Swimming, Swimming, Swimming

When you come to Arizona in the summer instead of in the fall, you will probably spend most of your time indoors or in a pool.  And pools are generally more fun, especially with kids.

Paisley, muscle-Jonah, Charlotte, and Hank

Friday at Robin's pool

Adam's kids: Ethan, Moqui, and Kaleb.

Swimming at Adam's pool on Saturday

(No swimming on the sabbath day)

Monday (Labor Day) we went swimming at my Grandma Donna's pool with Grandma, Mark, and my cousin Mike and his family.  This is the only photo I took:

Tonight we did a little skinny dipping in Robin's pool.

Roadtrip Day 2 & AZ

My kids woke up at the crack of dawn in Nevada, so we headed out rather early.

Lake Mead, almost as gorgeous as Lake Powell.

:)

Hoover Dam

Have you ever driven thru the part of AZ that is Joshua Trees as far as the eye can see?  It's pretty incredible.

Loving on Mom's super-mellow new kitten, Willow.

Sarah, (Willow in cage), Winston (dog on side table), and Claire

After playing with so many relatives at Nana's house, it was off to Aunt Robin's place.

Here are our girls: Elora, Charlotte, and Paisley

Elora and Charlotte watching a show together.  Elora playing with Charlie's hair.

Roadtrip Day 1

So I'd been planning to go and visit my family in Arizona when the weather had cooled a little but was still warm enough to swim; late September.  But then I was realizing how lonely I would be when Brandon was on his five-day backpacking trip, so I figured I'd just go now instead. 

So, Wednesday the kids and I drove from home to the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson to stay with Brandon's cousin Diedre and her family for the night.  I decided to exit the freeway and drive down the strip so the kids could see the spectacle of it all.  They loved it!

Jonah talked non-stop, pointing out everything he saw, "Look, a choo-choo train!"

Me: "That's a roller coaster."

Jo: "Oh, a roller coaster.  When I get a little bigger, I'm unna ride on one."

Elora: "chugga, chugga, chugga, choo, choo!"

Jonah: Look, an elevator, OUTside!

Me: That's an escalator.

Jo: An escalator outside!

Jo: Look, water!

Look, a pirate ship!

Look, another waterfall!

Me: That's a water fountain!

Jo: Another water fountain!

A hot air balloon!

Elora: Look, a bum bum.

Farm Girl Update

My friend Leah likes to call us "farm girls" even though we are mostly just wannabes.
Our chickens are full grown now and the six of them produce about four eggs a day.  I have named our Rhode Island Reds Dottie (red dot on her head) and Pepper.  The white Leghorns are Bianca and Bianca and the Sexlinks are Hilda and Hilda.

The ladies in their coop

Jonah, the pro chicken wrangler, holding one of the Hildas

Getting our daily eggs

The garden is currently producing green beans, two types of cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchinis, japanese eggplants, strawberries, mint, basil, and lavender.

Day 5 - Vancouver to Seattle 8/10

Vancouver is a very large city and according to my online research, something like 52% of its residents don't have English as their first language.  I know I heard people speaking at least three languages while I was there.

After a continental breakfast at our hotel, we checked out and heading to Vancouver's Granville "Island" to do some shopping.  What a fun place!

We loved this stone, crystal, and jewelry shop and I bought several gifts there.

Karen is a bit of a stone expert/junkie and we stopped in stone shops in at least four different cities:)

Awesome puppet store in the Kid's Market

Just outside the Public Market

Inside the Public Market

 



We ate all sorts of ethnic foods here for lunch and I picked up some unique dried meats here to take home to Brandon as well.

Yes, I am wearing the same jacket in nearly every picture from the entire trip.  It was supposed to be in the 70s everywhere we went the whole time we were there.  It was not.

We spent so much time on Granville Island that we had to drive straight from Vancouver to Seattle.

It was a lovely trip.

Day 4 Continued - Squamish to Vancouver

The 1,000 ft. high Shannon Falls

Porteau Cove provincial park

On the shores of glacial carved Howe Sound; the island, water and mountain views were stunning.

A manmade reef underwater here would make for some awesome scuba diving on a warmer day.

We saw a sea lion in the water here. 

When we finally reached Vancouver it was already getting dark.  We checked into our Best Western and headed out to find some dinner.  Yaletown was a really cute part of town with lots of great restaurants.