Fourth of July

For the fourth we drove up to Prescott (about 50 miles west of Sedona I believe).

We are still amazed at the variety of climates here in Arizona. We started in 102 degrees, humid, sunny and hot! Along the way we encountered some storms and the temp dropped dramatically to 62 degrees! In just 20 more miles we were back into sunshine and 86!

Prescott is in the mountains and has the feel of a mid-western town with all the trees and architecture. We had a picnic at the Prescott Frontier Days and walked around downtown.

We left in the late afternoon to head back home for fireworks in Chandler at Tumbleweed Park near our house. It was a fun day but we were exhausted!

We were a little bummed when we realized the desert is too hot and dry to allow regular folk to shoot off fireworks. It never occurred to us until that afternoon that we hadn’t seen any fireworks for sale or heard anyone shooting them off. Bummer!

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Happy 2009

Video of us and the kids celebrating the New Year!

Merry Christmas Eve...Some More

More on Christmas Eve:

Christmas Eve was quiet but fun! We wrapped that last of our presents, had pizza for dinner and made Santa's cookies. After the kids were all tucked in Danny and I went to a candlelight service at church (at 11pm) while Tracy stayed home for us. When we got home, we watched a movie and went to bed just in time for Santa to leave gifts for the kids.

Merry Christmas Eve!

I think I love Christmas Eve even more than Christmas Day...

I know it sounds crazy but here's my reasoning:

Christmas Eve still holds all the anticipation of what "might" be, all the fun is still to be had. We cook and wrap and clean and it's all for a yet unrealized grand finale!

I love Christmas Day, too, but there's always somwhat of a let down that evening knowing that you'll wake up the day after Christmas to an ordinary day, with all of your ordinary things to do!

Anyway, in honor of all of the wonderful times we have yet to have this year, I thought I would wish you all a Merry Christmas Eve!

My Grandma will arrive tomorrow and as of this morning, she hasn't changed her mind about coming even though the weather is not entirely cooperative. It's rainy here (for nearly a week now!) and snowy and COLD in Kansas City!

We are cooking and cleaning today. We got the casserole ready for tomorrow morning so all I have to do is throw it in the oven to bake! We are making our Christmas cookies tonight for Santa! I still need to get the Chicken ready and prep the potatoes but otherwise we're just having a regular day. We will hopefully head to church this evening if the kids get a nap in. I really want to take everyone to the 11pm candlelight service but I'm sure as bedtime nears I will come to my senses about that. Maybe Danny and I will go and see if Tracy can hang out with the kids in case they wake up.

Anyway - Merry Christmas! We'll be posting some great video and photos over the break.

Love to you all!

Christmas in Arizona...Nothing Like What We're Used To!

I'll be honest, it's cold here...

For about 20 mins in the middle of the night! Hahaha....

Really, it's chilly but the temps are in the upper 50's this week and we occassionally dip down to 35 or so at night. I do usually turn the heater on while we are sleeping:)

So, Christmas in Chandler is like a fall parade in Kansas City! Last weekend we attended the City tree lighting downtown and watched the "Parade of Lights" in the evening. It was a little cool but we just wore long sleeves and jackets.

Below is a video of Santa at the end of the parade. We have several small videos of the rest of the parade that I will up load and try to post this week. It's really cool!

Video of Our Dancing Girl...

Tales of Winter Wonderland

We had a great time today decorating for Christmas!

The kids were really into it...I even managed to get Danny to put lights outside. That's just because it's not freezing like it usually is when he has to do it.

After we decorated (and the kids "took a nap" hahaha) we all went to Tempe Town Marketplace. It's kind of like Zona Rosa or the Legends in KC. They had music and a HUGE tree and even made snow fall (okay, really it was just a bunch of bubble/suds machines but it did look like snow!).

Since we no longer have a fireplace we were stumped about what to do with the stockings...they may end up on the wall by the tree because Danny said the baker's rack (that's now in the entryway) looks like something you'd find in a little craft store...is that good or bad?

Hopefully, that singing Santa won't become a fixture! He's cute but could use a muzzle!

We'll take some pictures of the outside after we get all the lights up tomorrow after church.

Happy Thanksgiving

Well, our culturally diverse dinner turned out WONDERFUL!

Just before we ate, the picture was supposed to be of the food but I didn't specify that I wanted it up close so Danny just took a picture of 'food'.

The whole gang...clockwise starting with Caitlin...Danny (being his usual photogenic self!), Evan, Bill, Lori and Tracy.

There were almost NO leftovers and everyone seemed to enjoy the variety of foods...even Miss Picky Pants.

After dinner we took a drive to Bill and Lori's new house just a few miles away and came back for dessert and games!

The only thing Danny didn't really care for was the dessert I made (the capirotada) of course! I loved it but he barely ate two bites. He DID like the pumplin cheesecake Lori made though...go figure :) I can't keep up with him.

Evan and Caitie got to talk to Grandma McKee and Grandma and Papa Barton as well!

We had a great day with Tracy and our friends! We hope you did, too!

Thanksgiving

Today is the first day we've had without sunshine...it was 'mostly sunny' but got kind of grayish in the evening.

Oh, I know, I'm rubbing it in. What I'm really trying to get to is how hard it is to be in the Holiday spirit when you are 1400 miles away from all of your family and the weather is so oddly perfect all the time!

We are supposed to have some rain later this week. That may get my head on track!

Anyway, since this will be the first Thanksgiving in 31 years that I haven't been with my family and only the 2nd or 3rd time in 37 years that Danny hasn't been with his Mom, we've decided to just throw tradition out the window this year and go with something completely different...a Mexican/Indian themed Thanksgiving Dinner.

We don't want to get all sappy thinking about the way Mom and Grandma make it while we're eating my sad version. We'll be pitiful enough without that :(

Danny's boss, Bill, and his girlfriend Lori are joining the 5 of us for dinner Thursday so we'll have enough to call it a party...

Here is the potential menu:

Indian Fry Bread to go with everything!

Appetizers
homemade salsa and guac
homemade corn and flour tortilla chips
roasted pumpkin seeds (sweet and spicy)

Main meal
turkey and ham
camote (like sweet potatoes but with honey and butter)
spicy mexican corn
sweet corn cake (that wonderful stuff they put on your plate at Mexican restaurants!)
roasted garlic broccoli
candied bacon

Dessert
capirotada (mexican bread pudding)
candied pumpkin
cactus ice cream

We'll take pictures of everything and let you know how it turns out!

Halloween

We did actually find the Halloween pictures...

Couldn't manage to get Evan with his eyes open but they are still cute!

Tracy was an escapee from the asylum...she looks a little scary here! She and Evan are actually standing right in front of our house here. They had just hopped over to the neighbor's for some candy and were coming back to start some serious candy hunting!

And, just a few minutes later Caitlin was already tired of the whole thing! It was 80 and she was in a thick kitty costume...hot, hot, hot!

I wrapped up little chocolates with my business card and gave them out at each of the houses we visited. People didn't really know what to make of that!

The Cute Kitty and the Brave Fireman!

And that's about all you will know about Halloween because I can't find the pictures we took for some reason :(

Hopefully it's just a momentary loss...they were so adorable!

Fall Is Here...Or, the Desert Version It!

It's pretty amazing to be here this time of year...we don't have the lovely changing leaves and sometimes enjoyable rainy gloomy weather (Melissa and I like it anyway). We aren't wearing sweaters or jackets, or even long sleeved shirts (heck, I still don't have any jeans in my wardrobe) but it is FALL! And, best of all...we are heading for about 6-7 months of beautiful weather!

The weather has undergone a dramatic shift from HOT, like 100+ every day just two weeks ago, to cool. And I realize that most of you will think 'cool' must mean I'm crazy because 'cool' here is like upper 80's-lower 90's. Just come visit us and you'll see what I mean. It's NOT at all hot. It feels warm and happy late in the day and at night it's been in the 60's. We open the windows most of the day and turn the air on only late in the afternoon while the kids are napping and I'm getting dinner ready.

It's also getting dark here by 6:30...that's the weird absence of DST! Which, I realized, will be coming your way soon and we'll only be 1 HOUR difference. That will have a big impact on my ability to communicate with you over the phone! For some reason the two hour difference always meant someone was eating or sleeping when I was free to talk!

So, because the weather was cooler over the weekend (the highs were only 82 and 86 and we're in for the nice cool weather again this weekend!) we decided to do our pumpkin picking early.

There's a great HUGE farm nearby (Schnepf Farms) in Queen Creek and we spent Saturday evening there. I've posted some photos below...

Our big girl!

Amazing sunset...

Cute kids all around!

Our train ride! This photo makes it look like we're moving at the speed of light!

    

Evan's FIRST roller coaster ride...and he LOVED it!

  

I'm hoping to put ALL the photos from the night at the farm on the slideshow at the top of the blog! Assuming the computer will cooperate with me!

Happy Easter

We got up Easter morning so we could have our first family Easter Egg Hunt. We discovered Evan likes to get "monies" (smart kid, huh?) in his Easter eggs while we were at Grandma and Grandpa McCain's the week before. So we put money in many of them and jelly beans in the rest (yes, that's all he got!). He has a train bank that was a gift from Grandma McKee at his baby shower. We just recently started showing him what it was for and better yet...what it does! So, of course, every SINGLE coin he got was put in the bank one at a time so he could hear the full version of "I've been workin' on the railroad".

It was still before breakfast so I was trying to keep the suger monster at bay for at least a few hours by snatching up the jelly beans before he could eat them ALL! It became quite a contest, let me tell you.

Easter morning after church Grandma and Grandpa Barton came by to visit before dinner. You won't actually see Evan or Tyler in any of these photos because when they are together there is no sitting still! The adorable baby bunny was able to freeze Miss Nick for a minute (but that's it)!

Then (after a much needed nap) we were off to Grandma Glass' house for dinner and to visit with the rest of the family! The kids were so cute with Connor we couldn't resist taking a few photos (even though by the time we actually got them all in one place NO ONE was particularly happy about it)! Oh, yeah...Caitlin was alternately kissing/hugging and pushing Connor away!

Before we left Kerry was sure to torture Evan a little - just in time for my "I had hoped for a nice quiet ride home -- instead I get two screaming kids for 20 minutes" drive.

Happy Valentines Day!

We hope your Valentine's Day is full of THIS much love!