Up at Blue!

 

We had a fabulous beginning to the summer with 3ish days up at the cabin on the Blue.  We took off Friday afternoon after Evie's prize giving ceremony to mark the end of kindergarten for her.  Her award this year was for enthusiasm... no great surprise there!  On Saturday we headed to Alpine for a car show and craft fair (for the first time in a long time we got the boys to come up the hill with us... I think the draw of the car show was just enough for them to tolerate the craft fair).  After the festivities I took a much needed nap... turns out Izzy is not so good anymore at the whole go to sleep, get woken up at 11 pm, be put to bed for the first time on a mattress not a crib, try to be convinced that really what she just had was not a nap but prep for a night's sleep... this nap would have been even more needed had my Mom not stepped in at around midnight and through an episode or two of HGTV convinced Izzy to settle in and go to sleep.  While I snoozed Patrick and the girls got all muddy at the stream and he shot a few arrows. Evie made us all some fabulous smores for desert... it was a good day!

Feeding the horse from spring mud (the horse was given to me by my grandfather when I was about her age...)

She was really excited to catch crawdads...

Dead ponderosa without its bark near the top of Escudilla

On Sunday Mom and Dad kept the girls so Patrick and I could make the much anticipated trek to Escudilla where we were married almost 11 years ago now, and where we had not gone for 2 years because of the 2011 fires.  I was really nervous to go up there because I was afraid it would be a wasteland, and while it was certainly very changed it was, in many spots, not as bad as I would have feared.  In fact parts of our hike to the top of Escudilla had a strange beauty to them in their desolateness.  After the hike we soaked in the hot tub (really does it get better than that?!) and aside from an evening hike to set a crawdad trap just hung around for the rest of the day.

Baby aspen trees growing amongst the burnt ones

Near the top of Escudilla, through a sea of dead ponderosa pine

Yesterday we headed home one kid down (Evie is going to hang out with my parents until they come back later this week) with a brief stop at the Gila Box and for the past day the house has felt strangely silent....  All in all though it was a great start to our "summer"!

Best Mother's Day Ever

Sycamore tree from our morning/afternoon hike

What a fabulous mother's day I had!!!  I was regaled with a chicken coop (which actually arrived on Monday... and then the girls and I picked up the chickens to match the very same day)...

a fabulous new necklace purchased with Evie's allowance and a hike at Madera canyon with my favorite mother!  The chicken four are a set of mostly 2-month old chickens, the exception being my chicken who is closer to one month.  We each have a chicken named to suit our personalities.... Evie = Matilda (her fav book by Roald Dahl ); Izzy Appletoot (aka the way she says her favorite animal Octopus); Patrick = Milou (Tintin's trusty friend... yes she is a white chicken); and me Gila (after a river I love very much).   What a full and wonderful Mother's Day.

Playing at Bog spring, the end of our hike... Arizona girls have to appreciate water where they find it!

Shea butter

the sheen on her skin is not due to a flash....

Izzy has a bit of an obsession with lotion lately.  (Or as she calls it crema)  We have to hide all of the sunscreen, face lotion, body lotion and chapstick from her or fear for its longevity.  Last weekend she found a container of shea butter that was all but solid so both Patrick and I figured it was ok for her to carry it around putting the cap on and off for awhile.  Having spent a bit in the house with it totally harmlessly we then made the decision that it was OK (read not worth the fight) for her to hang onto it while we drove out to breakfast.  In retrospect we realize that the drive to breakfast was oddly quiet (Evie was at a sleepover and not it the car) and that while we drove she somehow managed to dig into the once solid shea butter and use over 1/2 of a full container of it on herself, her carseat and Patrick's car.  Most of the shea butter seemed to have been deposited in her hair.  It was lovely.  Thankfully we had a towel in the car to wipe her down before breakfast but it took a half dozen baths and 2 days to get her hair to look like something other than a greasy mess....the upshot is that her usually dry skin has been decidedly less dry this week!

Happy Mother's Day Nicole!

Video from Patrick to his mom Nicole on the occasion of Mother's Day: May 12, 2013.

Weekend adventures

 Last weekend I brought the whole crew along for the annual field trip for my PhD program.  We all hopped in the U of A vans and went to Bisbee to tour the Copper Queen mine and hang out in one of my favorite funky little AZ towns.  As part of the tour we were all required to suit up in miner gear, including, not just a little bit ridiculously, Izzy.  The outfits were round about 5 sizes too big for her and the helmet worked mostly as stool for her to sit on.  At first I thought all the gear was a bit silly, but then we were down in the mine where is was very cold (yeah yellow jacket), dark (yeah little light attached to my utility belt) and I hit my head on the ceiling (yeah helmet).  After the tour a bunch of us hung out at a brewery, where the server brilliantly brought out a big basket of activities for the kids.  The day ended with a first for me... China Super Buffet.  I have always been a bit afraid of them to be honest but I am not going to knock a free meal.  Who knew you could get sushi, mussels, kung pao chicken, pizza and flan all in one place.  What a great way to spend a Saturday!