Its the chemicals

Last Friday I had my first official Arizona-is-broke-as-hell-lets-"save"-money furlough day. As I see it I had two options... stay in my hot (and humid) house and bemoan for the umpteenth time the whacked tax structure of this state that led us to such measures OR head for the cool hills and streams of the Blue. Luckily for me, and those around me, I chose the Blue.

Patrick was preparing for a big trial on Friday and Monday so Evie, Kita and I left him to his own devices (always a dangerous proposition) and jumped in the car and headed north-east. My initial plan was to leave Friday morning but the sound of the gurgling creek (or was that the swamp cooler) called me and so I quickly loaded the car with a few things (including Evie and Kita) and headed out Thursday after work.

Evie is such a great car traveler and took the 5.5 hour drive in stride. So much so that really I had 5.5 hours to listen to music and think... both wonderfully neglected habits of mine. For most of the drive it was just me and the big stormy sky on the road, and it was glorious.

The long weekend (I decided to take Monday as a vacation day) was filled with trips down to the stream, bushwhacking hikes and Evie's first trip out on a lake. Interestingly enough I found that Evie and I did a lot of "science" on the trip, much more so than we ever do at home.

The highlight was on Saturday when after a big rain we went out to check on the stream and found it had jumped its banks, looked like Wonka's chocolate river, and was running really fast. My dad threw a stick in to show Evie how fast the current was. She wanted to participate too so she ran off and picked up a rock. When the first rock did not float down stream, she grabbed a second. The second rock also sank and so my dad asked her what the difference was between the wood he threw in and the rock she threw in. She looked at us both, thought for a second and proclaimed "Its the chemicals." We we both so taken aback by this perfectly correct response we both stood there for a beat looking at each other before we looked back at her and said, Evie that is exactly right. It was awesome.


The high note for me was a waterfall at the end of a bushwhack hike along Turkey Creek. I jumped/bouldered down to it and then had my parents hand Evie down to me. It was a cold and super pretty little waterfall. The only problem was that I wasn't prepared for wading and got rather wet and had to walk and then drive all the way back to the cabin with wet jeans... but it was worth it!


On Sunday we went down to Luna Lake and hiked around and took the paddle boats out for a spin. We didn't get in our full hours worth though because it started to storm and even though the paddle boat probably did not have an ounce of metal on it an extra 15 minutes on the lake just wasn't worth getting soaked (for the second day in a row) or worse. Evie enjoyed her first water-born adventure and did a good job navigating for me.

Yellow Rain Coat(ed)

This past weekend Patrick got a wild hair and decided that we should paint our living room. We have long contemplated undertaking this task but have never quite gotten ambitious enough to do it. We had decided long ago that we should paint the room yellow. (Our living room in our old house was yellow too... hmm I wonder what it says about people who always have to have orange kid's rooms and yellow living rooms?) So when he decided we should go for it I jumped at the opportunity. The task itself turned out not to be too onerous... although I did find myself painting away at midnight on Saturday night while Patrick sat on our couch in the middle of the room watching Battlestar Galactica on our TV (also pulled to the middle of the room... just to be clear, there was no expectation that he help me at that point, I was just neroding about getting it finished and couldn't relax until it was done) As it turns out, however, the build up to painting the room was by far the most issue fraught endeavor.

Before going into this there are two this that should be noted. One: Patrick and I, for all of our good planning and organization in our work activities, are woefully inadequate, for some unknown reason, in our ability to effectively pre-plan household chores and projects. Two: Our living room is, by our standards, really big.

So, we wake up on Saturday morning and I volunteer to go out and buy the paint. Patrick and I confer on the amount required, he suggests 7 gallons I feel like that is excessive and negotiate 5 gallons... umm yes I now realize that even 5 gallons is a lot of paint but at the time it seemed like a reasonable counter-offer to his initial proposal. Then, intent on acquiring 5 gallons of yellow raincoat colored paint, I head off to Ace. As the guy is mixing my last gallon of paint he notes that each gallon should cover about 400 square feet, which would be, oh say enough paint to cover my entire house in raincoat yellow. Oh well, too late at that point, and besides it never covers as much as they say it will (right?) and our living room is really big...

So I pack up the car with my 5 gallons of paint and head merrily on my way. About 1/2 way home I look back and realize that one gallon is leaking and, panic stricken, pull into a nearby parking lot and jump out of the car in the hopes that I can get to the can of paint before it gets to my seats. Well, in my panic and haste, I throw open the back door, which leads the can in question to go toppling out of the car, spilling all over my leg and the side of the car (don't worry Gerry it wasn't the Honda I was driving). So now I have paint all over me, the car and this parking lot (oh and it is already like 100+ degrees outside) Figuring liquids and some sort of mostly toxic solvent are really the only things that are going to solve this problem I jump back in the car, race home and run into the house all a dither about yellow paint in the car. Patrick and Evie rush out to help me... but upholstery and paint do not part so easily. Luckily, in the end, it was a pretty small patch of area that is now yellow and we never really intended to sell the car again anyway. Once the dust settled and we started to regroup and paint something other than my leg and the car, I realized that I felt quite guilty about the large yellow spot in this random parking lot. So I looked up the phone number for a business there and left a message confessing my sins... no word yet on whether or not I will pay dearly for my guilty conscience.

Once the excitement of getting the paint home subsided we all resigned ourselves to the rather large task of actually painting. Genevieve helped us out some but we rapidly realized that she is just far too artistic (not to mention hands on) to be a good painting partner. By the end of Saturday we were all pretty well painted: the living room, my feet (where the can fell), Patrick's arms, all of Genevieve, Oliver's face and left whiskers (I have no idea when or where that occurred) and Kita's leg (I think she decided to hide a toy in the sheet that we used to cover up the paint supplies when we went out on Saturday night). When it was all said and done we painted the whole living room with 2 gallons of paint... so subtracting the gallon that chose to paint my car instead of my wall, we have 2 unopened gallons of yellow raincoat left for when we decide to paint the rest of the house yellow... or something else (anyone want to buy 2 gallons of eco-yellow paint off me?) All told it was not the least traumatic painting experience I have ever had but that's OK because the end result is pretty darn awesome.

Friday nights

Just about every Friday night that we are in town (which, unfortunately this summer is pretty much every Friday) we pack up the swimsuits and head over to the racquet ball club for the Friday night bbq. It is a pretty fabulous little gathering... hoards of kids splashing in the pool, running wild on the grass, hiding in the trees, eating hot dogs and dancing to the live music. Patrick likes it because it has become his once a week chance to eat meat (aka burger) and I love it because we always meet at least two and sometimes as many as five families that we know there. The meetings are never pre-arranged, it is just one of the best places to be in Tucson on a Friday night... Even cooler, we have made some new friends there thanks to our gregarious daughter who is willing to cut a rug with just about any other girl she can find. The whole atmosphere is very reminiscent of what I imagine a bygone everyone meet at the social club time to be.. sort of Dirty-Dancing summer at family camp-esque... minus the saucy rumba.

This past week I decided to actually bring my camera but, I must admit, was too busy having fun and swimming to take too many photos. The highlight of this last week was the face painter, which Evie thought was very fun. The funny thing to me about it was that she was set up right by the pool so the kids would get these fancy face paintings and then either proceed to get back in the pool and smear them or get wet in some other way and smear them. The end result was a bunch of kids running around looking like the have black eyes or some other form of facial malady... our daughter was no exception. Any guesses as to what the face painting was supposed to be?

What do you do on a hot day?

Ahh the most important question in July... What on earth do you for fun when it is over 100 degrees outside and your house is humid as all heck and not terribly cool because the swamp cooler isn't working very well anymore as a result of the monsoon that just will not produce any visible precipitation? Well unless we want to spend the whole weekend at the pool or the mall; the answer is not much... but just laying around doesn't go over very well with a three-year old, so I decided this weekend to build her a fort. (Hearkening back to what I did as a kid during the summer.) She had a ton of fun with it and it was such a hit that we left it up until today. Hopefully it will start raining soon and we can add puddle jumping to our repertoire.

Now, if only I could figure out an equally pleasant way to survive during the workday at home...I am thinking about resorting to working in my bathing suit. I would still be getting out of my pajamas every day right?

4th of July

We spent a fabulous long 4th of July weekend up at the cabin with my folks. We didn't see any fireworks, except for the poppers that I brought up from Tucson, but we did manage to see a pretty awesome little parade in Alpine on July 3rd. Evie was pretty impressed by it too, especially the candy throwing part. (Gotta love people throwing candy out to children, who then proceed to run into the road in front of moving, albeit slowly, vehicles to fetch it)

Aside from the parade we mostly stuck around home, with an all important trip down to the stream every afternoon for wading and exploring. Evie discovered that she is a bit intimidated by large fish (thankfully, for her, there are not too many of those in the Blue) but that overall stream walking is a wonderful way to spend an afternoon. One very notable event of the trip was that we actually managed to get Evie in pants! (As we were leaving Friday morning she walked up to me with about 6 dresses, still on their hangers, in her arms and informed me that I needed to pack them for the trip... she burned through those six dresses in the first day and a half)



On the way home yesterday we stopped at the catwalk hike in New Mexico. Evie hiked almost the whole mile in and out. We made it as far as the waterfall/swimming hole and because it was over 90 degrees decided to go for a dip. The water was utterly frigid, around 50 degrees I would guess, but in a you only live once moment I (queen of the its-too-cold-no-way-in-hell swimming) decided to almost get under the water
fall.


I also spent some quality time with my favorite flowers, which only really bloom for a few weeks in July, the monument plant. This is one of the better (of scads) of shots I captured.

Mt Lemmon

Well it is the time of year suitable only for the most hardened of the southern Arizonans... these are the late-June-uber-hot-no-rains-yet days. Last Saturday we decided to take a break from the 105+ degree temps and drive an hour up Mt. Lemmon (actually it was a co-worker's bright idea and we were more than happy to tag along). I am sad to admit that this was Evie's first hike in quite a while so I expected a regular 2.5 year old routine out of her: AKA walk for 100 yards and then either be so distracted or pooped that she would no longer hike. Imagine my shock then when she hiked at least two miles with us! (With only the occasional distracted stop... the hardest for her was the dirt with mica in it... sparkles...are...too...tempting... she only stopped stooping when her pockets were so full of dirt that her skirt was almost falling off from the weight)


You see from the pictures that not only was she a great hiker but she was also quite enthusiastic about the outing (feet 100% off the ground in one shot) You may also notice in the pictures that her shirt looks a little funny... just before we were leaving she found that shirt in my goodwill pile and proclaimed it still fit her (which I guess it kind of does) and proceeded to put it on backwards. Two lessons learned there 1) if its going to goodwill get it out asap and 2) backward/too small shirts are not a battle worth fighting... who knows maybe she is a fashion maven.