Fun in the Old Pueblo

It has been a busy few weeks as usual around here but that's OK because most of it has been fun.  We have started studying electrical circuits in science class and I love it!  I dragged out my electric circuit that Mr. Walker got me and made all kinds of things happen.  I made a doorbell, a light come on, music and a fan.  I'm a regular Thomas Edison!

 That same week, I had my first Declamation Day.  In 8th grade, one of our prerequisites for graduating is reciting a really long poem from memory in front of the whole school.  We start getting ready in 4th grade by reciting a 12-14 line poem in front of the 4th and 5th graders and our families.  It's a little nerve wracking but we all did great.  I remember to talk loud enough and speak clearly.  Mom was proud of me and I thought it was kind of fun.

We made our annual pilgrimage to the County Fair with our friends, the Goods and had a great time riding rides and eating fair food.  Once again, mom is thankful for Ms. Audrey who will actually ride those awful spin-ny rides with me so mom and dad don't have too.

That same weekend, dad was out of town Friday night doing a pre-ride for a mountain bike race he has coming up so mom spent a productive weekend re-doing the dining room.  It looks exactly like she envisioned in her head and she's so happy with how it turned out.  She is, however, taking a nice long break from painting anything.  She has been on the hunt for her "secret hidden talent" lately (maybe golf?!) and she is pretty sure painting is not it.  So if you come visit, don't look too closely at the paint job!

(Kind of before)

 (And after!)

It took her three days but she got it done just in time for dad's old boss and a friend of his to come over for dinner after a round of golf on Sunday.  It was fun catching up and meeting new people.

Dad has been having a fabulous time at work.  He is in a new "leadership development" class and was volunteered to act out a part in a Shakespeare play.  All of his favorite things, rolled into one!  He made the best of it though and left everyone laughing.

We finally got our golf cart this week.  Yeah! A lot of families tool around the neighborhood in golf carts and use them on the course so of course, we needed one.  Dad found a good used cart, got a good deal on it and had it delivered on Friday afternoon.  He spent the afternoon teaching me how to drive and I didn't do that awful.  A few things left to learn though.

Since spring has sprung, our cactus are starting to bloom.  We have a beautiful night blooming cereus that greets us every morning as we leave for school/work and then is shut down by the time we get back.

I have been doing fairly well on the pitching front.  I had a pretty bad outing last Thursday and was pulled from the game but came back on Friday night, faced 4 batters and struck three of them out.  Last night I did well and had to come in for another inning because coach pulled that pitcher.   The irony being she was the pitcher who replaced me when I got pulled.  I struck out two and ended the game.  It's tough out here in 10U softball, I tell ya'.

We're wrapping up our day with a round of golf- see you next week!

Inaugurals.....

 I have accomplished a lot in the last two weeks- it's been good!  I've been bugging mom and dad for awhile to take me to the Grand Canyon.  I keep saying I'm the only kid in my class never to have been.  They keep reminding me that I've been twice already- once when I was three and once when mom was 3 months pregnant with me.  That time, apparently I even hiked from the North Rim to the South Rim.  I don't remember any of it though so I needed to go again.  We took the RV up and stayed in the South Rim RV park and it turned out to be pretty nice.  We spent Thursday walking along the rim and mom and dad spent the time telling me to be very careful because people die every year falling off the edge.  By the time we were done, I was almost too afraid to hike because I was convinced I'd be the next person off the edge.

On Friday, we got up sort of early and headed out for our big hike.  We had originally planned on camping overnight down at Indian Garden but there weren't any permits left so we just did a massively huge day hike.  We took Bright Angel down in record time.

We made it down in record time and spent awhile enjoying a relaxing lunch and kicking our shoes off.

 We finally started heading back up and that took a little mental and physical energy on my part.  I learned the huge importance of using the rest stop potties whether I needed to or not.  It isn't so much fun to really have to pee in the last mile of the hike.  Not to many places for privacy but we made something work.  Thankfully.  So overall, it was a 10 mile round trip hike and considering I have never really hiked, I rocked it.  But as the signs posted everywhere said- Going down is optional, going up is mandatory.

This past weekend, mom and I joined dad for an afternoon of golf.  This was my and mom's first trip out onto a real golf course.  Let's just the scenery was really pretty but if it were a baseball game, mom would have struck out swinging at every hole.  Let's call it a learning experience.....

Sunday has been a rainy, relaxing day.  Mom tried her hand at making English Muffins and they turned pretty good but it took a lot time.  Definitely easier to buy them!

So, to add to our animal kingdom here, we have resident squirrels.  We noticed that the bricks on our beautiful patio were collapsing in different spots do to something tunneling under.  Dad said up our trusty wildlife camera and we caught pictures of two squirrels frolicking in our backyard, just mocking us.  We were planning on trapping and relocating them but figured they probably have babies in their little den and we didn't want to be responsible for breaking up the family unit.  We'll just have to wait until we have 14 babies running around to capture them....

Spring Break No. 2

Here we are at the start of my second spring break of the year.  We had another week off earlier this year in February and mom isn't sure how much she likes this schedule.  It's a lot more work to find something to do with me but I'm all for it.

My break started out with a bang- three boys in the 4th grade class celebrated their birthdays together with a sports extravaganza at the park.  We played kick ball, flag football, corn hole, ate pizza, drank sports drinks, ate cupcakes and everyone got a t-shirt with the number "10" on the back.  Because the boys all turned 10.  It was super fun.

Oh geez!! I almost forgot- I got to pitch in my softball game Thursday night.  I did pretty dang good if I do say so myself.  I walked the first batter I faced and then struck out the next three- including getting one girl out with my change up!  I think I'm the only girl that can throw a change up right now and Coach Trish is super excited about it.  She and I have a signal worked out when she wants me to throw it.  And it worked!



The rest of the weekend was kind of relaxing, kind of a lot work.  We hosted an Easter brunch so Saturday was spent getting the backyard cleaned up, making Easter bunny cake, dyeing eggs and cleaning the house.

I was super excited about the Bunny coming and had everyone up at 5:45 to hunt for eggs.  Either the Easter Bunny thinks I'm 5 years old or he/she was tired because the eggs weren't hidden all that well. It was still fun though.

We had a wonderful rest of the day with our friends.  Everyone came over around 11:30 and we hung out in the backyard until 6 o'clock that night.  It was perfect and exactly what we (well, mom and dad) wanted out our backyard.

On Monday, Grandma Sue and Grandpa Vern came over to hang out with me while mom and dad worked.  Mom and I took Ginger to the vet Monday afternoon and since it's such a pretty part of town, we took a little walk after to enjoy the weather and the view.

Mom took Tuesday off work and it should have been a fun day but instead we spent the day waiting for the HVAC guy because our unit won't turn on.  He didn't get here until almost 1 and since I have a softball game at 5 tonight, it kind of shot the day.  Oh well.  They can't all be winners.  At least I got caught on my Minecraft and mom got caught up on her HGTV.  She has all kinds of ideas for dad now.....
We're off to the Grand Canyon on Thursday, so we're excited about that.

Git 'Er Done!

Well, mom is on the mend.  Finally.  The ankle is still swollen and tight but not a lot pain and walking without a limp.  She took full advantage of her recovered ability and took Ginger for a 2 mile walk, did some yard work, made blueberry muffins, ice cream, walked down to meet the new neighbors, and then did field prep for my softball game.  She was a little sore that night but it's all good!

Dad had an equally productive weekend.  This was one of his 9/80 weeks so he had Friday off and he spent all of Friday and most of Saturday finishing up his Man Cave.  And it looks pretty dang good!  See for yourself.....

It almost makes us want to get up and exercise.  Almost.

Saturday night was my first softball game of the spring season.  I'm not exactly sure whether we won or lost but we looked pretty good and may actually win another game this season.  I only ended up playing center field and right field so that kind of stunk and then I got called out on a really bad strike that was over my head and then I got walked so it wasn't a stellar evening for me.  I had a great time with all my friends though so it was a good evening.

Sunday was much more relaxed for everyone.  Dad headed out with Uncle Brian to play a round of golf and mom had a friend over for breakfast.  Then we took my friend Isabel (who lives around the corner!  Friends!  In my neighborhood!) up to the club house pool for the afternoon and it was a great day for everyone.

We are wrapping up the weekend watching "Max", a movie about a German Shepherd that is making us all cry and it turns out, Ginger really likes movies about German Shepherds as well.  Have a great week!

More Ugly Foot Pictures

I was asking mom why she has to put pictures of her nasty ankle into MY blog and she said it's really a family blog and she's fishing for sympathy.  So anyway.....It's been kind of a long week around here with mom hobbling about.  It was to the point that she was seriously thinking about sucking it up, paying her deductible and going to see a specialist.  But thankfully for us all, things are looking up this morning.  It's amazing what mega doses of Advil will do for a girl.

This was Thursday's foot.  It kind of looks like an 80 year old with circulation issues.

And here is Sunday morning's foot.  Aaaaaahhh- tendons and malleoli- such a nice sight.  And now, maybe she'll stop sticking that ugly thing in my face and making me look at it.

Now onto the rest of the family- it's not nearly so gross.  Dad has started tackling redecorating the Man Cave.  He got the flooring put in last weekend and this weekend, pulled down the fluorescent lighting and put in flush mount lights.  We aren't going to post pictures until it's all done but trust us that it looks good already.  He ordered nice cabinets that come in next week and has paint for the walls.  He is also planning a small fridge and comfy chair so we may never see him again.

On Saturday, my best friend and I headed to the Tucson Festival of Books to see our absolutely favorite author.  Tui T. Sutherland writes the Wings of Fire series all about dragons and Claire and I can't get enough of the books.  Tui did a reading from one of her books, did a question and answer session and then signed all our books.  Claire got all 6 of her books signed but I brought one.  She was super nice and it was pretty interesting.

The highlight of mom's time there was getting to meet Jane O'Connor, the author of the Fancy Nancy books.  Mom desperately tried to get me into Fancy Nancy books when I was little but when there are dinosaurs, hot wheels and planets to read about, I wasn't all that into it.  I guess it's my loss....

I spent the night at Claire's house last night.  Mrs Souvignier was getting worried about me because normally, I have them all up by 5:30 but I was still asleep at 8.  I came home and slept for another 3 hours.  So it was either a very late night for us or I'm growing again/turning into a teenager.

Just in case you were worried about our raccoon (who we named Frank), he has been bee-bopping around on the roof the last couple nights.

Hope everyone has a good week and make sure you root for the AZ Wildcats.  Bear Down!

More Catching Up

We know how excited and anxious everyone is to hear about mom's ankle ( I know I am!!) but in our rush to get the blog up last week, we neglected to post anything about the most important event on our calendar in February- 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo.  A little refresher.  This is a mountain bike race for crazy people that starts at noon on Saturday and goes until noon on Sunday and you ride as many laps as you can in that 24 hours.  It's actually a pretty popular race and lots of fun if you like that kind of stuff.  Dad and Mr. Walker and few of their friends do like that kind of stuff so they have a big boys weekend of riding, drinking beer and sitting around with 5000 other people for 4 days. ( Why 4 days you ask, when the race is only Saturday and Sunday?  Because.  That's most of the fun is going out early, getting a good spot and then riding, drinking beer and sitting around!)  Nana and mom and I went out the first year and it was interesting but if you aren't riding, it isn't quite as much fun so now, we have a girls weekend involving eating, shopping and sleeping in.  The race is always over Valentine's Day weekend so this year, I wrangled Nana into helping me put together 34 Valentine's Day cards for my class party.

We also hit the Gem and Mineral Show where I bought lots of good stuff, we went to a Valentine's Day party that one of my class mates had and it turns out, her Grandma is from Cleveland too so she and Nana had lots to talk about.
It was a fun weekend for everyone- the boys didn't win any medals but everyone came back uninjured and happy so that is all we can ask for!

Now, onto this week.  My softball practice started on Tuesday and our team looks like it may actually win a few games this year.  All my off season practice seemed to pay off and coach was impressed by the progress I made over the past few months.  Should be a fun season.


OK- now what you've all been waiting for- mom's ankle.  It was dark, the street was uneven and a car was coming.  So, she moved to get off the road and REALLY got off the road.  After doing her body scan to make sure nothing had fallen off, she hobbled home.  Dad got her an ice pack, I made her breakfast and then we headed off to work.

Thankfully, she works with some really good PTs who got her K-taped up and she made it through the day.

This was Friday morning.  She was tried to lay low but between doctor's appointments, grocery shopping, lunch etc. it was a long day........

So this was Saturday morning.  Mom decided at that point to park her a@# on the couch all day.  Contrary to popular belief, this isn't her favorite way to spend the day but it felt pretty good.  That night, she had a mom's night out at a local beer garden that she organized so that couldn't be missed.  Turns out that laying around all day and then drinking beer is a pretty good prescription for an ankle sprain because she woke feeling not terrible on Sunday!  Still some swelling and a little limp but doing OK.

 Dad went out for a mountain bike ride on Sunday and the boys came over after for a couple of hours for a post-ride hang out which is always a fun time.  Then grandpa and grandma came over and got us some dinner so it was a nice, relaxing Sunday.  Back to the grind tomorrow- woot woot....