Spring Break 2010  

Okay, here it comes....this is a pretty long post. A weeks worth of fun stuff that
we did on spring break. Lots of pictures and stories to go with the pictures.
AT the end there is a story that Sammie wrote for class when she returned to school.
Saturday and Monday:
We scraped the fence and prepped it for painting...yea! My favorite thing
in the whole wide world (do you feel the sarcasm???)
Monday we started the painting process. We finished the fence this day, had a picnic
on the front lawn. We did have a fun time.

The girls painted themselves more than the fence!

Monday night we met Ralph to go see Alice in Wonderland in 3-D. I think the
girls had a good time. This is what happened:
Alice was falling down the hole. She kept hitting the sides all the way down. She finally hits
the bottom and there are a few moments of silence. This is when Audrey strikes:
She says for the entire place to hear, "OUCH! I bet that hurt" The entire theater breaks
out in laughter. She sure gets a kick out of making people laugh. She was
so proud of herself! _

Since we didn't have to get up in the mornings...the girls are always begging
to sleep in grandma and papa's motor-home (they store in our backyard) so.....
i think we slept out there almost every night. We decided since we were "camping" that
we had to do a meal in the dutch oven. So we tried lasagna. It turned out so very good....

Yum!

We went in to have lunch with Ralph and had to get
our favorite frozen yogurt since we
were in town.

The zoo...

The tiger eating a huge piece of meat.

They have these cool bikes you can rent and ride around the park.
This one in particular seats 4-6 on the black seats and 2 small children
can ride in the very front.

There is a lake and you can rent paddle boats.



There are tons of little trails off the main trail...
I think this is an awesome thing for the kids. When you go
to other parks, you always have to stay on the path.
The kids always want to explore and this allows them to do so.

We love fisher price little people at our house so I could
not resist the pic with the little people barn :)

At the petting zoo the kids have the opportunity to brush the animals.
Most of the animals absolutely LOVE it. And the girls had a blast doing it.

They had this interactive cow that was a lot of fun.

The end of our day...the parking lot was empty. Beautiful desert in
the background. The desert flowers were blooming.. Gorgeous day!


Auddie's school and the firetruck  

The local firemen came to Audrey's school this fall. Firemen Sean is rolling on the
floor trying to break the ice with all the 3 and 4 yr olds.
If you have never seen the firemen give a presentation to the kids,
let me tell you what they do....

First they try to get the kids interested and comfortable with the star firefighter and
make a huge deal about that firefighters name. They have the kids yelling out
his name as so forth.

Sean gets in his gear. After each piece of equipment the other firefighters call out to the kid...who's that? FIREMEN SEAN...
By the time he gets totally geared up, the kids are comfortable with Sean and
over their initial shyness and start crawling on the floor.
He has his respirator on and it sounds pretty creepy. But all the kids
are told NOT to be afraid of the firemen and to go with him if he is calling
out to them during a fire.

Auddie crawling through the firetruck

Audrey's class

Famous Daves Brisket competition 10/2009  

AZ Barbecue does an unofficial cook off once or twice a year.
Well....Ralph wanted to judge it, so I entered a brisket. This picture is of me after
being up all night :)


The girls with the Famous Dave pig

Ralph and the girls after judging...

And by the way, I got 6th place =)~


Random post  

Here are some random pictures...
Ralph and I with Thumb Butte in the background

Audrey with her best friend Audrey from school

Tall Auddie(with Elizabeth)

Ralph and Sammie riding the dinosaur

Halloween 2010(the year of the last minute costume!)

Sammie and Elizabeth insisted on eating outside this night.
They set everything up...this was in the fall before it started getting cold

Smoked trout. Ralph loves to share....

Anna licking her chops :)

Anna sits like this often. First cleans herself,
then takes herself a little nap.

Jason and Ralph racin'

It was really quiet one afternoon, except for the occasional
fit of laughter. I found the girls in the kitchen with the mops.
They were pouring buckets of water down and then cleaning
the water up. I don't think my floor has ever been cleaner.



random pic of me at work

this is my friend Tina, I haven't seen her in almost 20 years.
We found each other on facebook! When I found out she was flying to meet
her biological mother for the first time, by herself...and had a 2 hr layover in Phoenix
I drove down to spend her layover with her! I didn't even tell her I was coming.
I left her a message on her cell phone so when she landed in PHX she had a message waiting
that I was there waiting for her. It was lots of fun to surprise her!

Halloween :)

Our most recent snow. I just love how the trees look. Elizabeth took
this pic on her cell phone

BBQ in Havasu  


Havasu BBQ Comp

Our Hotel.

Crash working on his championship ribs.

Samantha enjoying some ribs.

Nancy and Rose.



Peoples Choice...@ the VRM pit location.

The VRM Girls win 3rd place RIBS!!!





Our Hotel (again)

The London Bridge!