A Little Bit Nuts, A Lot Cute

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Climbing and Cruising

Video of Evan and Caitie at the park on Monday. You can hear all of the kids in the background! We have been going to this park since we got to town and now that the weather is cooler there are dozens of kids here on any given day!

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Vulture City Ghost Town

We spent most of Saturday in one of the best preserved ghost towns in the state. Not only do they have several buildings but they also have several items in the buildings. Such as furniture, stoves, pots and pans, tools, machinery and so on. It is a mining town that was discovered by a man named Henry Wickenburg in 1863. It has been unoccupied since WWII. You have to sign a release before walking around as they let you go anywhere you want and touch anything you want and most of the buildings could collapse the rest of the way any second of any day.

Not only did we go into this building (Assay Office and Shotgun shack built in 1884) but we even went upstairs. They say that there is around $600,000 worth of gold in the walls as they built it with rock from the mine.

This is where the guys with shotguns hung out.

Make my feet hurt just looking at them. But then again they are a hundred years old.

This was the machine shop. I'm standing on a gigantic diesel engine that was built in Germany, sent here and assembled where it sits in 1904.

Time for a quick stop on the potty. Sitting on 100+ year old poo.

Apartment house for the miners and yes we walked through this one to.

Evan found a car he likes.

Folgers in a glass jar.

Kitchen where the miners ate.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Ghost Towns Of Phoenix

Tomorrow we are heading to one of the most well preserved ghost towns in this area: Vulture, AZ.

It is a ghost town in the real sense of the word, not commercialized, only the owners/caretakers live there and things were just left lying around...pretty cool!

It started as a gold-mining town in the 1880's

We'll take LOTS of pictures and post them Sunday sometime.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

All the other stuff!

Well, we've been going to two bible studies for the past month and really love it. There are kids Evan's age at both and Caitlin gets a day with her 'friends' too.

The first bible study is for Mom's only, two wonderfully nice women take care of the kids while we get an hour and a half to chat and discuss our study for the week. The next session is MONEY...

The second bible study is just for the kids. It's at one of the Pastor's homes (his wife coordinates and leads it). We sing and tell them bible stories and they get to play and have a snack!

I am in the midst of the new member class at Christ's Greenfield Lutheran in Gilbert. We really like this church and I was happy to find such an easy fit without so much work! It helps of course that we just moved from one LCMS church to another but we really 'fit' here! I'm getting involved in several of the groups and events coming up over the next few months and Evan started Sunday School. They start taking them at 3 and I was sure he'd be 5 before he'd go. Despite the tears at first, he seemed to enjoy it though. We'll cross our fingers for this week!

Evan is having fun with preschool at home! We have been doing some projects that I hope to have posted over at Adventures In Preschooling later this week. He's learned a LOT about pumpkins and apples this month.

We are planning to go camping over Halloween weekend! Probably in cabins up in Williams - just west of Flagstaff. Yes, it will be downright COLD! We'll keep you updated on that crazy plan.

We are also planning our trip back to KC for the week after Thanksgiving and we'll be there for about 3 weeks.

Yeah!!!

Caitlin Takes Evan for a RIDE!

If you watch closely you can see that Caitlin is the one controlling the movement of the tractor...Evan is at her mercy!

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...