Spring Break

At the last minute we decided to go to Phoenix for a few days during Spring Break and take the kids. We hit the Zoo, Cabela's, and Rawhide.

The girls could've watched the fish for hours. Well...maybe minutes, until Krysten would start to try and climb in with the fishies. Yeah, I know, of all the wildlife I could've photographed....

Are rare moment of tranquility.

Men are such romantics when you are trying to get a self-portrait.

Ah....this place was almost as good as the zoo. Of course I didn't think to take my camera inside with me. This is where we adopted "Lucy". Lucy is what we named our new GPS navigation system. She's been a lot of fun to play with.


Kylee got a donkey ride at Rawhide Western Town. It's this great place south of town where they have old west stuff. Shows, stagecoach rides, shootouts, etc. I recommend it to anyone who hasn't been there yet, it's a lot of fun.

We met Aaron's cousin Laurie at the Rawhide Steakhouse for dinner. They had live entertainment and great food.

Yep, here you have it folks, real live--er...I mean, dead-- rattlesnake. James had rattlesnake for dinner and shared some with the rest of us. You guessed it...it tastes a bit like chicken!!

Ya'll come back now, ya hear!!!

Rawhide!!! (whip snap)

(I know, I'm mixing up my shows here)

Kodak Moments

Praise to God

Tonight was one of those nights that we dream about in our house. It was just me and the little girls and I savored the entire evening with them.

They are starting to play together for sustained periods of time (in their room, which is even better. Never mind the fact that they piled EVERYTHING into Krysten's converted crib bed.) and tonight was one of those nights. Kylee has a very active imagination and made up some story they were acting out, sending Krysten to get this and that. Which Krysten was quite happy to do. They had some minor squabbles such as throwing toys (Kylee's got a nice bump on her eyebrow now), and not sharing horses. But after a few reminders from me they actually LISTENED and didn't fight anymore!!! They were actually sharing their toys and acting out their story.

Kylee is cracking me up with this new found creativity of hers. She makes up words, not because she has difficulty talking, oh no, not Kylee. The kid is NEVER at loss for words. (what's w/ me and caps tonight?) She now makes up words just for fun, and probably because it confused Mommy and Daddy. Pretty soon she'll speak in a whole new language. She is also making up other stuff...

She also told me tonight "Granny and my brother died and we should praise to God"

"what?", I asked her. "um...don't you mean pray?"

"no Mom, I like saying praise better"

"oh...okay"

I would like to note here, we never have had anyone named Granny in our family and she most certainly has never had a brother. Where on earth does she come up with this stuff?????

But I digress...

...to end the evening, Krysten went to bed without a fuss. Which is great because she only likes Daddy putting her to bed...but he's not here...soooooooo......

And so did Kylee...at a fairly reasonable time!!!! Yippee for me. Does that mean I get to go to bed early? Noooooo, I'm not that smart...instead I stay up finishing my book and now here I am at almost midnight on the blasted computer!!!!

Calm, smooth evenings likes this one are few and far between so I wanted to cherish this moment and share it with you.

Good night!

Happy Anniversary!!!

St. Patrick's Day holds a special place in my heart...it is the day that Aaron & I were joined in holy matrimony (now that part sounds cheesy...heehee).

It's been 8 years already!!!! I love you, babe!

A Bit of Randomness

Here are some random pictures from the weekend.

Kylee is just fascinated with taking pictures of her toes.

What's up with the pinky toe going off on it's own???

Saturday we went to Las Cruces to eat at Outback for Aaron's birthday. Of course I left my camera in the Yukon, but never fear, I still had my phone. I love this picture with the flags waving in the background.

Krysten is learning to ham it up for the camera. Isn't she such a cutie pie?


There aren't many Smartcars in Silver City. In fact, there is only 1...but it's not this one. This one happened to be from Wisconsin. Wisconsin? What are they doing here? Anyway.

The irony of this just cracked me up. When I pulled into Albertson's I just had to park near this car in my big ole Yukon XL. You could fit 3 of these cute little cars in my bohemoth ride. And then of course I had to take a picture to share my dorkiness with all of you.

Dancing Kylee

Okay, I know I've been silent this week, but I haven't felt like sharing much after the loss of my niece, Gabrielle. But I don't want to lose any fans so here's a video that I'd saved for a rainy day.

Tracey's Accomplishments this Week

Check out the Central Elementary blog on the blogs I follow....Tracey is Student of the Week. I happened to be wandering down the hall when they were taking the picture so they asked me to be in it.

Tracey has ANOTHER game tonight. It's the tournament this week. They haven't won a game all month and what did they go and do last night?? They won!! I'm only mildly irritated since I'm happy for the kids.

Yesterday I told Tracey "you're gonna win tonight."

"No, we're not, we lose all our games."

"You're gonna win becuz it's been an insane week and that's the way things work. So...you're gonna win."

"Whatever, Mom."

And guess what...they won. So here I am, staying in town for the 3rd night in a row...with the little girls...eating McDonalds...AGAIN!

Please ignore the date stamp, I forgot to reset it. It's a long story.

Kneeling Nun

How many of you have had questions about the photo at the top of my blog? Well, finally, here are some answers to your questions.

Who took the picture?
Aaron took this picture last spring, he takes pictures whenever we have great sunrises and caught this picture of the sunrise over the Kneeling Nun. Isn't it awesome? The only thing that I edited was blacking out some of the lights from the mine and adding the words in the corner. The rest was God.

Where is it?
This is the view of the Kneeling Nun we have from our front porch. Yep, we are that close (well, he used the zoom).

For those of you not from this area, the Santa Rita Open Pit copper mine is directly below the Kneeling Nun, but you can't see it in the dark (duh!!). I should have taken a picture in the daylight to compare...bummer, I didn't think of that before. Anyway, the pit is one of the largest in the world, when you drive by you cannot see the bottom, it's that deep!

What is it?
This rock formation is known as the "Kneeling Nun". The Kneeling Nun is part of the local folklore and after a quick google here is one of the legends I found...

In this version, written in 1899 by Harry Burgess, she was known to natives as Sister Rita.

Simply called "The Kneeling Nun," this saga by Harry Burgess tells how Rita and a young monastic fall deeply in love. Finally, unable to contain themselves, they are found in one anothers' arms in the convent garden by the stern Abbess. Rita's lover flees, and she, unrepentant, is put in the dungeon, under sentence of death. Before the awful deed can be carried out, however:

"Lurid gleams the vivid lightning,

Deafening are the thunder crashes,

And the earth, with fitful shuddering,

Heaves and groans with fiery mouthing,

As the earthquake works its ruin . . . "

The convent falls into a "yawning chasm" during the quake, but a miracle saves the young nun from being crushed in her dark cell. Her lover finds her on the nearby mountain and begs her to leave the place of terror with him.

But Rita, truly contrite now, is asking God's pardon for the sin of broken vows. She begs Him for the strength to stand against all entreaties so she will be "firm and staunch as rock unyielding."

When her lover tries to lift her from the ground where she is kneeling in prayer, she turns to stone. He cries in anguish, falling backwards. His body hurtles downwards and dashes lifeless on the bottom! The poet who wrote this legend ends it by pronouncing:

"Still the nun bends o'er her penance,

Kneeling onward through the ages,

Making endless reparation."

So there you have it folks, the story behind this photo.

Klumpy

Once upon a time there lived a dragon and his name was Klumpy. He was purple with orange polka dots and he lived high up on a mountain in a cave. But Klumpy was a nice dragon and his best friend was a little girl named Tracey. They were the bestest of friends and they did everything together. One day he went down to Tracey's house and...

This is how the story of Klumpy starts. The stories started when Tracey was small and she asked me to tell her a story one night when I was tucking her into bed. So Klumpy was born...

The stories usually center around something that Tracey had done that day. She loved hearing her name in the stories with Klumpy, she would giggle everytime she heard her name. As she's gotten older her requests for the Klumpy stories are only occasional, but they still remain our special stories.