24 hours

This has been quite the adventurous week for us with lots of family time and fun.  

After a not so exciting start to our week, things started taking off on Thursday.  Dad and Mr. Walker were riding in a mountain bike race over the weekend that required Dad to be gone from Thursday to Sunday.  Somehow, mom and dad neglected to tell me this until I was walking out the door to school on Thursday morning.  This was horribly upsetting to me and I cried all the way to school and then I cried some more at school. (As a side note, if it was mom leaving for four days, I would have told her not to let the door hit her on the way out.)  Mom and dad both felt bad so dad surprised me by showing up at lunch with Eegees!  How cool is that!  That made my day all better.

When mom and I got home from school/work, we found Nana D and Mr. Walker waiting for us.  So, depending on whose point of view your coming from, the day got even better.  Or got worse.  I say it got better!  The reunion was short lived because dad and Mr. Walker had to head out for the race while Nana stayed back for a girls weekend with mom and me.

Friday was Valentine's day which was all kinds of fun.  We had a small party at school and one of the mom's made all of us mustaches.  That makes for a really fun day!

Because we were with Nana, we spent Friday night shopping but surprisingly, only mom bought stuff.

On Saturday, I had my first softball clinic of the season.  It went well- I'm not the best but definitely not the worst either and I'm kind of excited about the upcoming season.  Practices officially start March 3 with opening ceremonies March 22.  Mom has fond memories of opening ceremonies so we'll see if it is everything she remembered.

After that, we packed up and headed out to see the boys.  They were riding on a bike team in the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo bike race.  (That's 24 HOP for people in the know- which mom wasn't until just yesterday).  The race is through the desert about 30 miles north of Tucson (The Old Pueblo). You can ride solo or on teams of two or more and relay ride as many laps as you or your team can in 24 hours.  People start bringing out their RV's and tents the Sunday before and by Thursday, it looks like this......

Campers and tents and 3500 people packed into a relatively small area.  It's loud and chaotic and I guess it's part of the fun.  This was our little piece of that heaven.  It was actually relatively private because the team had 4 RVs and lots of cars so they made a little courtyard to hang out in.

Nana, mom and I arrived about 1 on Saturday, hung out a bit and then walked with Mr. Walker down to get ready for his day lap.  He rode again at 2AM but mom and Nana didn't think we needed to stay for that one.  We sent him moral support from our dreams.

Dat-dat rode after Mr. Walker so we headed back to our courtyard to wait for his turn to head down.  In the meantime, I made friends with these two huge dogs, Noah and Logan.  They were very sweet boys and two huge dogs are a wonderful addition to our tiny little courtyard.  There is nothing quite like a wagging Lab tail in a small space.  Their owner was riding solo so he wasn't around much which put me in charge.  I don't think those dogs have ever been walked and hugged so much in their whole lives.

We finally headed back down with dat-dat to see him off and welcome Mr. Walker back and cheer on random other cyclists.

Here is dad coming in from his day lap.  He got to ride again at 3 AM- we didn't see that one either.....

After some good racing and cheering, mom and Nana left and I got to stay for the night.  Yeah!

So Saturday night, Nana and mom got some good sleep while Mr. Walker and dad got none.  We rolled back into town about 3 on Sunday.  Mr. Walker made until 7 PM before he crashed, dad made it to 8 and both slept soundly.  They woke feeling fresh as daisies!  Their team ended up coming in 43 out of 70+ teams so that isn't too bad for a bunch of old guys.
They have already started talk about "next year"........

Hope everyone has a wonderful, restful week!

Ooooooo! Bling!

Another week down.  Winter made a brief return this week with some highs only in the 50s and even an little rain- it was kind of a shock to the system!  But.  Never fear- we are back to the mid 70's today and it is perfect!

On Friday, we had my second swim meet of the season.  It was dang cold.  The coach made me swim in the Individual Medley and it kind of stunk.  I hate the butterfly and breast stroke because I still haven't quite mastered them yet.  It is painful for me to swim and painful for people to watch- but I did it and I didn't drown so we consider it a successful evening.

On Saturday, we had a nice, slow start to the day.  I got to go with mom to get her haircut (woo-hoo- that was a barrel of fun) and then we all headed up to our friend Brian and Christina's house to celebrate their daughter, Camryn's, 5th birthday.  They had a huge bowl of Cheetos puffs which I made quick work of so I was a happy camper.  (They had other stuff too but the Cheetos were the highlight for me.)  Dad got really crazy too so it was all good fun for everyone!

In February, Tucson hosts the huge Gem and Mineral Show.  People come from all over the world to buy and sell, well, gems and minerals.  Certain tents are only open to vendors and you need a special pass to get into those tents.  Well.  You know mom- she has connections.  Her good friend, Audrey, has a sister who is a vendor and gets Audrey passes every year.  Ms. Audrey invited us to go Sunday morning and we had a fabulous time!

If you know me, you know how much I love BLING!  I was completely and totally overwhelmed and in awe for the first 2 hours.  I didn't know which way to turn.  Holy cow!  And then on top of that, some of the vendors were giving Madeline and me free stuff just because we were so dang cute.

This guy spent a good 30 minutes with us explaining how to make a bracelet and then gave us each a bracelet at the end.
We walked out of there with quite the swag bag of stuff!  The moms weren't quite as cute as we were so they had to pay for their stuff but they did get some cool things.  Mom is even going to try her hand at making a necklace.  We'll see how that turns out.......

I did bring some of my own money and bought a few strands of beads to make some jewelry of my own.  The plan is to get creative this summer when it's too hot to go outside and do anything else.

After a very enjoyable day, we are wrapping up the week with family game night.  It's early to bed tonight and then back to the grind tomorrow.  Yeah.

Swimming and the Bee Gees

Disclaimer- we are writing this and watching the Superbowl (well the commercials anyway) so disregard any grammatical or typographical error.  Although the game is pretty bad and so are the commercials so maybe it won't be so bad.

The excitement of our week was my swim meet on Thursday night.  It was my first meet as a member of Ford Aquatics and there has been some definite improvement since last summer.  It was a cool evening but since coach Devin made me swim in every event, I didn't have too much time to be cold.  I swam all four strokes and did fairly well with freestyle and back stroke.  My butterfly and breast stroke still need a teensy bit (OK- a LOT) of work but I hate those strokes anyway.  Coach says I have to learn how to swim them to be a "well rounded swimmer".  This is me sticking my tongue out at him.

I have another meet coming up this Saturday so we'll see if that one goes as well.

On Friday, we met one of dad's old work friends for dinner.  He retired about 3 years ago so he and his wife are thoroughly  enjoying life- much like dad.  Our friends Brian, Christina and their kids joined us too so everyone had a good time.
On Saturday, my new best friend Emily came over to hang out with me.  She's really my babysitter but man, I LOVE her.  Mom didn't think I could like anyone better than Ms. Barbara but Emily is awesome.  Mom thinks she's awesome do because she cleans up the kitchen even when she didn't make the mess.  How cool is that.  Emily should get hazard pay.
While Emily and I were hangin', mom and dad headed out for a night of "fun" at the Bee Gees tribute show.   They have season's tickets to Broadway in Tucson and this was one of the shows in the series.  They sort of felt obligated to go.   Mom wishes they could say they liked but......
They did meet some friends for dinner before the show though so that made the evening worth it.

On Sunday, dad and I were out the door early.  He volunteered to help support a bike race and was assigned to the juniors.  He took me along so I could see the younger kids racing.  It was a lot of time in the car but I had fun (mainly because I got Eegees for lunch) and dad and I bonded so all was good.

Well, that's it for our week.  Have a great week!