Preparing for guests

This is what I have been doing:

Preparing for guests.

We can't wait.

Parade Video

Baloonies

Yesterday we volunteered to help with the

 Annual APS Parade of Lights

 in downtown Phoenix. 

Somehow we never took the kids to see it.  

And Doug and I have only gone once ourselves.  

We totally enjoyed it when we went 

so we decided to give back a little 

and help make it a success in 2013.

We were assigned and trained as Balloonies.

At the Arizona Center waiting for our transportation.

This is it?  Well it could be worse.
We could have Isaac as our bus driver.
As it turns out we had Richard - and he did pretty good.

In our issued sweatshirts
 and funky light-up hats
 and glowsticks - only my had didn't work.

Doug in uniform including the gloves for us balloonies.

Our wreath balloon -
everyone kept yelling out that it was
A  DOUGHNUT
as we paraded through the streets.

Ready to roll.
My weak sauce replacement flashing headwear.

Other balloons included: Snowman, Cactus, and Elf.

Huge Stocking - some palm trees on a vehicle.

Some APS ornaments, Cacuts with ornaments, and other glowing orb.
And lots of others too!

Doug's job was right up his alley.
Pulling the generator for our lights and
keeping all the cords untangled and plugged in.
He did great too . . . . . . .
until we finished the parade and made that last turn -
it was a doozey!

On the bus after finishing the parade.
We were both beat!
But they drove us back for FOOD!
A slight disappointment there -
sandwiches instead of pizza.

Although we totally
 enjoyed the experience,

 I'm not sure we'll do it again.  

We think there are
too many chiefs who do a lot of talking

 and not enough working.  

But if you ever need
an experienced
  Balloonie -
 give us a call.

Bus

Isaac has finally found a job! YAY!!

He is a bus driver.

He is a good bus driver.

He has to get up early to drive a bus.

Busses are big!

This was his first week of actually driving a bus  - solo.

He did great!

He takes his bus on lots of field trips.

I think this job suits him well.

One comment he got this week:

"Hey, Mr. Bus Driver, you missed the first stop."

Okay - so his first day wasn't perfect but he got better.

Don't forget to watch the roads in Peoria for this bus driver!

****Oh boy! Is my hair really that gray?  

******Check for several other posts this morning.

Rolling

This is Daisy - she is 6 months old.

Daisy has lots of hair and 2 teeth.

Daisy is a happy baby.

Something that she is really good at is rolling.

She likes rolling to the left.

She likes rolling to the right.

Anytime she is on the floor she is rolling all over the place.

Rolling must be fun.  Remind me to try it sometime.

Cars

Calvin really likes playing with cars.

He likes cars of all colors.

He likes cars that roll fast.

He likes cars that are big.

He likes cars that are little.

He really likes cars if they have a door to open.

He really loves cars when they are diggers.

He really really loves cars when they are scoopers.

I think Calvin likes cars best of all his cousins!

Sand

Emery loved the sand!

She liked digging in the sand.

She liked walking in the sand.

She liked letting the sand fall through her fingers.

She liked looking for treasure in the sand.

She liked playing with Zac and Sadie in the sand.

I would say that Emery is a sand expert.

Wrangle a Ladybug

Zac is so brave. 

 He showed me how to wrangle a ladybug.  

The ladybug was red and black.  

But it was no regular lady bug. 

 It was HUGE! 

 And Zac was brave. 

 He knows how to wrangle a ladybug.  

Driving a Tractor

I thought this was pretty cool.
Sadie was driving a tractor.  

She wasn't even 6 years old yet.
 She didn't even go to kindergarten yet.  

But there she was driving a tractor.  

Breaking Bad

I think most of the civilized world watched the series "Breaking Bad".  I did not. No cable here.  But yesterday I saw something that I am calling Breaking Bad.

I had finished a return at a Sears store and was mindlessly browsing before I left.  I was near the door I had entered when I heard those annoying store alarms go off.  Usually someone has legitimately purchased their items but the store clerk failed to remove a sensor.  So I heard the alarm and looked toward the door thinking I would see an shopper looking back at the register and shrugging while slowly walking back to figure out the problem.  But no I didn't see anything like that.

 Instead I saw a man hunched over and moving very quickly through the door.  I wondered what was happening:  Was this man sick?  Had he tripped?  Had he dropped something on the ground?  What was it?  I spent an extra fraction of a second to interpret what I saw and it made my stomach lurch.  This guy was stealing a huge armload of merchandise!  He literally could not stand up because the load was so big he was sort of folding himself around it in order to hang on.

Well, I yelled to the cashier that the man was running out with a ton of stuff.  She seemed oblivious and sort of said, "Oh, really? Hmmm."  I fished around for my phone in order to call 911 but - I didn't have it! DANG!  Next, I quickly walked out the door trying to get a license number and description of the car.  But the man had planned ahead for his little heist.  The car was pulled all the way through the space so that his license was obscured and he could just pull forward making his escape as quick as possible.

While I was out there I noticed another man trying to get the license number and he was on the phone with the police.  Turns out that this guy was part of their security and had seen the man come in and in a flash he had made his move.  I think they must have been watching him on a camera in an office or something because he said they could identify him and knew what he was wearing and all that.  But that could only help if the police were quick to respond and were lucky enough to find him with just a vehicle description and direction of travel.

So I am calling this episode - Breaking Bad.  How is it that people think this is OK?  Like I said it felt like I had been punched in the stomach.  This is just so wrong!

Now this is a little detail that I haven't told you about this Breaking Bad incident just yet.  This guy had 2 little kids with him!  A young girl and boy somewhere between the ages of 6-9 or so.  Little kids in the store with him.  Running out to the car with him as he carried his loot.  Jumping in the car.  I saw them jumping over the seats to the back as he drove away.  What in the world is this guy thinking?  Now how can those kids ever trust him because he cheats and steals and lets them watch him.  He is training them to do the same. Now he has taught them that Breaking Bad - is a way of life.  Unbelievable!

Bride and Groom

Now for the Bride and Groom:  

Well it seems I'm short on a good 

bride and groom picture alone

 so here is one with all Scott's siblings.  

A Little Cousin Action

Will try to do a few posts with some awesome family pictures.  Thanks to Scott and Stephanie for getting us all together!

First post - a little cousin action.

3 in one

We did something special. 

We saw 3 temples in one day.

First the new Phoenix Temple.

 Next the Mesa Temple.

And last - 

The new Gilbert Temple.

Problem:  We didn't take a picture at the Gilbert Temple.

So there is no evidence that we were there.

You'll have to trust me - we were there.

And that makes 3 in one.

Havasupai

Another hike - to Havasupai.

Awesome!

We left the valley at 6:30 pm.

You read that right 6:30 PM. 

I drove for this hike and after the 5 hour drive 

we arrived at the Havasupai trailhead at 11:30.  

We quickly loaded up and headed down the trail at 11:40 pm.  

In the pitch dark. Using head lamps.

No moon.

Quite an adventure!

After 2 hours stumbling down the trail - er - I mean hiking we pulled over and

 found a flat area to allow us to lay down and try to get some rest. 

The Supai Village Office didn't open until 6:00 am 

and we couldn't proceed to the campground without our office issued wristband.

So even if we didn't sleep we did rest our bodies a bit.

This was the view as we arrived in the village.  

It was 6:15 am upon arrival.  

Their very efficient office only took 1 hour to issue our wristbands.

 This was our first glimpse of the beautiful clear waters that Havasupai is famous for!

The old Navajo Falls are no more and these have formed in the same area.

They have named them Little Navajo Falls.

 This one is the classic Havasupai Falls.  

The floods have wreaked havoc on this feature.

It has lost about 1/3rd of its height and so many of the pools are gone now.

 Proof that I am actually there. No photoshop.  I was there.

The Havasupai Hike is divided this way:

Switchbacks = 1.5 miles

Follow dry creek bed to Supai Village = 6.5 miles

Village to campgrounds = 2 miles

Total hike 10 miles

 Well if that wasn't enough hiking for us we decided to do some more.

The group we met up with wanted to hike down stream to Beaver Falls.

That was another 3.5 miles from the campground. 

(I'm counting it as 4 as that is probably more accurate)

As a side note:

On the way out of the campground a girl in our group fell and hurt her arm.

I suspected it was broken by her reaction.

So my friend duck-taped a plastic spoon onto her arm/wrist - what!?

That girl stayed back and we went ahead on our little adventure.

 Our 3.5 mile hike down to Beaver Falls was pretty taxing.

First we had to go down the Mooney Falls obstacle course.

Talk about steep and scary!

I got wet there and we went on.

We went past lots of beautiful blue ponds and streams.

We also walked through areas so thick with wild grape vines that you could see nothing else.

They covered everything!  

 We scooted and clambered down lots of old travertine formations.

There were ledges to maneuver past.

We stopped a couple times during the hike to cool off in the streams.

There were also some gaps that could not be managed without ladders.

The Indian Rangers have those placed in all appropriate places.

 This is Beaver Falls.  

On the left side of the lower falls in the picture there is a "green room".

You swim down through a hole and then come up into an open area.

It is full of travertine formations that hang down and can give you quite a headache.

I also jumped from the right side of the falls there.  

It was about 12 or 15 feet.  That was the best I did.

 Some beautiful spot along the way.

 We saw this mountain goat on our way back. 

 It just stood there and watched us hiking back to camp. 

 At 7 pm we headed back up to the village to see their fireworks.

We sat at the LDS chapel to see them.

It was a front row seat.

Pretty awesome.

We could see the cliff formations in the background.

We could see the flash and hear the bangs -

then we could see and hear them again as they echoed and bounced off the canyon walls.

Pretty awesome 4th of July!

 I want you to get the picture of what has happened so far.

Within 24 hours:

10 mile hike to Havasupai

8 mile hike to Beaver Falls and back

4 mile hike to Village and back

Let's see, according to my math that is a total of

22 miles!

 It was warm in the canyon -  107 or so.

So the night wasn't that comfortable either.

It was warm.

By 5 I was wide awake and hot.

So I got up and enjoyed a small breeze.

I ate breakfast, soaked my feet in the creek, and rinsed out my hiking clothes. 

I waited, and waited, and waited for someone else to get up.

It was past 8 before anyone else was up. 

 So on Friday our friend with the hurt arm joined us in our adventures.

We headed up to Havasupai Falls to swim and play.

Then we continued on the the new Little Navajo Falls.

There was swimming and cliff jumping.

We walked around behind the falls and came out through them.

Wow!  That water is coming down with some real power!

We just spent the whole day enjoying the water and the beauty.

At the last area I stayed out to let my feet dry out a bit.

But the sound and view was beautiful!

At about 3 we got a nice rainstorm in camp.

And because we didn't know how our friend with the broken arm would do 

we decided to hike out in the dark and therefore not in the heat like we did coming in.

I would say that we put in another 4 miles too.

Total miles for the entire Havasupai trip would be - 36 miles.

The end.

Oh and then I found 24 cents!

I really did.

And one of the pennies was a wheat penny.

Newbie Mistake

This morning I made a newbie mistake.  I headed to a gym to enjoy a water aerobics class.  I gathered everything up and drove away from the house.  And not more than 1 minute later I realized I had forgotten . . . wait for it . . . a towel.  Sheesh!  What a newbie mistake!  I didn't have time to turn around so all the way there I thought about how I was going to handle my newbie mistake.

Turns out I just got out of the pool, sat dripping on the deck for a few minutes, squeezed as much water as possible out of my hair, then walked (or sloshed) out the side gate and straight to my car.  I used my t-shirt as a "towel" to sit on on the way home.  It didn't help much - oh well. I wondered if anyone else had noticed my newbie mistake.  Probably not.

As I parked the car in the garage I rolled the window down to encourage the seat to dry.  So even though I made a newbie mistake - I laugh and share it all with you now - and suffer no lasting difficulties.