

An unexpected day out on the Rhino

A day trip that was supposed to take us to Workmans Creek ended up nowhere near there. While getting lunch at Subway before we headed up to the falls the gentleman behind the counter told us about an area right near the falls called "the Tubs" which are a collection of 3 small water pools. So once we got near the falls we set off to find "the Tubs". Since we did not really have detailed directions we ended up passing them. Since we were running a little low on gas (still had enough to get around but if we explored more we would possibly need it before heading back to Globe). Since the Town of Young was only 20 miles down the road we figured we would drive into Young and get gas and then turn back around. Turns out Young has NO gas stations!! And at this time kids are hungry and we still had 21+ more miles till we got into Heber to find a gas station.So as we drove toward Heber we kept an eye out for a place to pull over and have lunch and get back on the road. We found a Fire road near a beautiful grassy area so we pulled over and unloaded the cooler and chairs. While unloading we saw several other people pull onto the fire road so Mark unloaded the Rhino and went for a short drive to see how far the trail went. Once he got back we had a nice picnic lunch (flowers and all) and the kids did a little exploring with Mark. After lunch was over we took off down the fire road to see how far we could go! We took several different paths and even found a few places that we might try to camp in next time we go out. We also found a beautiful creek that we would love to explore on another day. Once we loaded up and started heading towards Heber/Payson we where quickly stopped as a deer jumped out in front of the van to visit their friends on the other side. So as quietly as we could we took a few shots of the deer (the kids loved it) while they were close to the road. We ultimately decided to drive into Payson so that we could head home that way. So after Mark used the extra fuel for the Rhino to make sure we could make it into Payson we headed off. We stopped in payson before heading home for gas and dinner. We chose to eat at a new restaurant that looked cute and we were glad we did. Not only was the food YUMMY but the portions were HUGE.Once we walked out of the restaurant the storms that were in the valley started in Payson. It made the sky's beautiful with patchy blue and black skies and Lightning strikes.
So even though the day did not go as planned some of the best things in life are unplanned!

Bryce is in the new school buildings

After 1 week of confusion and temporary facilities for the 6th-9th grades the kids are now able to move to the new temporary buildings. So this morning I walked Bryce to class from the main campus. It is a small hike to the new buildings but nice that they are separated from the younger kids. This will enable them to move from class to class without disturbing the other grades. In 6th grade this year Bryce will be moving between 3 teachers to help teach them about learning different subjects with different teachers for Jr. High - High School. Their classroom is with their "homeroom teacher" where they will start and end their day. So while it may be the second week of school it is almost like starting the 1st day of school all over again!