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!

Just a Plain Nice Week!

This has been a super nice week all around for us.  We were just busy enough to not be bored but not so busy we felt crazy.  Love these kind of days.  And the weather has been amazing too.  We are feeling kind of lucky.

I did not have school on Monday and so even though mom doesn't have any time off accrued yet, she bit the bullet and took the day off too.  She sure is a team player- I know it was tough on her.  We had a nice relaxing morning and then headed out to Sabino Canyon for a few hours.  We rode the tram to the top so we could listen to the tour guide.  Mom has been wanting to do the tram with me since the day I was born.  I don't think it quite lived up to the picture in her head but we still had a fun time and learned some cool things about the Canyon.  We got off the tram and enjoyed a nice hike back down.  Well, it would have been nice if I hadn't been whining the whole time.  It seems I have entered yet another "phase" and this one includes lots of whining.  Mom doesn't do whining so it made for a little bit of a long hike.  But we made it.

We got home, got some rest and headed out to swim practice.  I have been en fuego for the past few practices.  We will see how it all goes at my upcoming meet in a few weeks.
On Saturday, mom got her first run of the year in at Sabino Canyon, dad did a nice bike ride and I had a birthday party at Skate Country.  I haven't been in a while so it was a rough start but I got the hang of things pretty quick again and managed to stay on my feet more often than not.  Again, mom was super impressed by my persistence.  No way was I getting off the rink until I got it figured out.

After a few hours of skating, we headed out to run some errands and some how managed to find ourselves at Camping World looking at RVs.  And no, we did not buy anything and no, we are not planning on buying anything.  We just like to see what else there is and we decided we love our RV and it won't be going anywhere soon.  We did walk by a some people from Belgium that were just visiting and they were amazed by the size of some those RVs.  We figured some are bigger than the apartments in Belgium- probably nicer too.  Most of them are nice than our house.....

Sunday, dad got in a nice, long ride with his team.  They actually rode somewhere he had never been before.  We thought dad had been everywhere, but apparently there are still some undiscovered spots for him.  While he was out, mom dragged me over to the park to take advantage of our sun and 65 degrees.  We started out playing a little soccer, then headed over to the tennis courts to hit the ball around, then over to the doggie park to watch the crazy dogs and finally to the playground.

Our friend Brian found this oldie but goody of mom and dad- not sure when it was taken, definitely before my time, but I told mom she looks exactly the same. (She remembers both of those shirts and the sweat pants she was wearing.  She probably still has both)  Dad, well, you be the judge.....

Mom thinks he looks about 12.

Back to a full week- hope everyone has a fabulous one!

Race Day Prep

This week.  This week started out not so great but ended on a pretty good note.  I started the week with a yucky little cold.  No fever so I had to go to school but it was not fun.  I came home from school on Monday and crashed.  I slept for an hour and a half and then hit the hay by 7:30.  I was down and out Monday and Tuesday but that also means I got out of swim practice and religion class so it wasn't all bad!

Things started to perk up mid week.  I got my belated Christmas present from Aunt Erin and Uncle Adam.  My own custom made dragon jacket!  My friends, Max and Claire, each have one like this so I'm feeling pretty cool now.

We made it through the week and no one else seems to have caught my cold so we got to party like rock stars on Friday.  Not really but mom did head out to meet some friends from work at a paint your own/wine bar place.  It is a fun concept where everyone paints the same picture with help from the instructor AND you get to drink wine while you do it.  I think it makes the painting part more tolerable.

There were about 10 people from mom's work that went and they all had a great time.  There are even a few with unrealized artistic talent in the bunch.

But as you can see, mom is not one of them.  Good thing she likes her day job.  Now we just have to decide what to do with this thing.  One suggestion was to give it to our moms because every mom likes a painting from their kid, no matter how old the kid is.  I'm sure Nana will love having this hanging over her fireplace.

On Saturday, we packed up the RV and met our friends for a quick one night camping trip.  My dad, Madeline's dad, Mr. Walker and three others of questionable mental clarity have signed up to ride "24 Hours in the Old Pueblo".  It is a mountain bike race that starts at noon on Saturday, February 15 and goes until noon the following day.  You can sign up as individuals or as a team from as little as two people to as many as you want.  You then ride as many laps as you can in those 24 hours so there is some day time riding, some sunset riding, some night riding and some dawn riding.

The team, with the exception of Mr. Walker who was do some individual training in Albuquerque, camped at the race course so everyone could get some practice in.  It was a beautiful weekend with lots of sunshine.  While the team was out riding their laps, the kids with mom and Ms. Audrey in tow did lots of rock climbing and bike riding of our own.

We only had one mishap for the weekend when I took a drink from dad's water bottle, not realizing he had eaten a peanut butter power bar a few hours earlier and drank from the same water bottle.  It didn't take too long for my lip to swell and go numb.  I got two doses of Benedryl and thankfully, it didn't get any worse because there is nothing like being 30 miles and a nasty, washboarded dirt road away from the nearest hospital.  Aside from being a little scared, I handled it well and pretty much forgot about it by dinner time.

Mom and I are off on Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. day so we need to figure out how to spend our time.  Hope everyone has a wonderful week!

Down Time!

This has been an extraordinarily boring week and it was kind of, sort of nice, in a boring, calm kind of way.  

I was actually excited to go back to school which is crazy enough to last us the whole week.  Mom headed back to a full week, I headed back to a full week and dad headed back to a full week.  Come Friday we all pretty much toast.  We managed to muster enough energy to meet our friends Uncle Brian, Aunt Christina and their kids for dinner which is always a good time.

We got to sleep in on Saturday and it ended up being a glorious January day- lots of sunshine.  We had all the doors open and mom finally got to get out and do some yard work.  Our tenant did a good job taking care of the house but the yard is kind of overgrown and our rose bushes needed some serious pruning.  They were enormous and out of control.  Mom got the job done and in the process discovered that maybe she really isn't a princess as she was stuck multiple times by the rose thorns and she is still awake and alive.

I woke up Sunday with a sore throat and stuffy nose so even though the weather was again picture perfect, I laid low on the couch all day and will be hitting the hay early.

My class at school has a pet hamster named Fluffernutter and she gets to go home with someone different every weekend.  It was our turn this weekend and we had all kinds of fun.  She slayed the big dragon.......

and captured the castle, saving the day!

Hope everyone has a good week and we will have good stuff to report next week, I'm sure!

Happy New Year!

Well, the Christmas decorations are put away, New Year's resolutions are broken and things seem to be calming down for a bit.  We've had a great two weeks but are a teensy bit ready for some down time.

Last we checked in, we had just celebrated dad's birthday.  The very next day, we got up before the sun and headed over to Albuquerque to hang with the Walker clan for a few days.  It was an easy-peasy drive- I only had to stop once (at the appointed time even!) for a potty break so I think this was the fastest we have ever made it with me in tow.  It was definitely cold there- not as cold as Denver but enough to remind us why we left the great white North.  It was a little bit fun for mom to break out all her winter gear because she knew in three days, she would be putting it back in it's box for another year.

We arrived early enough that dad and Mr. Walker got in a mountain bike ride and then we celebrated dad's birthday.  Again.  Nana made him chicken Parmesan and black forest cake as he requested and as usual, it was delicious.  Everyone left fat and happy that evening.

The next day was Christmas Eve.  It was a beautiful, sunny (but a little chilly) day so mom and I headed out to the park to burn off some of my stored energy from the 7 hour car ride the day before.

We headed to church that evening and it was actually a pleasant experience compared to church last Christmas.  The priest was actually funny and kept things short- always a good thing!

After an excruciatingly long Christmas dinner, I FINALLY got to go to bed.  I got Santa's cookies and milk all set up, left out reindeer food and scooted my butt to bed.
I actually slept in a little this time and didn't get any one up until 6:30.  That is practically noon!  I got to open my stocking stuff and then I had to wait a whole half hour until Uncle Adam, Aunt Erin, Sophia and Brendan made it down.  It was tough but I persevered.  Mom kept telling me the story of the Christmas she and Uncle Adam had to wait until after lunch to open presents one year.  Sounds kind of fishy but mom and Uncle Adam swear by it.
Anyway, it was sooooo worth the wait.  My main request was a lap top and Santa came through as usual.  I also got this monster Lego set, some Dragonology books and some pretty cool extreme dot-to-dots.

After the frenzy of present opening, we all settled in to Mr. Walker's awesome banana pancakes with banana caramel syrup.  Can anyone say sugar- coma?

Baby Brendan!

Me and Sophia burning off some sugar.

Now that I am old and mature, we were able to re-start our tradition of Christmas day hiking.  We did a short one not to far from home and it was gorgeous.....

After a relaxing, fattening few days we headed back to warm Tucson.  We had a few quiet. relaxing days and then loaded up the RV to spend New Year's Eve at Kartchner Caverns.  The caverns are about an hour from our house and are very, very cool.  It is considered a "living cave" so there are lots of protections in place including multiple air locks to go through, getting misted down to prevent bacteria spread, not being allowed to touch anything.  "Cave cleaners" come through every night to make sure everything is as back to normal as possible.
Since we had nothing else to do, we headed over to the visitor's center and got onto the last tour of 2013.  The cave has two sides and we toured the Throne Room.  We got see cave popcorn, cave bacon and soda straws.  I'm thinking spelunking makes one hungry......

We headed back for a fancy dinner of egg rolls and beer and then hit the hay by 9.  Since this was an RV park populated by people north of 75 years old, we were up late by their standards!

The next morning, we headed back to tour the other half of the cave and spend some more time in the visitor center learning about caves.  This time on our tour, we learned about cave fried eggs.  More with the food.

The cave tours we very interesting and informative but after two hour and half long tours, we were caved out and headed home.
The last few days of my two week hiatus were relatively quiet.  I finally had my friend's Max and Claire over to play for awhile on Sunday.  It was definitely a little wild and crazy with three of us, but in a good way!

We are back to the real world tomorrow.  Sigh.  Hope every one survives it.  See you next week!