Ellie's Baptism

We were able to have Ellie's baptism this past weekend while almost all my family was in town for Thanksgiving.  It was a beautiful service.  My family sang together for the prelude music, Ellie's church youth teacher and her uncle Ben gave wonderful talks on baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost, and her Dad baptized and confirmed her.  We are so proud of Ellie- she is a kind and caring girl who does her best to choose the right.

CTR- Choose The Right

Dave and Ellie before her baptism

Welcome to Crazytown

What a week!  Dave and I hosted Thanksgiving dinner and a mini-reunion for my half of the family last week.  We ended up with 26 or 27 people all staying in our house.  It definitely got a little crazy and chaotic at times but that is pretty normal around here.  It was so fun to have my parents, brothers, sisters, and their spouses, kids, and even a very brave boyfriend join us to celebrate all we have been blessed with. 

Several people made pies- my fav this year was the pecan.  We had so much food even after eating leftovers all week.  Dave and I smoked a couple turkey breasts and a brisket in addition to to a regular turkey.

The pie buffet

Decorating the tables

Some of the many young uns

Dad carving the turkey

Rachie fulfilling her bucket list goal of a "polar bear plunge" very gracefully

Touring the Pima Copper Mine with the fam

We didn't just eat- we played board games, did a puzzle (there's a unicorn within the unicorn within the unicorn!) stayed up late chatting, had a dance party, went hiking, went to the ASU v. UofA football game, watched movies, argued...I mean discussed stuff, planned Rachel's future for her, had Ellie's baptism, went swimming (not me!), roasted marshmallows in our new firepit, toured our local mine, and in general just had a fabulous time together.  I feel like one of my greatest blessings is my family- both my side and Dave's side.  We may be a little crazy but we love each other and love spending time together.  We also love eating pie.

  

A depressing post script to this post: I wore a slightly tight t-shirt today as I was doing nineteen million loads of laundry and putting up Christmas decorations.  Ellie was looking closely at my tummy tonight then announced loudly to all the kids that Mommy is having a baby.  Which would be fine if I was really pregnant.  Sadly it's just pie.

I want my mommy!

It's now been three days without my mom...I don't know if I'll survive...

Seriously though, my mom came to visit last week and it was SO nice having her here.  

She cooked for us.

She helped me can 45 lbs of chicken.

She came up with fun Halloween dinner ideas because I am lame when it comes to things like that.

She went trick or treating with the kids and Dave because I like to stay home and pass out candy.

She got in our chilly pool to play with the kids... and pulled me in with her.

On top of all that she watched the kids so Dave and I could go on a much needed date to the temple which was wonderful.  It was kind of a vacation all week with her around because the kids only wanted Grandma- to read books, to feed them, to put them to bed, and to play with them.  The kids had grandma withdrawals after she left and were disappointed to  find that mom isn't quite as fun as Gma.   Good thing she's coming back with the rest of the family in a few weeks for Thanksgiving.  We love you Mom- thanks for coming to visit!

Happy Halloween 2012!

Happy Halloween from the Zincke clan!  In case you're not up on your video game characters, we have Joseph and Leah as Mario and Luigi, Ellie as Princess Rosalina, Amari as Princess Peach, and Dave and I (not pictured :) had hats- Dave had a star hat and I had a "one-up" mushroom hat.  We have been enjoying all sorts of Halloween festivities and the kids are super excited to go trick or treating tonight!

Fall Fun 2012

This year for our annual farm visit we decided to go to Apple Annie's Orchard in Willcox, AZ.  It was a bit of a drive, but just when we started getting bored, we started seeing signs for "The Thing?".  Mile after mile, giant billboards enticed us to stop, get gas, and see "The Thing?"  Thank goodness for the internet, we were able to satisfy our curiosity without having to stop.  You know you want to know what "The Thing?" is!!  Anyway, we got to Apple Annies and got our apple-pickin' gear.  It was fun for about 20 minutes then it was just hot.  There weren't many good apples left on the trees and my fantasy of my children joyfully skipping through the orchard picking low hanging fruit was just that- a fantasy.  Still, we got a decent pile of apples to take home and make into applesauce.

We had lunch at a little park next to some railroad tracks.  Every few minutes these loud, fast trains would whiz by- the kids thought it was the best park ever.  Dave and I got Big Tex BBQ for lunch- after real Texas BBQ it was a little disappointing.  These Arizonians make great Mexican food but BBQ, not so much.

After lunch we drove over to Apple Annie's Pumpkin Patch.  We decided that for the first time in our lives, we were going to get the biggest pumpkin we could find.  Everyone should live a little once in a while, don't you agree?

Winner, winner, pumpkin dinner!  Dave found this big guy and as a reward, got to carry it back!

California Dreamin'

Growing up my mom would always say "Labor day is for laboring!" and then come up with big work projects to do over the weekend.  OK, maybe not always, but often enough that I remember it!  Well, Dave and I decided that this Labor Day was going to be for vacationing!  We took a trip with the kids out to San Diego to visit my brother, sister, and their families.  We had such a fun time.  On Saturday we went to the beach.  Everyone had such a great time.  The little ones weren't to interested in the ocean because the waves were really high, but they could have played in the sand and eaten oreos and cheese-its (standard beach fare) forever.

I was introduced to boogieboarding- what a rush!  Ellie tried it too with her cousin and had a lot of fun but took all the skin off her knees riding the board up the beach with the waves.  I was pretty grateful that my brother loaned me his wetsuit!

On Labor day we had a fun excursion before we left for home.  We started the morning at a cafe near the beach- they advertised free kid's meals.  It is possible that they regretted that as we walked in with our combined 8 children, but we had a great breakfast and the kids behaved pretty well.  We then went down to the train station to ride the train to an ice cream place in a nearby city.  The kids were very excited about the train.

We enjoyed some yummy treats, then it was time to head back.

Look at all these happy kids!

We had such a nice time in California- it is so fun for us to be able to see family more often.  Maybe next year we'll do a big work project to celebrate Labor day..or maybe we'll start our own tradition and go to the beach again!

It's always fun for everyone when Grandparents come!

Two weeks ago Dave's parents came down to visit- we had such a good time with them!  We tease them about visiting Arizona in August- it's not really the best time to come down- but we managed to find plenty to do despite the heat.  Several days Dave spent time driving them around the area and showing them our neighborhood and such- we are trying to talk them into retiring down near us!  We went to a few of the builders and looked at model homes together.  Dave and I have always liked looking at model homes, even if we're not in the market to build or buy, so it was fun to go around with Bill and Bec and discuss the pros and cons of different floor plans and such.

On Wednesday we pulled Ellie out of school and all drove down to Kartchner Caverns, a big cave about an hour south east of where we live.  They have a nice museum that we browsed for a while, then we rode the tram up to the cave and took the tour.  Sadly cameras were not allowed so no pics of the interior, but it was a neat cave with some beautiful cave formations including a massive six-story column formation in the main cave.  

We did the Pima Air and Space Museum on Friday.  We rode another tram around the outdoor part of the exhibit and saw a whole bunch of historic aircraft ranging from tiny unmanned drones to the enormous Super Guppy - a blimp looking plane used to haul large loads across country. Then we went indoors and browsed around the hangers with the indoor exhibits.  All the volunteers were really helpful and shared a lot of fascinating information about the exhibits.  We saw tons of neat aircraft and space stuff.  My favorite things to see were the Aerogel and the prototype one-man helicopter.   Aerogel is a solid substance that is one of the least dense materials on Earth- you can see through it like smoke but it can hold an incredible amount of weight and it is an incredible thermal insulator.  It is just kind of cool to see what we can make with science these days.  The helicopter was basically a backpack with a column coming up the back and blades on top designed for individual use.  They tested them during WWII, but gave up on them because the idea of using human legs as landing gear turned out to be a problem.  If your legs buckled on impact and the blades hit the dirt they became masses of shrapnel.  I guess that didn’t work so well.  It was a pretty cool idea though.  

We spent hours there and probably could have spent several more if we weren't hungry and on a deadline to get back and pick Ellie up from school.

  

As you can see it is a lot of work to have so much fun.  Beckey and I couldn't resist this little photo op of Dave and Bill grabbing a quick nap.

On Saturday we all went up to Mt. Lemmon for a picnic.  Mt. Lemmon is a huge mountain at the north end of Tucson with a gorgeous scenic drive up to the top.  We drove part way up and had our picnic lunch and let the kids “hike” around the mountainside a while.  They also collected rocks.  The mountain is all this quartz with a high mica content, so ALL the rocks glitter.  I think we had a few pounds of rocks come home with because they were all so pretty.   We went the rest of the way to the top where there is a tram that is a ski lift in the winter and a little village.  Dave, Ellie, Bill, and Beckey rode the tram, but I didn’t feel comfortable taking the little kids on it so we stayed at the bottom.  After they got back we got some fudge at the general store which I reluctantly shared with the kids and then it was time to head home.   

It was so nice to have Bill and Beckey down, and especially for our kids to get to spend some time with them.  The kids just loved having Grandma and Grandpa in town and were pretty sad when they had to leave to go back home.  We love you Mom and Dad and hope you had as much fun as we did- thanks for visiting and come back anytime!