The Craziness that is my Life!

I have a problem. My problem is that I can't stand still. I can't slow down, and every time I move and think that I am going to start over and not take on as many things, I soon find out that I was just kidding myself. For example, we moved to Arizona and I am housebound for 6 weeks. Instead of just unpacking, getting settled and relaxing for 5 weeks before school starts, I get to work. We unpack, paint rooms, take swimming lessons, and walk a minimum on 4 miles every day in the HOT Arizona sun. Did I mention we had 3 solid weeks of 105+ temperatures?

Now that I have a car I am teaching dance, taking kids to dance, and taking Jake to soccer on Saturdays. The girls have classes EVERY DAY except for Sunday and Monday. I'm teaching on Wednesdays and in Oct. I will also start teaching on Mondays. (There goes the Monday off thing.) I am also choreographing for two of the company groups which right now means every Thursday and sometimes Saturdays.

I still have walls that need painting and a backyard in need of a SERIOUS makeover, but I'm out of money. So, if anyone out there enjoys moving rocks you are welcome to come over and help me redistribute them to the front. I made the mistake of moving rocks for two hours on a Wednesday. By the time I was into my second hour of teaching dance I was dying and after the third I was totally useless.

Basically I have a problem, but honestly I couldn't imagine life any other way.

Monster Mall Madness

I am falling behind on things. This week Rebecca turned 10, but last Saturday was Rebecca's Party. I wanted to scale things down but somehow Rebecca's parties always end up a little bigger then planned.

Rebecca invited 5 friends to the house for a monster themed Mall Madness birthday. (The only thing Monster, were all the Halloween decorations, but whatever.) After spraying the girl's hair with orange and glitter sprays, we left for the mall to do our own scavenger hunt.

The girls had fun running all over the place collecting items which they then had to bring back to Red Robbin for dinner. The first team back won. Rebecca's team made it back first but only because the team Sara headed up had a little girl that (According to Chad) was always trying to buy things and slowed them down.

We then ate dinner at Red Robbin. The waiter allowed all the girls to share shakes and put them each in their own goblet with whipped cream and sprinkles. They loved that.

Instead of party bags and a pinata we had the girls go to Sees and pick out a half pound of chocolates. This part took about 45 minutes as each girl wanted one of this and uhhhhhh one of these and uhhhh how many do we get again????? It was quite the process, but the Sees ladies were patient and the kids had a lot of fun choosing their own treats.

We then drove home, opened presents and had cake. I was too full to eat anything, but somehow all of the girls had room for cake. Parents arrived and the girls went home. I think from the smile on her face the party was a success. Happy Birthday Becca.

Apple Annie's Orchard

We heard about a pick your own orchard in Wilcox, AZ (named Apple Annie's Orchard) and decided to spend our Labor Day picking apples with who else but our cousins.

I was impressed first off with the number of people who showed up at the apple orchard. Wilcox is about an hour and a half east of Tucson, and for the most part in a fairly remote area. I have been to pick your own apple orchards before but I have never seen a parking lot so packed. You would have thought we were at the county fair.

As you enter the orchards, a nice man was handing out samples of kettle corn and a lady gave us a map. There were many different varieties of apples and a few pears. We hopped on a hayride and went apple picking. You were welcome to try anything on the trees, so we sampled different varieties before picking. Mom likes fugis, Rebecca and Sara liked the Red Delicious. Joey liked picking apples off the ground and then throwing them at low hanging apple branches to see how many apples he could knock off; and Jake just wanted to pick the biggest ones he could find asking, "Mom, is this one good."

We had a fun day and even the kids admitted that the drive was definitely worth it.

Dinner at Madera Canyon

Today we went with my sister Karen and her family, along with two other families up to Madera Canyon for dinner.

I was suprised that only 25 minutes from Sahuarita there was something this beautiful. The mountains and foothills almost make me forget that we are living in the desert. It was warm but breezy when we arrived. The kids had fun throwing rocks in the small stream and exploring a few trails, while Chad and I made dinner.

We had sloppy joes and attempted peach cobbler but as we were cooking the dessert it started to rain, and RAIN HARD. So we packed up, put out the fire, came home and finished our dessert in the oven. Fun night, we will have to try again sometime when it's not supposed to rain. Who knows maybe we will even camp. That would be fun.

Black Widow Spiders and Scorpions!!! Oh My!

Black widow spiders and I have a long history or dislike. When I was 9 I went to visit some good friends of ours. They lived in an area that had problems with black widows from time to time. I was told (by my friends Brooke and Paige) that if I weighed 50lbs or more and was bitten I wouldn't die, but if I was under 50lbs there was a chance I wouldn't make it. I weighed 49lbs and spent the entire week trying to gain 1lb and failing miserably.

Well, ever since that experience, I have never liked the spider. The other day I walk out my front door and what do I see perched in it's web on the side of my door, but a black widow spider. If that isn't enough, my husband was on call last night and as I sat alone watching TV, what do I see cross my carpet but a SCORPION.

I've never been so scared in my life. I threw 2 remotes at it, and missed by a mile so I took Rebecca's shoe and hit it 4 times before it died. Then I took out the vacuum and sucked it up. I vacuumed the rest of the carpet, because I was now paranoid that scorpions were running all over my home. They are transparent little buggers and hard to see so I was sure that there were more I was missing.

Needless to say I called Terminix at 7am this morning, signed up for a year contract over the phone and a guy was at my house by 2pm. We will see what happens, but hopefully I won't ever see any more of these desert natives in my home EVER again. Ahhhhhhhh. Did I mention I don't like bugs?