Arizona Museum of Natural History

Bronco & Ginger also enjoyed their spring break, they have had the "freedom" to roam in the yard and in & out of the house.

Bill & Jamie playing catch in the yard.


The Phoenix metro area has an awesome program called "The Culture Pass". Public library card holders can check out free passes to several museums and even the zoo. It's a very popular program and the passes are hard to come by. My mom lucked out, though, and got a pass for the Arizona Museum of Natural History. We went to that museum last year and we all enjoyed it so, we were excited to go again. Grandma went with us this year, so it was even more fun!

Bill & Jamie were exhausted after the museum!

I just talked to our friend, Pat, from Alamosa. He & Cathy are on their way to Tucson...we've tentatively planned to meet them there to watch the Rockies at Hi Corbett Field. They left Alamosa about an hour ago and are going to drive most of the night but don't know if they'll make it to Tucson in time for the game. I haven't bought tickets because, if they don't make it, I'd really rather stay in Mesa and relax. They're going to call by 9AM tomorrow & let us know their progress. So, I guess we need to be ready to go to Tucson anyway.

Sunshine, Baseball, Friends...Spring Break!

Bill's plane arrived this morning. Jamie & I drove to the airport and, actually, over-estimated the time it would take us to navigate through traffic so we ended up sitting in the cell phone lot for almost an hour.

We already had plans to meet my high school friend, Darrin, for lunch and a baseball game so, instead of driving back to Mesa, we headed from the airport to the Arizona Mills Mall to wander around for a bit. After lunch at the Rainforest Cafe, we went to Tempe Diablo Stadium to watch the Dodgers vs. Angels. We try to get together with Darrin every year and since we're all big baseball (all sports, really) fans, it's fun to hang out at the ball park. (side note: one great high school memory I have is of Darrin's dad...his favorite greeting was "hello sports fan!")

Jamie was happy to see his daddy (so was I!) and we had a great visit with Darrin. And...the Dodgers won! Jamie, again, had to pick a team to cheer for and it had to be the one that we weren't cheering for. Since Darrin & I both grew up in the days of the Albuquerque Dukes, we still tend to bleed a little Dodger blue. So, Jamie decided to cheer for the Angels...and actually, since Mike Scioscia (a former Albuquerque Duke) is the Angels manager, I could've gone with either team. I was just happy to be enjoying the warm sunshine and watching baseball! We also were entertained by someone climbing the small butte just past the outfield...our entire section cheered when he summit-ted!

Found out today that my mom's camera doesn't read the SDHC card that I transferred to it from my camera. Her camera has a small internal memory and I was able to take pictures so it never occurred to me that they weren't being saved to the card...until we got to the game & I started taking pictures and got the error message that the memory was full. So, I had to delete some of the pictures I took at the Cubs game and then had to be selective of what pictures I took today. Tonight I got the pics off of the camera's internal memory downloaded and put in a regular SD card so, now I think I'm set for the rest of the week!

Spring Break, Day Three

Today was a laid back day. My mom, Jamie & I went to the Mesa swap meet this morning to walk around and look. My mom had to buy some things for a friend of hers. Jamie was NOT at all interested in going but, once we were there, he wanted to look at EVERYTHING!! We spent a couple of hours there and, according to my mom, only got through about 1/4 of the entire market. They have just about anything you can think of there! Jamie came home with a remote control car, actually a cool toy and more than I expected for the $7 I paid for it.

After the swap meet, we decided to go to Pei Wei for lunch. I'd been to one in SLC and was really impressed and thought my mom would like it too. This one was OK, different and more formal than I remember the one in SLC to be...doubt that we'll go back, though.
I loved the all you can eat fortune cookies and all you can drink chai tea!!

We learned something about Ginger today. When we left for the swap meet, we left her chained up in the yard because, although my mom's yard is completely fenced, we're pretty sure she can jump the four foot fence. Thing is...I don't think she knows she can jump it! When we got home, she was off the chain but, still in the yard. She had broken the clasp on the chain and we were so glad that she was still around! When we put her in the dog run at home, with a six foot fence, she climbs over and is out of the run before we can close the gate. But, we keep her & Bronco in the laundry room with a 3 foot baby gate and she doesn't jump that, even though she could probably step over it. So, maybe she's a climber and not a jumper and maybe she needs more fence to get traction to climb. Silly dog!!
So, we're letting her roam in the yard here and, so far, she's done great! Who knew?? It's better for us, too, because now we don't have to listen to her yelping!

Bill arrives tomorrow morning! I'm glad Jamie & I came down early but I'll be happy to have another playmate for Jamie!

Spring Break, Day One & Two

Jamie & I arrived in Tempe, AZ at about 4:00 on Friday...my first stop was a camera repair shop. The news was not good and I'm so bummed! The memory card slot is NOT an easy fix, the entire camera housing has to be replaced. When I asked about having it repaired, they strongly suggested that I just buy a new camera...that it would actually cost less to buy a new camera than to have that one (less than 2 years old!) repaired. They said that cameras are being made like cell phones...made to last a year or so and then be replaced. Damn!
Then I got to drive to Mesa in rush hour traffic!! Welcome to the big city!!

Luckily, my mom has a decent digital camera and is letting me borrow it until I find and can afford to buy the camera I want.

So, to start off our week in the sun, Jamie and I went to see the Cubbies play today at HoHoKam Park. They played the Reds (Jamie's little league team last summer was the Reds) so Jamie wore his Reds gear and I had my Cubs t-shirt. He's going through this phase now where he likes the opposite of anything Bill or I like, so we had a fun & friendly rivalry going. The Cubs won, though, so I had the last laugh! Ha! Ha!

After the game, we went to the park and played our own version of baseball. It started out with me pitching to him (regular baseball & metal youth bat) and him hitting the ball way over my head so that I had to chase it. That version very quickly became not so fun for me as I spent all of my time chasing the ball!! He pitched to me some and then we finally settled on me hitting grounders to him so he could practice fielding. He was tired when we finished and actually said that I wore him out! It's usually the other way around...he wears me out long before his energy runs out.

Give Me A (Spring) Break!

Woke up to about 3 inches of new snow this morning, which makes me even that much more excited to be leaving Alamosa for Arizona to spend Spring Break in the warm sun.
But, before I can leave, I have a very busy day ahead of me.
I have P.E.O. at 9:30, then lunch with my P.E.O. sisters (if I have time) and a dentist appointment at 1:40. Then I go and pick Jamie up from school for his 3:00 dentist appointment. I hope to be on the road by 4:00 so we can get to Albuquerque tonight at a decent hour. We'll drive to Mesa tomorrow. Bill is staying here for the Crane Festival this weekend and will fly to Phoenix on Monday.
Bill was nice enough to put the car topper on the car last night and had to leave it out overnight...didn't know it was supposed to snow.
So, I have to get everything packed in the car this morning before I leave for P.E.O. so that after Jamie's dentist appointment, we just have to stop and pick up the dogs and go! I better get busy!!

de Cranes! de Cranes!

No luck, so far, with my camera...sigh! No one has responded to my forum post yet.

It snowed here earlier today but cleared up a little before I left for scrapbooking. Several strings of cranes were flying over so I had to stop and take these photos with my trusty cell phone.

I love the cranes!!!

Science Saturday and Camera Woes

Today's Science Saturday was about robots and it drew a very large crowd!!
Dr Emmons gave instructions about basic robot/computer programming and helped the kids (& adults!) understand that you have to program every little detail. They played with Lego Mindstorm Robots and were able to program the computer& download it to the robot and then watch their robot do what they had told it to do. It was fun but crazy & loud with so many people participating. It's nice to have a bigger crowd but it did take away from the time that each kid was able to spend playing with the actual robots.

A weird thing happened to me at Science Saturday...I pulled my camera out to take photos and got the error message that I did not have a memory card in the camera. I figured I had just neglected to take it out of my computer and put it back into the camera so I fished in my camera bag for another memory card. When I went to insert the memory card, lo and behold, I had not forgotten to replace the original memory card but, for some reason, my camera was not reading it. So, I played around with it for a while and it seems that there is something wrong with the memory card slot...the card does not "click" into the slot I took a few Science Saturday photos with my cell phone but they're, obviously, not as good.

When we got home, I tried to figure out a way to wedge cardstock or cardboard on top of the card but then couldn't close the cover and I didn't want to completely break it. I found a Canon forum on-line and posted my problem...hope I get an answer soon! It doesn't seem like it should be that hard to fix, as it's not a "technical" problem.

Bill suggested we all go to the Hooper Pool this afternoon so I decided to not stress about the camera. It was nice to relax at the pool and we had a nice visit with the Morins.

I do hope I get an answer soon from the forum about my camera but, I'm also planning to take it to a repair shop in Tempe during Spring Break. I'll have to borrow my mom's camera until I can get mine fixed.

Lunch with Mrs. Price

Jamie has been looking forward to today for at least a couple of weeks. He normally takes his lunch to school but, today, he is one of 8 students in his class to share a special lunch with his teacher.

Back in September, Mrs. Price challenged the class to set a goal of passing 100 AR (reading) quizzes at their reading level. She said the first 5 to reach this goal would get to join her for a special lunch. Turns out that 4 kids reached the goal on the same day, so she included them (total of 8 students) and today is the day that they have their special lunch. They are having pizza, lemonade, cake & ice cream. They get to have lunch in the classroom...an added bonus for Jamie as he has often remarked that the lunchroom is too noisy!

Last Friday, the school librarian held an ice cream social for all students who have passed 50 AR quizzes. The above photo is from the bulletin board outside of the library and it has the names of all of the 2nd graders who qualified for the ice cream social.
Jamie is doing well in reading and the rewards along the way are pretty nice too!

Bottle Rockets

This weeks Science Saturdays was about rockets. Kids (with help from parents) used water/soda bottles, foam core board, paper and LOTS of duct tape to construct a rocket, then we went outside to launch them. I think I heard that there were 24 kids participating, up from the five we had at the first time we attended.

The bottles were filled half-way with water and then attached to the launch system that pressurized the bottle with air. A pull of the string by the young "rocket scientist" released the bottle and launched it into the air. Everyone's rocket launched, some went up and some went horizontal, and everyone had a great time!
Jamie's rocket did very well, he had fun building and launching his rocket. He also had fun running and playing with his friends.

Watching Winter Olympic Games

I've been enjoying watching the Winter Olympic Games over the past week or so. They are being held in Vancouver, BC, Canada this year and the footage being shown on TV is breathtaking!!

We love Canada, especially British Columbia, and have had the opportunity to visit three times. We actually stayed a few days in Vancouver during our last trip in June 2003. Seeing it on TV now has prompted me to look through our photos from that trip again.

Here are a few from Grouse Mountain, one of the Olympic venues.

Here are a few from the Capilano Suspension Bridge in North Vancouver

These are taken at/from Stanley Park in Vancouver

Sunset at Spanish Bank Beach in Vancouver

We spent a total of 11 days in British Columbia and went to Banff National Park, Jasper National Park, Kootenay National Park, Fairmont Hot Springs, and most points in between.

One of my favorite pictures of Jamie was taken at the Banff Springs Hotel...he was probably happy to be out of the car.

British Columbia is probably one of our all time favorite places to visit. After watching the Olympics and reminiscing through my photos, I definitely want to go back!

Mouse trap cars

The project at yesterday's Science Saturday was mouse trap race cars. Using CD's, wire, foam core board, hot glue, duct tape, popsicle sticks, mouse traps & string, our task was to design and build a car. It took a lot of trial & error and everyone's car was a little bit different, but it was a fun project that got the kids thinking about design & functionality. The actual project, though, seemed to fall into the hands of the parents as the kids eventually lost interest and decided playing tag was a better way to spend their time.
Jamie checked in periodically to see the progress and had some good ideas. We were able to get his car to go for a short distance but need to tweak it more (stabilize rear wheels) to see if it will go further.

Jamie's mouse trap car
(before re-working back wheels)
I'll post a photo when (if) we finish the reconstruction.

Frosty Day

Today was another foggy/frosty day...seems like we've had alot of those lately. The fog started to burn off about 10AM and the contrast between the frost on the tree and the clear blue sky was amazing! This is another photo I had to take to remind me of the beautiful things in my life that I take for granted.

View from the kitchen window

Today I was standing at the kitchen sink and looked out the window...I do this numerous times per day without taking much notice. A couple of years ago, we had friends visiting from Dallas, Texas and they took tons of pictures of the view from my kitchen window. I remember they commented that they would do dishes willingly if they had THAT to look at while standing at the kitchen sink.
I don't know if it was the way the sun was reflecting of off the snow or what, but, today I really looked out the window and was overcome by gratitude. I had to take this photo to remind myself to not take this view for granted.

Random

Random photos of another lazy weekend in Alamosa...

I love our view of Mt. Blanca but hate that our neighbors house (& power poles) is in the way of good photographs!

Monster icicle hanging from rain gutter.

family Wii time

Another Science Saturday

Jamie was excited to go to Science Saturdays today. We picked his friend, Parker, up and took him also. The theme today was color and we learned to "tie-dye" with Sharpie permanent markers & rubbing alcohol. There were only four kids, so there was room (& bigger t-shirts) for the grownups to play too. I think we had more fun than the kids! The kids soon lost interest so they started building and flying paper airplanes. They practically had to kick Bill & me out, though...we were having too much fun with the markers and alcohol.

Jamie had a great time and he did enjoy the tie-dye project, so much so that we had to stop at Wal-Mart on the way home and purchase permanent markers.