Field trips = fun?

On Thursday I took the day off to go on a field trip with Sydney and her class. We went to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. I was in charge of four students. Each student in the group had a job. There was a monitor, a navigator, a secretary, and a photographer. In order for me to go on the field trip I had to go to an orientation meeting. This is what I like to call a working field trip. I had my doubts about how much fun we were going to have. Sydney (in the green shirt) was the secretary. That clip board was tons of fun for her to hold all day! She was an awesome secretary, she actually seemed to enjoy keeping track of everything. I never once heard her complain.
We saw lots of wildlife. The boys in my group loved the snakes. They had a Rosy Boa out that we could pet and learn about. I like the snakes that were behind the glass the best!

There was a man made little cave tunnel that you could walk through and climb through. The kids thought it was awesome. It was a tight squeeze for most of the adults, not to mention really dark in side. When it was lit up there were some really cool rock formations like you would see in real caves. The kids were amazed.

They each got to try on bat ears. They didn't keep them on very long. There were so many people, and the ears amplified the noise. It was really loud once you put on the ears. Sydney was a good sport and put them on so Mom could take a picture. As soon as I had my picture the ears came off.

My favorite were the Prairie Dogs. They were so cute. They played with each other, and ran around. The babies in the group looked like they hadn't been coming outside their den for very long. They were very tiny and so much fun to watch. I'm glad they don't live in my yard but they were a lot of fun to watch.

I bought the kids some ice cream while we took a little break from walking. Poor Ayom got a brain freeze immediately. It was hot out when we went to Tucson but it wasn't unbearable. There was a breeze and some shade and most of the display buildings were air conditioned. It was way better than I thought it would be.

The Otter was a crowd pleaser. He was a big showoff and ham for the camera. You could watch him swim from above and then if you walked down this tunnel you could watch him from the underwater level. We spent a lot of time watching this funny guy.

Sydney again doing something she didn't really want to just to please mom and her camera. My kids hated me and my camera by the end of this field trip! They were all good sports though.

Frogs. Ewwww is what the boys said but the girls thought they were cool. Weird huh?

This lizard was actually alive but had just gotten fed and had his heat light turned on so he was snoozing away.

Sydney had a great time. By the time we finished lunch and were back on the bus we were beat. It was the perfect day to be in Tucson in the heat. There was a breeze and the heat wasn't at record temperatures ..... Yet!

And then comes the long bus ride home. We got five miles out from the Museum and the bus broke down! I snapped this picture of Sydney and her friend Madison on our way back from going potty in the bushes. I think we waited by the road for almost two hours. Thankfully TUSD sent one of their buses to take us home. The store Family Dollar let us borrow the umbrellas. Once we were on our way we dropped them back off. They saved us!

After a long hot break by the side of the road we were finally back on the bus and back on the road heading home. Sydney has another field trip this Thursday, to Tucson, to the zoo, with her buddy who is in kindergarten. Yeah, I think I'll stay home and work thanks. Good luck Sydney, call me when you need a ride home. Hopefully it will be before 8 o'clock unlike last time!

I love the Easter Bunny!

We had the best Easter ever! The Easter Bunny brought us the best present ever! Our present came all the way from Montana!! James is home!!! Just for a short visit. He's on his way to New Mexico for training until July. We spent the weekend at Dad's house. We played games (I highly recommend the games Farkle, Apples to apples family edition, and Monopoly the card game for your next family fun night!), visited, went out for dinner, and worked around the house. I love hanging out as a family. We missed seeing Tammy and Araya and Mason but James is training for work so they didn't get to come :( Clay had to work so he missed out too. We had a great time. It was so nice to see my older brother!!

Girls love pedicures!

Yesterday we had lots of errands to run. I felt bad the girls didn't get to have much fun this weekend. I had to work all day Friday and they had to go with me. We had to be there at 7:00 Am and didn't get home until 3:30. It was a long boring day for them. Saturday was just as busy. We were up and ready early so we could get our errands done and get back home and get a few things done around the house.

I decided we needed a little fun this weekend. We went to the mall and got pedicures! The girls loved it. It was so fun to do it all together. I haven't been able to get a pedicure since last year when I went with Amy for her birthday. We were the only ones in the salon at the time so it was great to laugh and joke and just spend time with the girls. I think the girls love pedicures just as much as I do. That may or may not be a good thing! After our toes got all pretty we went to McDonald's for a quick lunch and then we headed home to get some house cleaning done.

When Clay saw our nails later that night he said it looked like the colors of the sherbet ice cream he liked to eat. Wonder why I always pick orange? It's Clay's favorite color! The girls got their housework done in record time! Time to play in the water!

I love it when the weather is warm enough to play outside in the water. My grass gets watered, the chickens get a bath, and the girls have a great time! When Dad got home it was time to fire up the grill. We had a yummy dinner of grilled chicken and steak, a huge salad and some noodles. What better way to end a fun day than going to DQ!

We call it a secret at our house. When the kids were younger we use to try to surprise them. Clay would ask if we needed a secret that night. I would of course always say yes. Once we were in the car the girls would always ask where we were going. We would answer that it was a secret. Now they hear the word secret and they're running for the car. I can't wait for school to be out. We'll have more time to spend as a family, and more days filled with fun just like this one!

3 For the fun of it!

Here are three quick little tid bits just for the fun of it. I heard about the Hunger Games Trilogy months ago from my friend Gato. I got sidetracked and busy I never got to read them. Well after everyone at work had read them but me I guess it was time to give in and do it too. Bad idea, it's like twilight all over again!! I was hooked from page one of book one. I finished book three today and cried in the end. The first book is being made into a movie and comes out March 2012. I CAN'T WAIT!! Next little story....... We had pizza tonight for dinner. Wednesday's are our special nights. After I got a call from Clay saying he would be late tonight, I decided not to dirty up a clean kitchen and order pizza. I was headed out the door to pick it up (No, we don't have delivery in Bisbee!) when Sydney says "Mom did you get the hot lovin kind"? Ummm, I busted up laughing! The what?? "You know, the thin kind that's hot and I love it" she says. Too funny, what a goofball. We had a good laugh and some yummy pizza. From now on it will forever be known as the hot lovin kind at our house. When my grand kids ask why we call pizza that I'm going to break out the blog book! Last but not least..... If you have not read this book, you have no idea what you're missing. If you haven't seen the movie either, wow you need to get to a red box ASAP! Read it, watch it, love it. We did.

I got sidetracked sorry, so on to story three. So in this book this girl has chickens and gives away their eggs. We now get four eggs a day from our lovely ladies. That's plenty for us. Today we collected eggs and discovered we had two 18 packs of eggs plus more that wouldn't fit in the carton. We have boiled eggs in the fridge already and we made egg salad sandwiches just last week. We're egged out! Time to get rid of some. We gave the four neighbors around us eggs. Hopefully they don't treat our eggs like the boy in Flipped treated the eggs that were given to him. The girls loved running around delivering the eggs. I wonder what our neighbors thought?

Spring Butterflies

Spring is finally here. I have a love/hate relationship with this time of year. I love the weather, the birds, school almost being out, playing outside. I hate the wind, schedules getting hectic, having to go to work, bugs, allergies, and weeds! The kids are loving everything about this time of year. They can play outside until almost seven, they can put the sprinkler under the trampoline and not catch a cold, they can start counting down the days left of school. Alex Thought her butterfly hair clips just "Yell Spring". They looked so cute in her braids! We love spring but we're anxiously awaiting Summer!! Bring on the heat, the pool parties, and the vacations. Sleeping in, staying up late, and no schedules is a must too!

Confetti with Colin!

While Uncle Colin was down for the MAKE youth arts festival he got to play with the girls. Every year around Easter time you can find eggs filled with confetti. Yes, they make a huge mess but they"re lots of fun!The girls had a great time chasing Colin around trying to get confetti on him. I think Colin won, the girls came in with tons of confetti in their hair and he didn't have any confetti anywhere on him. I was still picking out confetti that night before it was bath time!

The mess is still out there. I was hoping the wind would blow it away but..... Looks like I'll have to break out the broom. I made the girls play out front because I didn't want the chickens to eat the confetti and give us colorful eggs.

We missed Aunt Amy and Harry a lot but we sure had a great time with Uncle Colin. Thanks for coming and we'll see you soon!!