2 Months of Fun, One Huge Blog

All right, we are back, trying this again......

I started school last Wednesday (the big 4th grade!  Can you believe it??!!) but I had a pretty awesome summer.  Last we checked in, I had just returned from an awesome week with Nana and Mr. Walker.  We have a ton of pictures and because we have so many, they are in no particular order.  I'll just talk about what we did and you can figure out which picture goes where.  Sounds like a fun game!

In July, we headed back to Ohio for the McConnell Family reunion.  Mom went back 2 days earlier to spend time with her good friend Heidi, who had just moved back to Cleveland from Stockholm.  It had been waaaaay too long since mom had been on a vacation by herself and waaaay to long since she's seen Heidi so it was fun all around.  They made the trek to Niagara Falls which was amazing and beautiful (and they issue really cool footwear there), went out for a beautiful walk in the woods near Heidi's house and spent a morning at the West Side Market which was food heaven!  

Dad and I finally showed up on Friday after a perilous journey.  We had an emergency landing in El Paso, Texas because of engine failure and weren't sure we would be able to get to Cleveland.  Dad was super upset, as you can imagine, but thankfully, the airlines found a way to get us there.  The funny thing is Nana D, Mr. Walker, Uncle Adam, Aunt Erin and the kids had arrived about 4 hours earlier but by the time they got everything situated to actually leave the Cleveland Airport, we were just about landing.  It's always fun traveling with the Walker's!  We had a great time catching up with Grandma, visiting with family.  Mr. Walker and mom ran in the Wellington Cheese Festival 5K and finished at the same time- and mom was working hard at it.  Once again, the Wellington Cheese Festival had no cheese but there were bounce houses so I was good.

We finally recovered from that and then the second week in August, we headed out for our summer vacation.  We took our trusty RV up the coast of California for 8 days and had a really good time.  We were still talking to each other at the end of the whole thing, so that is a good sign.  We started of in Disneyland because we can't miss the 60th Anniversary celebration you know!  After a day and half there, we headed up the coast to Santa Barbara.  Our RV park was right across the street from the beach and we had a great time there.  We went horse back riding which I loved.  Mom and dad had about a thousand other things they would rather be doing but they were troopers.  Even when mom's horse decided it didn't like the water and bolted up the beach every time a wave came in.  Good times......

We also spent a day boogie boarding.  I had the best time ever and mom and dad had a good time too but could barely move the next day.  I have decided I want to be a professional boogie boarder.  Do they make those?

After that we headed up the coast to San Francisco.  We spent a day at Alcatraz.  I was told that it was entirely possible for me to be left there and the doors locked behind me if I wasn't good.  Once we got back to the mainland, we walked for miles and miles eating Ghiradelli chocolate and sour dough bread as we went.  We came home with three loaves and they are soooooo good.  We also spent a day at Muir Woods.  It was insanely crowded but so, so beautiful and surprisingly peaceful.  We really enjoyed that day as well.  We couldn't have asked for better weather while we were there- upper 70's and clear blue skies.  It was a wonderful trip and we are already making plans to find another beach to camp out at next summer.

I started school last week and so far, so good.  I love my teacher and it was great to see all my friends again.  Check back in a few weeks and we'll see if I'm feeling the same!

  Day 1 of the vacation-  all smiles heading out for our RV adventure!

Dad and I on the beach because mom's horse wouldn't go near the water.

Getting buried in the sand at El Capitan Beach.

Needs no description!

Boogie boarding!

Dad built me a castle and that is our $15 umbrella that we snagged at the gift shop.  Not bad, eh?  Oh and we also got cool $12 beach towels at the CVS in town.  Good trip!

We made a stop at mom's favorite brewery for lunch and picked up some good beer, in the process.

On the trip to Alcatraz- mom spent the whole trip waiting for the earthquake.

The Muir Woods

San Francisco from the boat.

First day of fourth grade.

Mom's newest adventure was taking mountain bike lessons from her friend Edy who is a pretty stellar rider.

Mom did really well until her second time down this hill. She skidded out and bounced down the hill on her right side.  She survived but her shoulder is a little wonky.  We may have to amputate...

And finally, we had a huge rainstorm come through and flooded our back yard.  We (meaning dad) unclogged some wall drains and we got to draining.  It's all better today.

  Nana and I starting out on our 1 mile fun walk at the Wellington Cheese Festival

At the 5K with Mr. Walker

Niagara Falls with Heidi

Our really awesome foot wear courtesy of the state....

The West Side Market

And that's our 2 months in a nut shell!  Hope you have a good week!

The Week Everything Broke

We have had a crummy week here and everyone is grumpy and glad this weekend is over.  This is what we get for staying home....
It all started last Sunday on our way back from our fabulous camping trip.  We were happily motoring home and got to about 40 miles outside of town when the engine on our rolling palace just shut off.  While we were going 60 miles an hour.  Luckily, dad was driving and was calm, cool and collected.  He got us pulled over to the side, shut everything down.  And luckily, we weren't in the steep, twisty Salt River Canyon.    We waited a few minutes, started back up and limped our way home, unable to go over 40 miles an hour.  Monday afternoon was then spent getting the RV to the dealership for repairs.
On to Tuesday.  We had a really great monsoon storm roll through with lots of rain, thunder and lightening.  Dad got home at the tail end of it, just in time to take Grandma Sue's call.  The storm was a little crazy at her house with a ton of hail.  She ended up with 3 broken windows and a broken skylight so dad headed over Tuesday night to tape up her windows.
While that was going on, our dishwasher crapped out on us.  It has been a little temperamental lately but we've been able to nurse it through but it decided to just stop working Tuesday morning.  So there we were with a counter and sink full of dirty dishes and there was dad, in his work clothes on the floor at 6 in the morning with dishwasher parts all around him, trying to figure out what was wrong.  He found something, put it all back together and we crossed our fingers.  Of course, that didn't work.  So while dad was fixing windows at grandma's, mom was hand washing 2 days worth of dishes.  It. Took. Forever.  She called the repair guy Wednesday morning.
Dad took Wednesday off work, put on his construction hat and got grandma Sue's house back up and running with new windows and sky lights so all is good there now.
On Thursday, dad had some major dental work done and was down for the count Thursday afternoon but not until after the dishwasher repair man came.  Of course, the dishwasher worked just fine until the repair guy left and it stopped again.  Sigh.
Friday finally came.  Dad was still not feeling great but at least the RV was working.  Yeah!  We took it down to get the windows tinted and then headed out to see the movie Inside Out.  It was such a good movie AND we saw it at the new theater that has Lazy Boy recliners and serves beer in the theater.  We thought life was finally good.
After, we dropped dad off back at the RV window place only to get a call from him 5 minutes later saying the RV wasn't starting again.  So back to the dealership we went.  Another sigh.
Let's see.  On to Saturday.  The pool creepy crawly broke.  Sigh.  We did have a fun Saturday night for the 4th of July.  We headed over to our friend's house for a barbecue and an awesome view of the fireworks.
Sunday, dad's tire popped while out on his bike ride.  Sigh.
We're done.

And The Fun Goes On.........

Whew!  Where to start??!!  We are so far behind in blogging because we have had an amazingly fun few weeks.  I think the title of our last post was something about boredom but no more.

Let's see- we'll start with three weeks ago.  Dad had been having a hankering for his Disney fix and didn't want to wait until August when we go again.  So.  He and I packed up and headed out for a daddy/daughter bonding weekend and drove to Disney.  Mom stayed home to hold down the fort and we kind of missed her..... Dad and I tore the place up.  We even tried the pineapple whips, which I loved and dad thought were just eh.  They weren't chocolate so they didn't really count.

Dad and I got home Sunday afternoon.  Just enough time for mom to get some laundry done and then she and I packed up and headed back to Albuquerque for a long weekend with Nana D and Mr. Walker.  This time, dad stayed home and held down the fort.  Mom and I tore up northern New Mexico.  We went horseback riding on Wednesday.  All of us.  We last about 2 1/2 hours when the adults called it quits.  I could have gone on forever but the grown ups were driving so I didn't have a choice.

On Thursday, we went hiking with llamas and it was sooooo cool!  My llama was Picchu and he was the best llama ever.  We hiked about 4 miles total but got to cross the creek a few times, had a great lunch and learned a lot from our guide.  I want to take my horse and my llama home.

On Friday, we went on a big, long train ride.  It was a really long day with a 5 hour round trip drive and a 7 hour train ride.  But the scenery was amazing, we got to go through two tunnels ( just like Thunder Mountain Railroad at Disney) and over several really high tressel bridges.  We spent most of the day in the open car enjoying the great outdoors.

We even got Nana to eat a donut and she claims she hasn't eaten one in 10 years.

We headed back to Albuquerque on Saturday and spent Sunday morning at Uncle Adam and Aunt Erin's house celebrating Father's day.  We finally got home to Tucson about 10 Sunday night.  Just enough time to do some laundry and test out our new inflatable kayak before we headed out for a wonderful weekend camping trip in the White Mountains.  We went our camping friends, the Goods. The weather was perfect- on Saturday, we ended up spending about 5 hours in the RV because it wouldn't stop thundering, lightening and raining.  But it ended up being a lot of fun.  We played games, watched movies and talked.  We finally ventured out that night for a little kayaking on the lake near our campsite.

This was a little short, lacking some detail but trust me, it has been a fun few weeks!

Another Snoozer of a Weekend

Alright, so this is weekend 3 of low keyed weekends and we are kind of done with them.  We aren't use to having this many slow days in a row- good relaxing start to the summer I guess.

We forgot to include this picture in last week's blog- dad took this picture on his way to the mountain bike race.  It's such an iconic picture of the west- beautiful!

So on to this week.  Dad was up in Denver all week teaching a course for his work.  They had some pretty crazy weather while he was there including rain, hail, multiple tornadoes.  Kind of reminded us why we like Tucson better weather wise.  Meanwhile, mom and I were enjoying 100+ temps and a little rain ourselves.  Kind of nice.

Friday was National Donut Day and mom and I made sure we celebrated properly.  We headed to Dunkin Donuts and I got myself a toasted coconut donut while mom enjoyed a chocolate glazed.  It was all good.

After that, we headed to the Time Machine Miniature Museum.  It is a pretty cool museum full of miniatures from all over the world, some from the 1700's.  Mom really had a good time because this was something she always wanted to do when she was a kid.  Me?  I thought it was pretty cool too but not as awesome as mom did.  It was a nice way to spend the afternoon either way.

And that was pretty much the highlight of our weekend.  My stupid cast is keeping us down just a bit so we got in some swimming and some movie watching but that was about it.
I talked dad into playing some chess with me on Sunday.  I was getting pretty confident in my skills playing mom (because she kind of stinks) so I thought I would take dad down.  Not so much.  He schooled me in about 3 moves.  Mom and dad told me that is how I get better- whatever.

Hope everyone has a great week!