Outdoors

Cheech and Chong

Posted on by Amy
Today, when we were getting ready for the day, I swore, for a brief moment of “where the heck did she get that?” that Miss was saying, “Cheech and Chong” over and over. I started to crack up about it, but realized all too quickly that she was actually saying, “teeth and tongue.” She was playing with a doll and I suspect she was brushing its teeth. Damn. “Cheech and Chong” would have been funny. But even without that, my kid is pretty amusing. I love those moments when she says something that cracks me up. She does it more and more often these days.
An example of this occurred in the grocery store checkout the other day. We were waiting for the bagger to get the last of our stuff in the cart. Miss said she was hungry and I told her that we were going to go home in a few minutes to have lunch. I then asked her what she might like to eat. Without skipping a beat she replied, “A lemon.” She was so serious about this I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. And she continued to ask for a lemon to eat, all the way home, during lunch, and the next day. I kept telling her that I needed to use the lemon we had purchased that day for a recipe, but she kept asking. Today when it was time for her snack I suggested apple yogurt. She said, “No, I fink my want a lemon.” I had realized, when cooking my recipe that required a lemon last night, that I actually had another, extra lemon in the fridge, so this time I said, “Sure. Hop up to the table and you can have a lemon for your snack.” I was chuckling to myself about this, but she surprised me. She took several bites and kept asking for more.


She didn’t shudder. Didn’t make a sour face. She seemed to love it.


She got to her third wedge of lemon before finally giving a little shudder.

Then a big shudder and sour face.
She then held her lemon wedge out to me and said, “Apple yogurt please!”
Today the weather was perfect. A beautiful late summer, early fall day with sun and a breeze and a temp of about 75. I decided it was a park day. Lass loves hats, and was so excited when I pulled out her bonnet for the park trip.
As we were getting loaded up to go to the park I happened to think, “It’s Thursday, I’ll bet I could find a few rummage sales on the way.” So I took a slightly circuitous route to the park to look for some sales along the way. I found two. They were crap. Seriously, the first one had deodorant for sale for 75 cents. Deodorant! 75 cents! So wrong. I didn’t look any further because I wanted the girls to have plenty of time at the park before lunch. We went to a new park today and Miss had a blast checking out all the new stuff there.



Of course there was a lot of swinging.


This park has a splash pad, which I assumed was turned off. One little boy apparently touched the magic spot to turn it on, and Miss immediately asked to go play in the water.



The little spouts of water shot up in a sporadic manner, so Miss got doused by a couple of them.
She didn’t seem to care. And Lass had fun putting her hands in the water from the Ergo.
This place is my new favorite park.
We came home to get dry clothes, eat lunch and take naps, and then went back to the beautiful day outside. We took a walk, which was very short because Miss requested to walk by herself instead of riding in the stroller. As she was walking she went onto a neighbor’s lawn and started to take her shoes off. I told her she needed to keep them on while we were walking and she informed me that she wanted to feel the grass under her feet. All right. She agreed to keep her shoes on until we were in our own yard, and then we all promptly took off our shoes to feel the tickle of the grass under our feet. Lass got a big kick out of this. Miss and I danced and shuffled our feet. This resulted in some heckling from my hubby who was inside changing clothes after work. The heckling resulted in a dazzling display of the Running Man by yours truly. The evening was topped off by grilled homemade brats, football on the telly, and very soon, ice cream. I love days like today. My spoon is calling me.

A Week to Remember

Posted on by Amy
We got back late last night from a long, tiring, yet fun-filled ten days at the Farm. The girls grew so much during the week it seems, with so much to do and so many loving people around to do it with. Both sets of their grandparents, aunts, uncles, a gazillion cousins. They saw cool and interesting things and had new experiences. This bird’s nest is just one example of the treasure trove of nature that is the Farm.

The photo doesn’t do it justice. It’s made mostly of pieces of baling twine, twisted intricately around the branches and woven with grass, and probably other stuff. The general consensus was that it was probably an oriole’s nest. We didn’t bring it back with us, though that would have been a hell of a find for Miss to take to preschool. Miss’s Baba also gave her a robin’s egg, but we forgot that too. Miss saw deer, a coyote, a huge praying mantis, the biggest spider I’ve ever seen outside a glass case, a stick bug, and on and on. She really loved checking out the milkweed pods and walnuts that she found on the ground.
A different kind of new experience came for her in the form of corn. She has had sweet corn many times that I cut off the cob for her, but this week she had her first try at eating it right off the cob. She thought that was pretty cool.


But much more thrilling was her first ride on the “Great Big Mable” float pulled behind my in-law’s boat.



She didn’t seem scared in the slightest.
Just waving and smiling. My little daredevil.
Right after coming in from the boat and Mable ride, she went fishing with her Daddy. They caught several fish, and she had lots of fun with the worms.



One fish broke off their hook, so Miss sat and watched for fish with my mom while her Daddy went to get a new hook.
Then they were back in business.




Poor Lass is too little to get in on lots of the action her sister is getting into now, but she had great fun playing with her cousins. She really started moving with her walking this week too. Though she took her first steps shortly after turning 11 months, she never really got going with walking, and in fact until a few days ago, had almost stopped trying entirely. Now she’s really getting into it, choosing to walk instead of crawling more and more often, and stringing together more and more steps.

After her fishing time with her Dad, Miss got ready to go for a treasure hunt. She got all ready in her boots and headed out to the Ranger. The treasure hunt is one of my favorite things about the farm.
Tons of kids and adults pile on the Rangers and go off to explore and look for treasures of all kinds. I used to love going on treasure hunts when I first started coming to the Farm almost a decade ago. I was always the “City Mouse” to my husband’s “Country Mouse” family, and thoroughly enjoyed going out and being awed by all the finds. It’s a hundred times more fun to do it now with my kids.
We stopped to pick lots of wild flowers, which Lass loved.

Then we got down to the beach, where the kids splashed around and looked for shells and critters.

There were tons of tiny frogs hopping all around and the kids had a blast trying to catch them. Miss got to hold one that her older cousin caught for her. She also found a snake that her uncle grabbed up for her. That girl and her snakes…
Lass enjoyed the beach too.
It was really a week to remember. Every new experience for my girls seems like something new and amazing for me too. I love every minute of it.
Today we savored the trip and each other, happy to be home and back in our routine. Summer is winding down quickly here in the North Country. Today was crisp and felt very much like fall already. Football has started (Go Blue!). And preschool starts this week! Loving every minute.

Homebodies

Posted on by Amy

Today we stayed home. After our weekend away, I just wanted to be here. The weather cooperated enough that we could get outside for the girls to have some fun and new experiences. Like roller skating.

She held on to my hand for about 30 seconds before saying, “I want to do it myself.” And she did.

She fell down several times, but didn’t seem to mind too much.

She just got back up and kept on going. Doesn’t she look so grown up?


And this little one is so close to walking. Today I saw her take one tiny step forward before grabbing on to something. Outside she was most definitely the master of this lion.
She pushed it sideways in circles instead of standing behind it and rolling it.


There is a circle of grass around a big, gorgeous oak tree in our front yard. It’s my favorite place on our property. I used to spread a blanket there and sit outside with Miss during her first summer. I take the girls out there now and we blow bubbles and take our shoes off to feel the grass on our feet. Today, like every other day, we were drawn to the circle. Miss calls it, “The Hole” or “The Rocks” (it’s mostly sunken below the level of our driveway and surrounded by rocks).
The girls decided to take a little rest in the shade from all their hard work.


Under the tree it’s cool and the grass is soft. There are usually treasures to be found like leaves, pieces of bark, sticks, bugs, etc. Miss marvels at them and Lass tries to eat them.
It’s a peaceful spot to sit.
And the view from under the tree is amazing.





After naps we went outside to try out the new sand in the sandbox. Miss enjoyed it, but we had to take a break from it because she kept trying to dump the sand outside the sandbox.
I put the cover back over it and she begged me to let her go in the “baby swing.” I convinced her to try out the big girl swing first (which she has enjoyed greatly but fell from when playing with her cousins on Thursday) and told her she could go on the baby swing after that if she still wanted to.
She didn’t want to.

Home Run

Posted on by Amy
Raisins and cherry tomatoes were my at-home-“Chopped” ingredients this week. I thought and thought for a week about what to do with them. Initially I was going to cook them with some onions and broth and spices and then puree them into a sauce for some pork tenderloin medallions. Then I realized that the skin and seeds of the tomatoes would probably not work well in a pureed sauce, so I scratched that idea. I finally settled on making a pan sauce for pork tenderloin using the raisins and then doing a side dish by caramelizing some fennel bulb (my new favorite vegetable since I learned how to cook it in my cooking class) with some raisins and then adding in the tomatoes. I wanted to use caramelized onions and raisins in a sauce (topping might be a better word than sauce, because the raisins and onion made it chunky) for the pork but add in just a bit of heat to compliment, brighten, and balance the sweetness of these ingredients. Similarly, I thought the tomatoes would balance the sweetness of the caramelized fennel and raisins in the side dish. Yeah. I hit a home run with this one. Here are both of the recipes.
Pork Tenderloin with Spicy Raisins and Onions
1 Pork Tenderloin (about 1 lb)
Salt and Pepper
1 Tbsp Vegetable oil
1 Onion, halved and sliced thinly
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup white wine
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 cup chicken broth
3 Tbsp unsalted butter, cold and cut into 1 Tbsp pieces
Trim fat and silvery skin from the tenderloin. Slice it into 1-inch-thick medallions. Season with S&P on both sides. Then press the tenderloins (with your hands or the flat side of a knife) until it’s about 3/4 inch thick. Heat your pan over medium high heat. Put in the oil. When the oil is shimmering, add half of the pork pieces. Sear them on one side for 2 minutes, then flip them using tongs and sear the other side for about 2 minutes more (they should be firm around the sides). Remove to plate and cover with foil. Repeat with the rest of the pork. Add the onion and cook until it starts to get soft, stirring occasionally. Add the raisins. Let the onions and raisins cook together for a while so the onions get nicely caramelized. Add wine, cayenne and paprika. If you don’t like spicy, you can reduce the amounts of these, but I would recommend still adding them, maybe at about 1/2 of the amount I used. Let the wine reduce by about half. Pour in the chicken broth and any juice from the tenderloin pieces that has accumulated on the plate and continue to simmer for a few minutes longer. Off the heat, add the butter, 1 Tbsp at a time, swirling each Tbsp piece around until it melts. Serve the sauce over the pork medallions.
Fennel with Raisins and Cherry Tomatoes
1 tsp Vegetable oil
2 Fennel bulbs, julienned
1 Tbsp sugar
1/4 cup raisins, chopped
1 pint cherry tomatoes, quartered
Sprinkle of salt
Heat a pan over medium high heat. Add oil, then fennel. Stir fennel to coat with oil and add sugar. Stir, then add raisins. Cook for several minutes, stirring occasionally, to let the fennel soften and start to caramelize. I can’t remember how long this took, but the fennel will start to darken and get soft, but still have a little bit of bite to it. Add the tomatoes and stir them in. cook for a few more minutes to let the tomatoes start to soften, but don’t let them get too mushy. Sprinkle a little salt on, stir, serve.

I was so happy with the way these dishes turned out. Lots of flavor and great textures. The only thing I might have done differently would be to add more wine, chicken broth and butter to the pan sauce to have more of the liquid part of the sauce. It was yummy.
We have already decided to go to 3 ingredients this next week and I drew them from our spreadsheet. I do it like the old game Battleship, picking coordinates that my husband matches up the the spaces on his spreadsheet. The one way that we limit what comes up is that he makes sure at least one of the ingredients is a protein. So, next week? Sweet pickles. Bran cereal. And Pickled Herring. Yes, you read that right. Pickled Herring. My husband told me this and then said, “I hate pickled herring.” What?! This freaked me out a little, because I thought I was doomed from the start if he hates it (I’ve never had it, so I have no idea, though I can imagine, how vile it is). I was prepared to go ahead with it, but I think he felt bad for including such a horrendous ingredient on his list. He suggested we draw a different protein, and we did. The next one that came up was Canned tuna. But after thinking about it for a bit, I told him that I wanted to go ahead with the herring. That’s the challenge, right? Taking something crazy, and potentially kind of gross, and making it fabulous? *gulp* Hubby did point out that it’s actually a win-win situation for me though. If the dish I make is horrible, I can blame it on the herring. If it’s delicious, I become a cooking goddess. Score. I told him I can’t even begin to plan what I’m going to make though until I go to the store and get some herring and taste it. I have no idea what it’s texture or consistency or taste is like, so I can’t figure out what I’ll do until I know that. Wish me luck!!
In other exciting news from the weekend (and to get on to the cute pics), we got our swing set delivered on Friday! The Hubby and I started putting it together during nap time yesterday.

Naturally we couldn’t get it all done while the girls were sleeping, so they joined us outside while we continued to work on it.




We had to put in some more time this morning, though it was mostly the hubby getting it done today because the girls were awake the whole time. Finished product:
We have to trim up the landscaping and the dead stuff underneath a bit and put down some soft mulch, but the girls didn’t care about that. They went right to it after they woke from naps.






This one continues to amaze me with her climbing. My mom says she gets it from me.



And no, she didn’t actually climb all the way onto the platform by herself, but she did climb the ladder all the way to the top, until her hands reached the platform and she wasn’t sure what to do with them to keep climbing. I don’t have photos of that part of her performance, because I was hovering around her as spotter just in case. She never even faltered though!
I love this swing set and I know the girls will get so much fun out of it. According to my husband, who had to deal with most of the inevitable frustrations of putting such a contraption together, they’d better!
As a last note, please excuse the status of my header right now. I thought it was about time to change up the photos, but for some reason could not get the far left photo to fit in the header correctly. Also, some of the photos in this post have a bit of a foggy look to them. It’s because my camera lens fogged up when I took it from inside the air conditioning to the muggy outside. Sorry!

Full

Posted on by Amy

Starting swimming lessons and gymnastics class and three forensic cases to do and trying to get in my 20 days of exercise this month and watching Chopped last night. . . and this week is quickly getting away from me. So I realized, “What happened to my Independence Day post?” Well, it got combined with my Wednesday July 6th post, that’s what. Here you go!
As I predicted, our 4th of July celebration consisted of more of the same festivities that filled the rest of our holiday weekend.

Well hello there Hunk.


Celebrating the birth of our country with my sunscreened babies, splashing and loving the water. Cherishing family. Perfect.


That and great outdoor food. We had grilled kielbasa, veggie kabobs, potato salad, the works. Even ice cream!
Miss loves her “Chocolate ice cream on a stick” – otherwise known as a Dove Bar.
And this little one had her first taste of the sweet stuff.
The brat making continued. Here’s my hubby making sausage.
My hubby after I pointed out to him that he’s wearing his “Wiener Shop” T Shirt.
Wieners.
We ate some for dinner tonight. Fantastic. There’s nothing like fresh, homemade sausage. He also made chorizo, which I love to cook with. I can’t wait to try out a new recipe using it.
Speaking of new recipes, my “Chopped” ingredients this week are cherry tomatoes and raisins. I wasn’t able to get to the grocery store until today, but I got my ingredients and have something of a plan for my dish. I need to refine it in my head before I dive in to make it, so it’ll be Friday or so before I do it. Stay tuned.
I think I’ve written about how I have ordered some new big girl outdoor toys for Miss so that the push-behind lion can be passed down to Lass now. We are still waiting for her trike, but her roller skates arrived yesterday. And so did these:
We had to try them on today to make sure they fit. I ordered them with the intention that they would fit her now and also be gear she can grow into, so they look a little big but they do fit. Naturally she didn’t want to take them off and had to dance around in them until I had to nearly pry them off her for nap time.

Soon to come will be photos of this ensemble, outside, with little Barbie roller skates. I love it.
Right now we’re busy in a great way. Miss loves her gymnastics class and seems to be enjoying her new swimming class so far. We’re having play dates.
I’m enjoying work. Being a professional. Sorting out the intricacies of psychiatric diagnosis when a case is a little unusual. It helps me to be well-rounded. To be challenged and stretch my brain in a different grown up way. Then I come home and get back to my real job. And it’s good. My life is full. In the best possible way.

Fishing

Posted on by Amy
Once upon a time, back before my husband and I had little ones, we used to go fishing together a lot. My husband is quite the fisherman, and in the early years of our relationship it was a fun way for us to spend time together. A lot of time. We would go out on the boat at the crack of dawn and stay out all day. Sometimes talking, sometimes not. Sometimes freezing our butts off. Sometimes sweating half to death. Sometimes catching fish. Sometimes not.
I started out as a complete klutz with a fishing rod. I frequently got my lure hung up on something under the water. Once in a while even in a tree. Above the water. Sometimes I managed to swing the rod wildly and nearly take my husband’s head off. Frequently my line got hopelessly tangled. I didn’t have the right technique for reeling in a fish on the rare occasion that I caught one. I couldn’t operate a trolling motor. I didn’t know how to take a fish off a hook. Basically, I was a disaster with a fishing rod when he started taking me fishing. I won’t even go into my early attempts to assist with getting the boat in and out of the water.
Now, I could spin this into a lovely romantic tale where I tell you all about how patient and kind my husband was with me when teaching me the art of fishing. How gentle and tolerant he was when I made my very frequent mistakes. When he had to back the boat up because I had cast behind us and my lure was caught on a rock. When I broke one of his fishing rods. When I nearly ran the boat into a bunch of rocks because he was in the back struggling to get my lure unstuck from some unknown underwater vise and I was totally clueless about running the trolling motor. I could tell a beautiful fishing love story. Except that wasn’t how it went. Not. Even. Close. My wonderful hubby is a hard core fisherman. He yelled. He swore. A lot. At first.

He caught this walleye last night
He yelled and swore a lot at first. See, those early days of fishing together were a great way for us to strengthen our relationship. Fortunately we had quite a strong relationship to begin with. So, when he yelled, I (essentially) told him to cut it out. And to his credit, he did. Most of the time. If I did something stupid, I apologized. If he lost his temper, he apologized. And miraculously, he kept asking me to go with him. And I kept going. I learned a ton and eventually became quite a competent fisherwoman. Some of my best memories are of the times we spent fishing together. And I think I softened him up a little bit for our daughters. Okay, who am I kidding? They don’t need any help from me to melt their Dad. It’s a good thing too, because I think they’re going to spend a lot of time fishing with him.
Today Miss saw her cousins fishing and was very into it.
She quite enjoyed checking out the bait, both the bucket of minnows and the box of worms.

She requested her own fishing rod so she could give it a try. Her Baba rigged up a rod for her and got her going.
Within a few seconds they got a bite.

Miss was so excited to “catch” her first fish. It was a bluegill.
But then she wasn’t so sure that she wanted to get very close to it. This is her, “I’m-not-sure-what-to-do-that-thing-is-kind-of-freaking-me-out” face.
She wouldn’t touch the fish, but we did manage to get her to stand close enough for it to get a few photos.

To top off our day of fishing, Miss’s cousins caught 13 huge crappies that my brother-in-law and father-in-law cleaned and my mother-in-law fried up for dinner. It was delicious, and Miss gobbled it up. I think we’re going to be doing a lot of fishing this week.

A Visit with my Auntie

Posted on by Amy
Last week we took the girls for a quick visit with my Auntie and Unka. Lass had never met them and Miss hadn’t seen them since she was about Lass’s age. My Auntie is my mom’s sister, and is very dear to me. We also got to see my cousin and her husband. It was a wonderful day. The morning started with Miss calling my Auntie “Grandma?” since Auntie is so similar to my mom. This tickled me, and I think it helped her get over her initial shyness pretty quickly. Naturally, my outdoor girl wanted to get outside and play right away.

The day was laid back and hot. The cool concrete felt great so we just camped out, visiting and playing.



The girls had lots of fun exploring a new place and playing in the yard.


The dog’s water dish was like a magnet for Miss. She made “soup” again.
Unka captured a snake that Miss got to take a look at. Ew.
Auntie and Unka have a great tree for hanging “from the bar” as Miss said.



Auntie tried to spoil Miss a little with some yummy snacks Miss doesn’t usually get, like colorful goldfish crackers, fruit snacks, and frosted animal cookies. I told her that Miss would say the same thing about her that I once did when I was about 10 and visited her, “You’re just like my mom, except you have dessert!”
I was thrilled that Lass seems to be getting past her stranger anxiety and got to bond with Auntie a bit.


It was like magic for me to watch my girls with my Auntie. It was a short visit, but I loved every minute.

Weekend Fun

Posted on by Amy

We had a wonderful long weekend here. We had a visit from a long-time friend of mine (a former college roommate!). She met my girls for the first time and became fast friends with Miss.


Lass is experiencing some stranger/separation anxiety right now, so she wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy with our guest, but she did lots of smiling from a distance.



It seems that the weather has finally cooperated with the calendar (though not until yesterday, which was 90 degrees!) and summer has arrived. We spent the morning yesterday at the pool. My husband had to work all weekend, so I took the girls by myself and therefore have no pictures of our first pool outing of the year. I was doing good to keep track of Miss while holding Lass constantly, so photo time wasn’t really going to happen. I tried to set Lass down in a tiny bit of water in the zero entry area of the pool, but she didn’t want anything to do with that. Then I tried to put her in our portable exersaucer thing. I should have known better. She didn’t like it the first time I put her in it at home.
But on that first day she eventually got a bit used to being in the thing, so I thought maybe she would do better at the pool. When I put her in it she immediately started screaming and trying to climb out. So she spent the entire pool time in the Ergo, which was okay too.

During nap time I finally got out our water and sand table, which has been in the box for a few weeks since it has been too cold to play with it. We didn’t have any sand but the girls didn’t know the difference when I filled up both sides with water.

Lass felt like such a big deal being able to stand and play with her sister.




There was tons of splashing.


Miss was just scooping the water onto herself!
And she was very diligent about watering the landscaping.
Including the rocks.
Then she realized how wet she was and begged me to get a towel and dry her off.
I wiped the front of her clothes with the towel and dried her feet. I thought she might be upset about her wet clothes and ask to get dry clothes on. But she just went right back to splashing herself and pouring water everywhere. It’s going to be a fun summer.

It’s Finally Here!

Posted on by Amy
We got back late on Saturday night from a great week-long visit with my parents (remember, they live in the land of no internet, thus no posting for over a week). When we left, we still had tons of snow on the ground. The photo below was taken right before we left, and you can see all the snow on our deck through the doors. (Please excuse the total lack of editing on some of these photos as I’m having some technical difficulties with my iPhoto)

Happily, when we got home, the snow was gone. All of it. Gone, gone, gone. I posted a month ago that spring was coming. I thought it had come when almost all of the snow melted shortly after this post. Then we got another huge, soul-crushing snowstorm and winter continued to drag on and on. But now, I think we’re in the clear. The crocuses are blooming. The grass is greening. The trees are budding. And the air smells like spring. We wait a long time for it. But spring is so worth it here. Yesterday was almost 80 degrees. We had a brief spring thunderstorm on the morning and then Miss and her Daddy got out to play in the puddles.


Yeah, she wanted to wear legwarmers, so that’s what you see coming up out of her rain boots.


Splashing.
And splashing.
She loved the puddles. I didn’t capture it on film, but eventually she ended up kneeling and then sitting in the puddles.
Off in the distance you can see my hubby pulling up the stakes we use to mark where our driveway is when it snows. Yep, we get that much snow. And we’re just now, in mid-April, confident enough to pull these things up.


The day was so beautiful, we decided to have a picnic. In the back end of my vehicle, that is. We drove a few miles to this fabulous old drive-in restaurant. In case you can’t read the sign, it says “Since 1948.” The carhops still wear roller skates.
I have wanted to go to this place since we moved here, but it didn’t seem like a very baby-friendly place. Then I got the idea to put our picnic blanket down in the back of the Expedition, take along the Bumbo for Lass, and have a drive-in picnic.
Perfect!
We had a blast hanging out in the back of the truck. The girls were wonderful.
And it turned out to be a great way to spend some quality time together.

We played, and then ate, to the sounds of cars whizzing by and 50s music playing through the restaurant’s outdoor speakers. “I Only Have Eyes For You” was one of the favorites of the afternoon.
The food was even good!
Root beer in a frosty mug fit like a glove in my rear cup holder!


Miss tried a taste of my root beer. It kind of freaked her out at first, and she almost tried to spit it out. I think she didn’t like the carbonation. But then she swallowed it and realized it was pretty good and asked for more.
Of course, spring wouldn’t be complete without some good thunderstorms. I love thunderstorms. Unfortunately the storms last night came with funnel clouds and up to 2-inch in diameter hail. So we spent a little more quality family time in our basement.
It’s not my favorite place in the house. But Miss had a blast playing with her toys down there and running around in the open space.


It was a perfect start to spring (fortunately the storm ended up being pretty tame in our area and we didn’t have any damage from it). I am looking forward to doing so much this year now that Miss is older and can enjoy more things. We will be taking trips to the park, with real picnics on the grass. We’ll be taking walks and going to the zoo and getting a swing set/sandbox for our backyard. And our pool opens in just a month and a half, which means summer! Spring will be short this year, but we’ll enjoy it to the fullest.

Arizona

Posted on by Amy
We got back late last night from our trip to Arizona. It was a very good trip. The girls were fantastic on the planes rides going and coming. Our flight was so late last night that Miss stretched out on the floor of the plane to go to sleep. We didn’t have reliable wireless while we were there. So though I had intended to post once or twice during the week, here’s one big fat post to tell you all about the trip.
Our first morning there, Miss was ecstatic about the sun and warm weather. I chose this house to rent specifically because of the large grassy area where she could play and the fence around the pool. Here she is marveling at the wonderful weather.

It wasnt quite as warm as I thought it would be but the weather was the same every day. Sun. 70-ish degrees. Almost no clouds. Not warm enough to swim, but warm enough to play outside a lot. And my big girl loves to play outside.
It was the first thing she asked her daddy to do every morning. With the time change she was getting up a bit earlier than usual, and my generous husband got up with her every morning to let me sleep in a little bit. And every morning, even though it was still pretty chilly early on, she asked right away to go outside. They had tons of fun just playing in the yard.
We got out and about quite a bit as well. We went to the Phoenix Zoo.
Miss got to feed a giraffe. The first time she tried to feed him the lettuce leaf his crazy-long tongue kind of freaked her out and she dropped it.
So the she watched her daddy do it
and gave it another try.
Watching the cheetahs.
Lunch time.
Lass was a superstar, just hanging out in the stroller we rented or in her Ergo carrier.
Miss asked all day to see the monkeys. They had a nice “Monkey Village” where we could go in and walk around with the monkeys on the loose all around us. Miss got a kick out of looking for them up in the trees.
“Where’d he go?”
We took a nice walk in Papago Park.


We went to a playground near our rental house.

That’s my girl!!

One afternoon my hubby gave me a break to go to a local spa for a treatment. It was amazing and such a nice treat for Mama!!
We all enjoyed our break from the cold and snow. It was nice to just be outside and play without being crazy bundled up and freezing. It was also cool to see all the flora of such a different climate. I had never been to Arizona or any place like it before, so it was fun for me to see all the different cacti and other plants and to show them to Miss.



We also had fun looking at ants. Fortunately, this time of year there aren’t many other bugs or creepy critters in Arizona.


Interestingly, one of my favorite outings of the whole trip was to a bunch of Main Street art galleries. They have amazing galleries in Scottsdale and we spent one morning sampling many of them. Miss seemed to have as much fun (if not more) looking at the art as she did at the zoo. She “oohed” and “aahed” and pointed out all the things she recognized. At the first gallery we went into she saw some large cartoon-like female statues and she pointed to them and said “Oh, Big Mama!” We all cracked up, including the woman working at the gallery. Miss is still talking about the “Big Mama” statue.
Overall, we were pleasantly surprised by how friendly the people are in Scottsdale and how much fun we had. I had never really thought of Arizona as a place high on my list of places I wanted to visit (other than to the Grand Canyon), but it is definitely a place we will likely go again. It’s nice to have a break from the cold, and we will have some great friends moving there we would love to visit. And I want to spend some more time browsing the art galleries as we barely scratched the surface this time.
It’s snowing here as I type this. Fortunately it is a bit warmer than when we left last week (think 20 degrees versus zero). Of course, even though it’s snowy and cold here, we are very happy to be home.