Spiders and scorpions and termites, oh my!

Yep, we got home from going out to dinner with some friends just now and entered the creepy crawly zone. Ooh yuck! First of all I saw a scorpion on the wall of our garage, so I had Dave catch him and flush him away down the toilet. Then, Dave saw a big black spider on the inside of the garage door. He caught that too and I told him to let it go outside (I always feel bad killing spiders, they are my allies against the mosquitoes) but he looked at it through the jar and sure enough, there was the red hourglass. It was a Black Widow, and down the toilet it went too. Finally, we got inside, and there was a termite. He got squashed. Sigh. I think I'll check the bed before I snuggle down between the sheets tonight. Sweet dreams!

Ye ha yippi ya yippi yi yo, Texas here we come

Well, it's official. For those of you who haven't heard, it's Texas for sure! We'll be moving in just a few weeks but so far things seem to be going smoothly with the move plans. I have really mixed feelings about all this. First of all, I am so excited to KNOW where we're going and hopefully not move again for a while! I'm also happy to be going back to Texas because we do have some really good friends there. It's just so hard to pick up and leave again. That's the sad part. Leaving the friends we've made here, the great little preschool we found for Ellie, the house we've put so much effort into repairing and that kind of thing. We've been looking online for a house in the Plano/Murphy area in Texas- it's so hard to tell by looking at bad pictures (taking a good digital picture should not be that hard!) if it's a good house or not. My main criteria for a house are a big kitchen, a big backyard (I love landscaping and gardening!) and a decent price. It will be fun to start looking with our realtor when we get out there. Anyway, time to get back to work for me! I'm trying to be really organized with this move and not leave everything for the last minute!

This one's for you, Anna

This is a rather random post. First of all, here are a couple pics of the landscape we just got done with in the back yard. It will look much better when everything grows up/out a bit, but I'm happy with it. We stayed at my original budget too, which is awesome! ($1000 for labor, material, and plants) I'm happy too because by watching the landscapers I was able to learn how to lay brick edging and drip lines. Next time I'll do it myself and save even more money!

Also, to add to the randomness, I thought I would let you all know that Dave baked the first batch of cookies EVER since I've known him last night. He has always said that he's not a baker but he finally took the challenge! After the cookies came out of the oven I couldn't resist playing a little joke on Dave (I did it in your memory Anna). I ate a big bite and then made an face and started gagging. "What did you put in these?!" I said to Dave "They're awful!" He had been so excited about his cookies but when I said that his face just fell a mile. "Man, these are so bad you and Ellie won't want to eat any. I guess I'll have to eat them all by myself!" He finally caught on to the joke but informed me it wasn't very funny. I thought it was. Anyway, I'm proud of you for expanding your skills Dave!

What do you think?

I just finished reading this article http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ap_on_he_me/us_med_forced_chemo about a boy with Hodgkin's lymphoma. He and his parents chose to stop chemo after one treatment in favor of his religion's natural remedies. A judge decided that his parents are medically neglecting him and that he has to seek treatment. With treatment there is a 95% chance that he'll live, without, only 5%. What do you think? Is the judge usurping the parent's or the child's rights to adhere to their beliefs? What trumps, saving the life of a child or the rights of parents to make choices that they feel are best for their children? I was wondering how I would deal with this case as a judge and I think it's a very hard call. I feel strongly about parental rights but by the time these parents realize that their beliefs are unfounded it will almost certainly be too late. What would you do as the judge?

Sticky Fingers

I guess the apple doesn't usually fall too far from the tree, as they say. Ellie came downstairs crying a few days ago. She had managed to get her finger stuck in the narrow end of her play flute. I pulled and tried to twist it off, but it was stuck on pretty good. Because the plastic tapers down at that end, she could push her finger in but the skin would bunch up and prevent her/me from pulling it back out. I tried squirting soap on her finger but that didn't work. I was starting to get visions of emergency rooms as I kept trying to pull the flute off without success. Finally I hit on the idea of pouring olive oil down the open end of the flute. That greased Ellie's finger enough to pull it out. Phew!

It reminded me of a time when I was younger, maybe 10 or 11. My parents had one of those old LP record players. The box that the record player was mounted on had several small holes drilled in the back. We were watching a movie in our living room and I was sitting next to the record player, mindlessly sticking my finger in one of the holes when it got stuck. The edge of the hole was rough particleboard and as I frantically tried to pull my finger out it scraped my skin and caused my finger to start swelling. My brothers and sisters thought this predicament was hysterical of course. I was petrified that I would either have a record player stuck to my hand for the rest of my life or have to get my finger amputated. Eventually my siblings did try to help me, and so did my parents when they got home. I was stuck at least an hour though before my dad got out his power tools and ended up carefully drilling and sawing the back of the box open so I could free my poor finger. It was really traumatic. Poor Ellie. Sometimes you just can't fight genetics.

The kindness of children.

I wanted to log a simple thing that Ellie did the other day. My parents, Charity, Ellie, and I went out to do tourist things. On the way out, we stopped at a Taco Bell for lunch. I noticed that my taco had no cheese in it and I joked with my parents that it must be a cost cutting measure. Charity and my parents said that I should take it back and I just said no and that it wasn't that big of a deal. All of a sudden, a little hand appeared at the right side of my plate and dropped little pieces of shredded cheese onto my taco. Ellie was taking some of her cheese from her little taco and putting it on mine! She looked up at me and said, "It's ok Daddy, I'll share my cheese with you". Instantly I was just so grateful to have such a thoughtful daughter and to be honest, it brought up some strong emotions. (Of the eye allergy type) I love being a parent.

When Willie met Ellie

This last week Dave's parents were able to come visit from Utah. We had such a fun time with them and with Dave's brother and sister-in-law, John and Rachel. Ellie was soooo thrilled to have "friends" visiting and constantly begged Grandpa Willie to play with her. Much to his credit, he did and instantly became her best friend.

We got to do several fun things together as well as get several house projects done which was great. Tuesday we all went together to Sabino Canyon, a beautiful canyon north of Tucson with a stream running down it. We rode a tram to the top of the canyon and got off near a waterfall for our picnic lunch. It was pretty hot, even up in the mountains but it was so pretty with the water and the blooming cacti.





Wednesday Dave, Bill, and Beckey went to check out the Pima Mine, an open-pit copper mining operation just a few miles away from where we live and did a tour there. Ellie and I picked them up after her preschool and got to see the huge truck they use to carry rock and dirt around in.



Later that afternoon they went to the Titan Missile Museum, which apparently was pretty interesting as well. Wednesday evening we made Bill and Bec earn their keep and had them help us with a few things around the house. One thing they did that was very helpful was trim our huge overgrown mesquite tree. I was so nervous as they chopped away huge hunks of our tree that I had to leave but it looked really nice when they were all done with it.

Thursday we drove through Saguaro National park and went to the visitor center there. The Sonoran desert is so different than what you expect from a desert because of the wide variety of cacti and plants that grow in it even though it is such a harsh environment. I think it has a thorny beauty all it's own and paired with the red mountains in the background is just amazing. The other picture is from San Xavier del Bac, an old Franciscan mission that's been around long before Tucson was built.



Friday was supposed to be relaxing but wasn't. All morning was spent dealing with an ongoing pigeon problem. We have an overlap of roofs on the second story that makes a perfect nesting place for the nasty birds and their noise was keeping Beckey awake so we decided to take care of the problem. I ended up hanging out of a second story window cleaning out nasty pigeon nest and poop, filling up the gap with Super Stuff or whatever it's called, and fencing off the roof with pigeon spikes. It worked though, and that bedroom's a lot quieter now. Later that morning John and Rachel showed up from Tempe and we had a nice time visiting with them. The day was supposed to finish with a big BBQ, except our grill stopped working. The oven-broiled ribs turned out fine though and I was more than happy to veg out in front of a movie with the rest of the fam that night. All in all it was a great visit. We love having family around and wish we lived closer! Thanks Bill and Beckey for coming down and for all your help with "projects" even though this was supposed to be your vacation. We love you guys!