Halloween 2015

From left to right - Anna's, my (its supposed to be Jack), Evie's (she carved all herself this year!), and Izzy's (she didn't carve it this year) pumpkins

This year's Halloween was particularly special. Not only was it on a Saturday, but it was also our exchange student Anna's birthday!  Pretty much since the day she arrived we have been regaling her with just how awesome we all thought it was that she was born on Halloween and would get to celebrate her birthday and first ever Halloween all on the same night. We made sure she had a good costume (although that one was touch a go for awhile... and ended in a quick Thursday night run out to Goodwill...a trip that had to be quick because I had exactly 30 minutes until the dinner I was cooking in the stove was ready :) and then took her out to some of the best trick or treating we know of.

Leading up to Halloween we went to Valley of the Moon on Wednesday.  Evie once again noted that she would like to participate in the act... maybe next year this mother/daughter duo really will audition...

Then on Friday it was the IST Halloween festival, which despite some rain was great fun (although I didn't take many pictures...)

Then on Halloween itself we started the day with a "real American breakfast" because Anna has wanted to experience one since she arrived.  She ordered the hungry persons breakfast that included biscuits and gravy, bacon, eggs, hash browns, and a pancake.  All but the biscuits and gravy were deemed delicious (which is OK, we discovered Patrick is the only one of us who likes that :) As has been the case for the past three months, having the excuse to go do something different because we have a new family member has led us to have a lot of fun, and in this case discover a new fabulous place for breakfast!

We then stopped at a little craft fair where Anna and I bought pastries from a French bakery (although we didn't eat them for her birthday as planned because we had had enough of the not so fancy sugar by the evening). Evie bought a little present for Anna too, to go with the concert tickets Patrick and I had bought her for her b-day. 

We then carved our fresh from the field pumpkins (Izzy and Anna were not so into the pulling the guts out part where as Evie and I reveled in it....) and got dressed for a night o' trick or treating.  Try as we might we couldn't convince her to join our family's Halloween theme...

 

We went to the 49ers again this year for trick or treating with my Mom and Aunt Lisa.  At the 49ers where we went trick or treating there is always this fabulous house that they turn into a pirate ship, complete with a bar and a bunch of people dressed as pirates.  I asked the lady guarding the entrance if Anna could take a look, because she was an exchange student and (by god) it was her birthday.  She agreed to let her in and then Anna was invited to have her tarot cards read by a lady at the party...  Patrick and I ended up being allowed in too... it was definitely the highlight of the evening. After much candy was collected and teeth chattered (from cold and from little spooks here and there) we packed it in and headed home and discussed how excited we were for the "holiday season"!

Trying Tri's and Other Fun

 

Last weekend we all piled (or really stuffed) into the Subaru on Friday afternoon to camp out a Patagonia Lake because I was going to compete in a sprint triathlon on Saturday morning. In an utterly uncharacteristic move I have been training quite diligently for the past three months for said race, up at 5 am to bike and run, heading over to the Y almost every Saturday, you get the idea.  I was nervous about the race because the lake was going to be about 65 degrees.  As it turns out it should have been nervous for the 8 mile with nothing but striaght up hill bike ride.... To make what could be a painfully long story short, I made it through the 500 meter lake swim but utterly failed at the second leg of the race, the bike ride.  Truth be told, around mile 3 when I got sick and was walking my bike again, I decided that is just wasn't fun, and by god somethings should be fun or just not done.  While I felt liberated for my decision after I turned around to ride back I now know that I will have to train and do this triathlete next year to redeem myself... but this time I will spend all of my training time going up hills!

Despite my race fail all was not lost in our weekend fun.  The camping was lovely, and on our way out of the park we stopped at a yard sale (because it said free coffee and Patrick could not resist) and Patrick and I ended up with rocking new cowboy hats.
 
We then made a pit stop at Hops and Vines (our favorite vineyard), on the way to Apple Annie's to acquire some fresh from the field pumpkins and get utterly lost in a corn maze.

I had never done a corn maze before and must admit, after a few times of fruitless circles got a little panicky.  To help you through you could bring with you a "passport" that had questions to answer where if you answered correctly you would turn the right way.  Evie grabbed one on girl scout trivia, I grabbed American history and Anna snagged movies.  As it turns out, we were the best at movie/TV trivia... thank goodness for knowing something about Mama Mia, Lord of the Rings and I love Lucy!

On Sunday we continued the weekend of random fun and went to the 4th birthday party of the month at pump it up... complete with blacklights and glow sticks.

 

As if that wasn't unique enough we then participated in Noche en Blanco, a flash-mob potluck dinner in the middle of the street in downtown Tucson.  It was quite the awesomely bizarre event, I felt like I knew 10% of the 2,000 random people there....  Perhaps most fortunately for us, we were all (Anna included) able to find our entire white get ups from goodwill!

Pretty sunflower from Apple Annies... not related to blog but had to share :)

Birthdays and other fun adventures

October seems to be a popular month for Evie and Izzy's friends to be born.  Uncharacteristically for us, we have had a birthday party to go to for almost every weekend during this month.  The weekend before last it was a jumping castle in the park extravaganza and then this weekend we had a pool party, where they rented the entire public pool, which included a 10 foot high dive.  If only I had thought to take pictures of Evie bravely plummeting off it time after time or Patrick and Anna (but not at the same time) following suit.  I think indicates the end of swimming season though because the water was quite cold!

We also have been continuing our sporadic attempts at French cooking.  The latest desert actually turned out pretty well!

Last week was fall break for the girls, so Monday we all took the day off and planted some roses in the yard.  Tuesday the girls hung out with my Mom and Wednesday they went to work with me for the morning.  I wanted to take them out for lunch at Eegees as a treat before I left for Flagstaff for a meeting, but also needed to get a tire fixed.  Naivly I thought it would only take a 1/2 hour or so, which would leave plenty of time for lunch.  It turns out the tire ordeal was a 2-hour affair, but fear not Eeggees was still had... via bus. And as it turns out the convinced Patrick to get them Eegees on Thursday and Mina on Friday... so the theme of break was colored ice drinks and sandwiches.

 

Other (weekend) adventures included a park and pancake performance by Evie.  I don't know why but Evie singing always gets me a little teary...

Red moon, greek festival, and Mexico, oh my!

 

 We have been filling the weeks and weekends with Fall(ish) fun. (This ish is for the fact that it is still generally over 90 degrees here :)  Two weekends ago we went out to the Greek Festival for the first time.  It was (above all else) a fabulous place to get a Saturday night dinner.  Evie was able to have a much anticipated sleepover with her friend (I say this because she is always asking for sleepovers and we almost never set them up for her... I just don't know how other parents coordinate this stuff!) and Izzy enjoying dancing to the pop songs in Greek.

The weekend ended with a spectacular blood moon (which, by the way, I thought was on Saturday night and was totally underwhelmed by on Saturday... good thing it was actually Sunday!)

Then last weekend I was only around for 1/2 the weekend (but still managed to decorate houses large and small) because early, early, early on Sunday morning I left for a week of work down in Aguascalientes, Mexico.  It was an utterly exhausting week, but super interesting and fun.

While I never had the chance to make it to the center of the city, I did get to the Museo Nacional de la Muerte on Sunday afternoon, an amazing restaurant (near an equally amazing church) on Wednesday, and to see one of the most interesting riparian areas I have ever seen during a field day on Thursday.
 

I woke up at 2 am yesterday to catch my flight home, and managed to make it back for 2:40 pm parent/teacher conferences and then take the girls (all three of them) out to see Pan last night.  I think I may just have to sleep for the rest of the weekend :)

GLOW!

 

This past Saturday night we decided to go to an event that we always mean to catch and then never do... GLOW.  It is a lighted sculpture garden full of paths and live music out in Oracle (about an hour from our house) on a big ranch (yup pretty much as random as it sounds).  It was definitely as random and fabulous as I expected it to be. 

View from below of the lighted udders...

 

The event was complete with a water tank that you can walk inside, pull levers on, and lower and raise glowing udders.  I think my favorite was an oak tree filled with little lanterns that hung over a cool little metal stool to sit on.

 The finale of the night was a circus of sorts, where people played with fire and stood up on a big stand to be electrocuted.  While watching this spectacle Izzy told Patrick, "Daddy, I wouldn't ever do this, it is not safe." While the hula hooping with a hula hoop bedazzled with fire was decidedly impressive the rest of the show was just weird.  There was, however, good music, good cupcakes, and really cool (but random) art.

Fairies

Photo taken of the garden by Evie to use as an example for her school garden.

Izzy and Evie have a bit of a thing for fairies.  For years now they have both been building (and tending) fairy houses in our backyard, up at the cabin, and other random places (like in the nooks of trees at girl scout camp).  Last Friday Evie received a package in the mail from a mysterious place called Lakeland, Florida.  Within this package were a letter from a fairy named Luna, a whole lot of fairy dust, and a new book for Evie to read as a thank you.  Upon reading the note, which thanked Evie for her hospitality as a traveling fairy, Evie proclaimed "I just knew they were real.... I just knew it!" Izzy asked, "Mommy, do you think when I learn to read the fairies will send me a book too?"

Newest fairy house... pay no attention to the dirty dishes beside it :)

Within the note, Luna informed Evie that she has told her friends about her fairy garden and that they might use it as a way point as well.  This note served as a call to action for more housing, so last weekend we went to the craft store and bought a new house (and outdoor paint) to make sure that there was plenty of room at the inn for any traveling folk.  Although Evie does generally tend her fairy garden on most mornings on her way back in from feeding the chickens, the past week she has been extra careful to make sure that it is hospitable.... just in case some new fairies decide to visit.  Evie is now also kid in charge of the school fairy garden, which she is going to start building with her English teacher.

Izzy does Expo

Izzy's family tree.

This week Izzy had her first Expo of the year.  The unit was all about family.  For the expo she got up in front of the class, sat in the "hot seat", introduced herself and then read through her book she made on her family.  After this solo presentation she then stood up in front of the whole class and sang a little song in French.  Unfortunately I thought I was recording the whole thing, but as it turns out I recorded nothing, and don't even have a picture :(  Regardless, I was very impressed, especially because at the first one of these, at this time last year, we couldn't even get her to go up as part of a group, let alone as a solo act.  What a cool thing to see her get so brave over the course of just a year! 

Izzy and her best friend before the "show"

Weekend (and Week!) fun

It has been a busy few weeks. Most of our adventures have been of the around Tucson-type.  On Sunday nights we have been working on our French cuisine skills.  With Anna's help we are slowly making it through a french cookbook she bought for us.  Perhaps the best part of this cooking endevor is that (almost) the whole family is getting involved.  (The almost is for me.  I am these meals as my chance to just sit and watch everyone cook... and maybe be just a little bit of a backseat chef :)

 

We have also made it out to the Tucson Art museum, where Evie hit another very important milestone ...it has been awhile since we've discussed one of those!... first selfie:

I should probably note for the record that is is one of about 10 selfies she took in front of this painting in an attempt to get it just right.

This week we headed out on Thursday night for the first football game of the season.  I was able to get free tickets to the game and so we were even able to bring one of Anna's friends, an exchange student from the Netherlands.  It had been raining so much that day that we were going to skip it, but the girls (all four of them) were so excited about the game that we decided to give it a go, which turned out to be a great idea.  Not only did we not have any rain, but it was downright chilly up there way high in the stands.

 

There has also been quite a bit of at home play (our living room once again looks like a fort bomb went off).  With the girls making paper dolls, building legos and watching TV in their fort. Sadie is often a companion for these games....

All-in-all it has been pretty busy (especially because I was in Wisconsin last weekend... but more on that later) but a lot of fun!