The Heat Goes On

We are still roasty and toasty here- whew!  Good thing for me, I had my first and only swim meet of the year.  I've going to swim practice 4 days a week for the past 6 weeks and the only way mom talked me into swim team was the promise that I wouldn't have to do swim meets.  I claim to hate swim team, but I actually kind of like it.  Anyway, I agreed to ONE meet and the only reason I agreed was because my friend Claire was on the team we were swimming against.  That and I was promised a big ol' Kona Ice.  It also turned out that half my softball team was on the other team as well, including my softball coach's daughter.  Which means my softball coach was there.  Which means she and dad were thisclose to having an impromptu softball practice.  I had just an average night but as mom likes to say- "It's a good learning experience!"

Friday night, Claire and I had a sleep over- it was even more fun than usual because Claire just got a kitten!  A kitten is my wildest dream and so really,  I spent more time with the cat than I did with Claire but we both understood.

On Saturday, mom and dad picked me up from Claire's and we headed to the grocery store so dad and I could do our food shopping for our week long Daddy-Daughter Vacation!  Woot-Woot!  Mom did a very good job keeping her mouth shut as we filled our cart with cookies, chips, gravy, Lucky Charms.  She did sneak in some carrots and strawberries but those will probably be coming home with us.

Saturday afternoon, dad invited some St. Michael's dads to go golfing (in the 109 degrees heat) and us kids and the moms hung out at the pool.  I was exhausted from the sleep over with Claire and the boys were all exhausted from a sleep over they had the night before too so we were all just kind of floating around but it was fun either way.

Dad and I were up bright and early to head off to Disneyland.  I got to sit in mom's seat and be the co-pilot.  She told me my job was to keep dad awake by talking the whole way.  I kind of like it in the front seat but I was told to not get used to it.  Bummer.

So now, mom is on her own until Thursday when she leaves for a weekend in Portland.  After we left, she headed to the store to do her own shopping for the week.  Her cart looked a little different then our did.

She spent the rest of the day wandering around the house and then tooled around the neighborhood in the golf cart taking pictures.  It was an elderly person, retirement kind of day.   There is a fire burning the mountains not too far from our house so she got a picture of that and then some pictures of this amazing century plant.

 We will fill you in on all our adventures next week!  Have a great one!

June 2017

It has been hot, hot, hot here and we have been correspondingly lazy, lazy, lazy.  No bathroom remodels for us this month!

We started off June with a trip to the White Mountains to get out of the heat and see Grandpa Vern early for Father's Day.  It wasn't the most exciting of our White Mountain trips because it was too dang windy to do much.  We went fishing most of the time because it the water was too cold to swim in if it is 75 degrees outside with 30 mph winds.  We did lots of sitting too and were getting a little restless toward the end of it but a weekend in the mountains beats a weekend in the heat hands down, no matter what you end up doing!

The next weekend was Father's Day weekend but first, mom had to go to a bachelorette party for one of her co-workers.  Thankfully, it wasn't a night of drinking and debauchery 'cause mom is too old for that nonsense!  The ladies went to Tucson23.  Tucson's new source of civic pride is their claim to the best 23 square miles of Mexican food in the country.  To celebrate that, the Southern Arizona Council for the Arts hosts Tucson23 which invites Mexican restaurants in this radius to bring their signature dish for sampling.  It was kind of amazing.  So. Much. Good. Food! And drinks.  Some of the best green corn tamales mom has ever had.  Everyone left fat and happy and with lots of business cards of new places to try.

On Father's Day, we tried to make it special for dad.  We made him crepes in the morning and then he went out and did yard work and cooked his own dinner:(  In our defense, he wanted ribs and he makes way better ribs than mom does AND he invited the Goods over for an afternoon of swimming and barbecuing.  It ended up being a very nice day and the moms did try to let the boys relax......

On to this week.  Mom took me to see Wonder Woman with my friends Ella and Isabel.  Oh my gosh!  What a great movie!  The moms all walked out of the theater high kicking, karate chopping and spin kicking.  Actually, it was a little embarrassing but oh well.

The rest of the week passed kind of quietly.  Both mom and I were a little under the weather with stomach stuff and it was 115 degrees.  All three of us had Friday off and we spent the day lounging by the pool, relaxing.  It was great.
Saturday, was another slow, quiet day and we were all getting a little bored.  Mom was up at 4:45 for her run, so she was done with her "have-to's" but 6:30AM and dad didn't sleep well the night before so he was kind of dragging.  We rallied that night though.  Mom and dad headed down to the club for a beer and dinner pairing with a local brewery out of Phoenix.  They had one or two beers they liked and the rest were either meh or weird but it was fun night either way.

To keep me company, Ella spent the night so while mom and dad were drinking and eating, we were swimming and eating and making slime and glow in the dark snow cones.  It ended up being a super fun night for us too.

Sunday is our recovery day.  Dad got in a round of golf, starting a t 5:48, so he was done by 9:30 and now we are spending another day out by the pool.  There are thunder clouds building as we write and its supposed to cool off some this week so I think we weathered the storm!

Productive But Not So Fun.

Not a super exciting weekend in the old Goedel Household but we did get a lot done.  I was in day camp and swim team all week and by Friday, I was ready for a day of relaxation.  Mom had other ideas though because it was Housecleaning Friday!!  I totally got put to work vacuuming and dusting- which I have to admit, wasn't horrible.  And the house looks better.

We met dad that afternoon to see Pirates of the Caribbean movie and we all really liked it so Friday wasn't a complete dud.

We woke up Saturday and mom headed out for her run and dad and I putzed around the house.  When mom came back, she got a wild hair and decided it was a good day to paint the bathroom.  It was just one small wall and didn't take long.  It was all good until Dad asked if mom wanted to do the mirror as well.  Well, of course she wanted to do the mirror as well!  So they took down the old plate glass mirror which left several big glue spot areas that needed to fixed.  Which led to repainting that wall.  And then dad said we should replace the light too since we were in there already.  Which led to a trip to the hardware store to pick one out.  And by then, it was dark and time for a beer so we woke up Sunday morning to continue painting, patching and hanging.  And you know what?  The whole thing looks pretty nice.  And considering mom's lack of painting expertise and the fact that she was working with navy blue paint, there aren't too many flubbies to report.  Well there is one, but it is down behind the toilet so if anyone is looking there, they deserve to see it.

And while all that was going, dad started organizing the garage as well.  Part of that involved me going through three huge tubs of old toys that we had stashed in the garage.  I sat down and went through all three tubs and condensed it down to 1/2 of one tub.  (Look out Uncle Adam and Aunt Erin- you have a load of dinosaurs coming your way!)  Everyone was super impressed.

 We are headed to my friend Ella's house for a barbecue this evening so the weekend is a total loss although we did get a new bathroom and more garage space out of it.....

Endings and Beginnings

Well.  This has been quite a two weeks here.  We finally wrapped up our softball season with a three game series against the other Tanque Verde team to determine league champs.  It was a battle of titans.  Not really.  Both of our teams were really bad.  Unfortunately/fotunately, we lost two of the games.  We say unfortunately because it's always a little sad to see the season end, no matter how bad you are.  We say fortunately because the city tournament was being played in Oro Valley which is an hour from our house and games were at 8 o'clock at night.  So whew, we kind of dodged that bullet!  So now that softball practice is over, it took dad until Thursday night at 6 for him to announce he was bored.  Mom has lots of home projects for him so that'll keep him busy.

The following week happened to be my birthday week.  As I am learning from the master of birthdays (mom) I am prolonging the fun as much as possible.  If you remember, Nana D and Mister Walker came out at the beginning of May to celebrate early because it's never to early to celebrate.  Then Tuesday before my birthday, Grandpa Vern and Grandma Sue took us out to my favorite steak place for dinner.  It was super fun especially when the whole place sang me "Happy Birthday".  I wasn't even embarrassed and stayed sitting up in my chair instead of crawling under the table like I normally do.  I guess turning 11 brings a certain maturity.

On Wednesday, I brought in donuts to school to celebrate and it's always good when donuts are involved.

Thursday was my actual birthday and also the second to last day of school and the day of our class party.  I'm not sure a birthday could be any better.  We spent the day swimming, eating pizza and Eegees and running around all day.  The parents managed to corral the girls ( also known as the 5th Grade Girls Squad) for a picture.  No one except the parents wanted the boys in the picture so there are no boys in the picture.

Thursday night, mom made me birthday quiche which is my new favorite dinner and then I went for a birthday swim because I couldn't help myself!

Now, onto Friday.  That was the official last day of school.  Mom dropped me off and then met some other moms for a long, leisurely breakfast with mimosas and bloody marys to celebrate.  Although, I don't know what they were celebrating for.....
They were at breakfast long enough that it was time to pick us up from school since it was a half day and then a few of us went out to lunch so the real celebration could start.  These are just a few of my friends and this time, we even allowed a boy into the picture.  But we all like Jack so it was OK!

After a relaxing start to our first Saturday of summer, dad talked me into cleaning up my room/closet.  Mom has been bugging me for months to tackle it but I steadfastly refused.  Dad had the magic touch this weekend and we spent about 3 hours chucking and organizing stuff.  Even I think it's awesome to walk into my room and be able to see the floor and close the closet doors.  We could actually vacuum the whole floor and not just around stuff.

That super fun morning was followed by a true super fun afternoon- my birthday slumber party!  Mom has a low tolerance for craziness but she caved and let me invite three of my friends for a sleep over.  We started at Dave and Busters which has now opened in Tucson.  We had a fabulous time!  We hit the jackpot on tickets and ended up with 5600 tickets.  That allowed us to spend an exhausting amount of time in prize store.  Mom and dad think it was about 15 hours.  We finally got out of there and headed home for swimming, cake and .......

group Minecraft.  This is how we spent a good portion of our evening but at least we were all in the same world.

 Everyone finally headed home about 10:30 and then we were onto our next party.  We invited the Goods over for a last minute cookout/swim.  Madeline and I swam not stop for about 5 hours so needless to say, I slept super hard that night.

Monday was pretty quiet- we all slept in, did a little exercising, a little shopping and a lot of hanging out.  It was a great weekend and I don't think anyone is ready to return to the real world yet.  Happy Summer!

Happy Mother's Day!

This week in review:

We had my final two regular season softball games.  Same story, different night.  We did show a little more awareness on the defensive end of things and had some pretty good, almost outs.  We have league playoffs this week, best 2 out of 3 against the other Tanque Verde team.  They are having almost as bad a season as we are so it should be a heck of a series.....

We moved onto better things on Saturday.  It was Mother's Day weekend so we headed out to do a stay-cation at Tanque Verde Ranch which is now about 5 minutes from our house.  It was a perfect weekend- hot enough on Saturday that we could take advantage of the pool and cool enough on Sunday we could eat our breakfast outside.

We got there about 3 on Saturday and headed right for the pool.  After spending some there, we headed over to the saloon and then down to the evening bar-b-cue.  This is the same one we go to for annual Christmas party so it was fun to eat when it was warm this time.  We didn't even need jackets so that was kind of cool......(See what I did there?)

On Saturday, we got up bright and early Sunday morning so I could get in my horseback ride.  It was a breakfast ride but mom and dad aren't really riders so they walked up and met us a little later.  We had a good breakfast of blueberry pancakes, sausage, green chile eggs, biscuits.  It was deeeeelicious!

Even Santa Claus made an appearance but we didn't see Mrs Claus.

Productive Weekend

We had ourselves a semi productive, semi fun weekend.  Nana D and Mr. Walker came out for a visit so that was the fun part.  They come every May to celebrate my upcoming birthday and to watch some of my softball games.

We had a nice relaxing Friday night, starting with margaritas and chips and guacamole.  And then home-made spaghetti.  It was an international kind of night.

On Saturday, mom, Nana and I had a super lazy day.  Nana actually got to sit in the backyard and listen to the Cleveland Indians baseball game all day.  Mom just puttered around all day.  Dad and Mr. Walker however kept themselves busy most of the day.  Our pool equipment has been on its last legs since we bought the house and then the pool water turned a beautiful shade of green and wouldn't turn blue.  So dad decided since we had some free labor that this was the weekend to replace it all.  He put Mr. Walker to work cutting out old pipe and removing equipment and then they put all the new stuff in and it works like a charm.  The pool is blue again and the pump is so quiet- you can't hear it half way down the street anymore!

Saturday afternoon, we headed out for my softball game and we put Nana and Mr. Walker to work again helping mom out with field prep.  This involves a lot of dust and dirt and chalk and they were all kind of a mess after.  And unfortunately my game wasn't any better.  Once again, my team was kind of a mess and I had not a stellar night in the field.  I did hit a legitimate home run though so that was a bright spot.  I think it was all the pressure from my audience....

We had some pretty cactus flowers open up over the weekend- always pretty in the desert!