Admittedly, I loved being a desert rat. Living in the desert southwest was full of the most amazing weather during what I knew to be the worst time of year growing up. The months of October through April are so beautiful in Arizona, the temperatures so mild and even. It was like the best of late spring and early fall temperatures of Idaho, but it lasts all fall, winter and spring long. I loved it. The tradeoff for this bliss was a lack of seasons. The only visible change in AZ during winter was the transition of green summer grass to green winter grass, this happens twice a year when lawns look brown for a short time while the new season’s grass takes hold. Halloween felt right, the weather turns from miserable hot to enjoyable all day and night long, but the signs of a season change were almost non-existant. I didn’t know how much I missed it.

This past weekend, we took our kids for a Sunday afternoon drive up through the Palisades reservoir, looping back through Victor on the circle drive home. I just kept snapping photos from inside the car, it was so pretty. The brilliant spots of color change were like touches of God’s paintbrush on the canvas of life. The drive itself brought back memories from my past and it felt wonderful to soak it all up. I’m so glad we did. This week the weather has turned. It’s raining with forecast of a cold front that will bring snow to some elevations. I’m glad we didn’t miss it, because seeing that spot of fall made me realize that I have been missing this season.

The tree is up:

Night treats and time together:

And a special treat of mini golf and a Cardinal’s game with Grandma & Grandpa:

Well, the week was an odd one. I found myself productive and getting a lot done, yet the tug of our missing family member found its way into every day. I suspect that will continue for a while yet. On Saturday we ended the week with a bang taking the kids to see the Harlem Globetrotters. They thought that was great fun! Here’s a few photo shares and details:

The show started with “Globie” the team mascot who threw on a variety of costumes and fun.

I was surprised at the smiles the support team managed to sneak out with the burning abs and thighs that must have ensued from the trick of removing their chairs:

Then we welcomed the team with all the wonder only the Globetrotters could provide:

The kids thought the players really knew how to have fun and handle a basketball. Taylor’s been seen trying to duplicate the move of dribbling on his knees with his new mini globetrotter basketball since….

There was plenty of wonder to go around and I snuck several glances over at a very enthralled little 6 year old.

Cid was more enthralled with the cheerleading but clearly she had a good time too:

In the end I’m always amazed at how fun it is to watch people share what they love doing.

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Family Sharing Motherhood Recreation Memories

I have one last post on our trip to Texas. On our last day there we went to Sea World and it was the highlight for all of us. The park was perfect and quiet for most of our day there. In fact, the only “crowd” we saw at all didn’t come until about 4 PM and up to that point it felt like we almost had the entire park to ourselves!

The first show we took in was just getting started when we got there and included choreographed swimmers with dolphins. It was such fun to watch!

The second show we took in was one Blake remembered with the Sea Lions. It was all about the mystery case of the missing fish. I managed to capture a few meaningful and crisp photos of the action. The opening “warm up” show was done so well. The guy who did the one man entertainment while passing the final minutes to show time was engaging and so much fun. The kids laughed the entire time! The show didn’t disappoint either.

We walked ourselves silly stopping for fun photos here and there. Surprisingly, Cidnie hammed it up.

Getting wet was of course another big highlight for the kids. Make that getting soaked!

Feeding and touching the dolphins in the nursery was another favorite:

We enjoyed double Shamu shows, the first one during the day:

The other a special Halloween show done at night:

It was a full day of fun that made the next day’s drive home not only worth it but quiet to boot! It was a GREAT week in San Antonio and we look forward to going back.

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Family Sharing Travel Blogging Recreation Memories

A week ago today was my daughter’s eleventh birthday. (How’s that for family planning when planning is outside your power? My kid’s b-days are a whopping 3 days apart! *giggle*) We took in the Natural Bridge Caverns and dinner at a fun little spot off the Guadalupe river. At first she wasn’t so sure this sounded like a stellar birthday list of activities.

But the first event turned her around as she panned for gems:

Then the cousins arrived and we got to be explorers in a 75 minute tour of the caves. Her favorite part was going down 180 feet and she asked the guide every couple of minutes how far we’d gone down! She also enjoyed how big it was, the bat foot prints on the ceiling and finding things like fried eggs, king faces and the statue of liberty in the formations.

Then it was on to dinner at the Gristmill:

And the smiles came even before the birthday treat that had Cidnie written all over it….Strawberry Shortcake!!

We even got a case of the sillies…

If there was any doubt the day was stellar it was laid to rest when we got back to the room and she opened her gifts. The coveted Nintendo DS she’s been asking for for 2 years now was waiting for her!

I think we’ll wrap this one up as a resounding success. *grins*

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Family Sharing Motherhood Success Travel Recreation Memories

Our second day in Texas was Tay’s sixth birthday. I’m not at all sure how that happened as it feels like only yesterday he was toddling around my ankles. Time is funny that way. My little boy is growing up.

It was also Columbus Day so we rallied the cousins and headed to the coast for the day. Even though we’d just spent 15+ hours in the car the kids were great about tacking on about 6 more for the round trip to the coast. I think it paid off.

We had lunch on the bay where Tay enjoyed a really fun birthday bowl (to which he replied “this is the best day of my whole life!”) and took a ton of pictures with his camera.

Then it was off to the Texas State Aquarium!

Where the kids got to hold “spiky and slimy things” which made them both a bit squeamish at first but both held the little critters in their hands.

But the dolphins won his heart.

Then it was off to the beach…

And finally back to the room for a bath and presents!

Now just for kicks and giggles, I’ll share one of the few photos I have of our first visit to Corpus about 12 years ago!

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Family Sharing Motherhood Travel Recreation Memories

Do I start with the laundry? Grocery shopping? Uploading and sharing photos? There’s so many options.

I’m proud to say that I did get the grocery shopping done. I made myself go right after dropping off kids at school this morning! I did some laundry before we left so I’ll put that off for a little longer and dive into some photo shares!

I have to start with a fun story of my technology working. As we approached Tucson last Saturday I noticed a mountain outline on the horizon. I was almost positive it was the one described in Stephenie Meyer’s book, The Host but wasn’t completely sure. Well, I grabbed my Kindle and typed in mountain peak in the search option. Sure enough several options popped right up for the book and I read her description matching exactly what I was seeing. I grabbed the camera and starting snapping some photos. As we got closer I found the reference in the book about Picacho Peak just before I saw the first sign. Success. It was so fun to have my Kindle put to such great use!

Next it was on to park fun at Six Flags:

The park was decked out for Halloween fun, and they even colored the water of several water rides in the spirit of Halloween!

On our second ride we got a little wet. Dad and Tay got a little soaked and dad’s phone that was in his pocket didn’t survive.

The kids still weren’t wet enough so we hit this ride and finished the job so we all looked like we just stepped out of the pool!

Dad talked Cidnie into taking on his favorite style ride. Suffice it to say there was plenty of screaming and maybe a few choice words from her.

It was a great start to a really fun week. We wrapped up the evening with a nice dinner at my sister’s where the kids had a right good time playing with cousins. We’re so happy we got to go visit them and have so much fun doing it!

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Family Scrapbook Sharing Travel Recreation Memories

If I had a way of recording the “just missed that moment with my camera” I think I’d have a book! *giggle* I looked out the window Saturday morning and saw the perfect picture of father and son working on the pool together. I wanted to snap a picture of it to share but but the time I got the camera they’d both moved. *murmur* I wish there were a camera implant in my eye so I could just tell my brain to capture a moment! Some of the best pictures are the ones that you’re simply not ready to take when the opportunity presents itself. But I digress, the point is I wanted that picture not just for the archives but also to blog our weekend as it was such a great general capture of our Saturday mornings which are usually filled with yard and pool maintenance, a late morning shower and some lunch related outing.

Thankfully my efforts of keeping my son home from school on Friday when his immune system appeared to be weakening was a good call. We were able to avoid any sickness and enjoy our weekend - yay!

One of our new favorite places to go is the San Tan Village. It’s a new development that combines such an odd and fun combination of dining, entertainment and shopping. It feels a little like walking down 5th Avenue in NYC (except with misters and a fraction of the people) but combines so many other fun elements in a new and unique way. I’ll have to take some more pictures next time we’re there (another missed moment eh?!) So we went to a new place for lunch called Cantina Laredo, which was great and allowed us to take in some fun Olympic events, then hit the theater for the movie and ended the afternoon outing with a stop at Best Buy to purchase the much longed for:

I wanted to share a picture of the family rock band hard at play but I again missed a few of my key photo moments so I’ll have to repent for that later. Suffice it to say I greatly enjoyed watching all three of them concentrate like crazy and rock out. Blake’s been holding out on me. *snicker*

We also got to pick up my old computer (thank you warranty!) so I can add that to the success list. It seems a little sluggish and slow but at least it’s working right and devoid of blue screens and extreme fan volume. I’m happy to have another computer for the kids to use. I’m a little stingy with mine. *snort* It was indeed a hardware failure and the paperwork says they changed the mother board. Darn thing wasn’t even three years old. Oh well, at least we got it fixed without paying for repairs. I don’t know how people do it though because they had my computer for just over 2 weeks. If I hadn’t had a replacement I’d have died for sure! I couldn’t live that long without my computer. It made me wonder if they just assume customers will have other computers to use while they take their time repairing them? I still love my Mac and have adjusted very easily. The right click and mouse wheel actually felt clunky and weird yesterday!

I even stole a few minutes to update some more of my shared files for teaching children yesterday. I missed a Sunday afternoon nap but all in all it was a great weekend.

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Family Sharing Motherhood Food Recreation

I set up my Mii account on our Wii Fitness this morning and to my delight it calculated my BMI and weight in the normal region. Yay! Now, I didn’t really need it’s balance and muscle assessment to know that I’m not in great shape and my body is weaker than it should be but who knows, maybe it will help me work on that. One thing I learned with Dance Dance Revolution is that exercise in the form of some entertainment works well for me. So I’m hopeful. I also took heart in my first rounds of yoga exercises and balance games that I placed in the top three of my family members who have been doing it for a week now. I’m also delighted that the pool season is back because I can do so much more with my joints in the pool than in other exercise settings.

In other good news today I’m happy to report that I found another solution that is helping me with my summer vacation parental strain. As my husband and I talked last week, I realized that no matter how many things we did or planned to keep our daughter busy the fundamental problem wouldn’t be addressed. My ten year old daughter has ADD and that means her brain doesn’t organize things naturally, or at least the way most of our brains do. It’s why she’s always asking to do 10 things at the same time and why she spends 5 minutes of quiet time complaining of boredom. So I decided to take my last organization attempt during the holidays a step further. I printed out calendars from my Google calendar for each of the kids. One page was a month overview and then each week broken down on a single page with the hours of 6AM-5PM each day. My thought was if I made their planning visual not only would they better understand time and feel some control over their activities, they might also see how much they really have.

I’m happy to report that so far so great. They are both working at filling in their wants on their calendar and mom helps fit in some needs (a.k.a. chores) and catching the vision. This morning we planned out this week which took about 10 minutes compared to our first attempt last week which took about 20 minutes for 2 days. Progress. I’m finding it helps me too because the time we block for academic review and games is small enough that none of us go crazy. In fact, this morning they both asked if we could do it longer so that’s a plus for mom.

Speaking of time, mine is up so that’s all for today on the blog! *giggle*

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Family Parenting Sharing Organizing Positive Impact Motherhood Balance ADHD Recreation