Emily's Spring Break

Instead of giving you my perspective of spring break, I have asked Emily to post about it herself.

My Spring Break
by Emily

The first weekend I went on a three-mile bike ride with my sister and my mom. We started in our neighborhood, and then went to my school, and then to the high school and rode around on campus. Then later in the day we went to the Ostrich Festival for the evening. Me and my dad went on the Ferris wheel. Then me and my mom went on the Fun Slide. It was fun. But we went to the Ostrich Festival and didn’t see a single ostrich. Oh well. I played with my friends a lot over the break. On Sunday I went to my friend Cooper’s house and while I was there I saw my other friend Sebastian playing over there. So we had a lot of fun. Then on Monday I went to a place called Desert Breeze Park. They have a little train you can ride on, and ducks you can feed that apparently like popcorn. They also had a carousel and a cool playground that’s big with lots of fun things to do. On Tuesday and Wednesday I went to a camp because my parents had to work. I went to my school and they had a Kids Club camp there. You go and play fun games and make new friends. They also have field trips. On Tuesday I went on a field trip to a museum. It was about Natural History. We saw dinosaur fossils and things from back then. On Thursday I went to my friend’s house for about 5 hours. Then my mom picked me up and dropped me off at the airport. I saw my dad there because we were going to Lake Tahoe in California. Once we got there our friend’s picked us up and we had a 2 hour drive to get to a hotel that we were staying in. Once we got there it was late so we went to bed. The next morning we got dressed and went down to the lobby to have breakfast. I had cereal and apple juice. Then we went back up to the room and got ski clothes on because we were going skiing! We were going to a place called North Star. My dad put me in a lesson for a day. I had fun. Then after we went skiing we went to Round Table Pizza. Then we went back to the hotel and me and my friend played for a while. It was Saturday now and we went to get breakfast again. This time I had a waffle, a biscuit, cereal, and cranberry juice. Then we went back up to the room and got ready to go skiing again, but this time we went to a place called Squaw Valley. This time I didn’t go in a lesson but it was my first time ever using poles. It helped me balance more. They had harder hills though. After that we went to sit down and me and my friend had a snowball fight. Then we went to a Thai restaurant. It was yummy. Then we went back to the hotel and went to sleep because we were tired. The next morning it was Sunday and we were going back to Arizona. So we packed up and got in the car. We had a 2 hour drive. Then our friends dropped us off and we went on our airplane. Our friends live in California so they drove home. Once we got to Arizona we drove home and said hi to everyone. So we were back home, but since we had Monday off my dad had to go to work but my mom took the day off. So we went to Costco and got some food. Then we ate lunch there. My sister had a hot dog and me and my mom had pizza. For dessert we had a churro. Then we went to Fry’s. I saw my teacher’s son and daughter there too. There names are Kurtis and Kirsten. My teacher wasn’t there though because she had to work that day. Then we went home and I played at my friend’s house with my little sister for a while.

THAT IS MY SPRING BREAK!

When life hands you lemons...

We're definitely making lemonade at our house. And chicken picatta, lemon bars, lemon poppy-seed pound cake, etc. My poor family will soon be all puckered out. This little tree produces more lemons than we can ever consume so if you could use a couple, or even a bushel, just let me know.

El nino

It is March 9th and we're having another stormy, cold day. I know that talking about the weather seems really mundane for a blog post...especially for all of you that live places that have weather on a regular basis. But out here in the desert...rain makes the evening news. In March, we're accustomed to an average high of 75 and .9 inches of rain. According to the National Weather Service website, the Phoenix Rain Index is 4.98" since January 1...and did I mention there was hail!? So I'm going to go ahead and take the liberty of writing a note about it. Despite it feeling like the wettest winter in the thirteen we've lived here, it isn't. Back in 2004-05 we had 7.76 inches. I was mothering an infant and a three year old back then. So either I was too busy to notice or have blocked that period of time from my long term memory.

As much as I appreciate the importance of rain...enough already...bring back our sun!

Snail mail

I'm all about communicating through modern technology. I keep up with email on a Blackberry, I use evite.com for party invitations, I curse my Flexible Spending Account vendor every time I fax a claim form in (seriously), I use address labels on my Christmas cards (not without guilt) and I keep a blog for pete's sake. But I still love to get mail...not the bills and credit card application kind of mail...but mail that comes with my name and address in handwritten script on the envelope. Birthday cards, thank you cards, invitations...I find them delightful. It's a dying form of communication...but I will do my part to keep it alive.

My very talented friend, Sheri, recently started a new endeavor as a Stampin' Up consultant. She's very artistic and an amazing creative type and lucky for us that know her, this is a wonderful outlet for her to share her creativity and talent to inspire us. I've attended a few of her classes and workshops and have left with lovely hand-crafted cards that I then have been able to share with my friends. She recently held a "Mommy and Me" class that Emily attended with me where we made adorable Valentine-inspired gifts.

Her classes and workshops have definitely inspired me to get back into paper art. I used Emily's birthday as my first endeavor into creating something in "mass". Here is the invitation...


Which was then followed up with a similarly designed "Thank you" note. All of which are being hand-addressed and delivered...by snail mail.

Rolling into nine...

Last year, following the lead of a friend, we gave Emily the option of a big off-site birthday party with friends or cash. After careful consideration that included a gamut of questions such as,

Q: "Would we still celebrate my birthday?"
A: "Of course, but just with family and family friends at home."

Q: "Will I still get presents?"
A: "I imagine you might get a present or two." (gross understatement)

Q: "Can I spend the money however I want?"
A: "Almost. Mom & Dad have veto power should you be purchasing anything that requires being fed or breaths oxygen." (an important stipulation since rodents were on her mind at the time)

Q: "Will I ever have a birthday party again?"
A: "I am certain that you will have many birthday parties in your future."

...the girl chose cash and we had a win-win situation. (We still ended up with something that breaths oxygen and eats...but that was of my own doing later in the year).

In typical Emily style she decided, if the cash option was still on the table, she was going to alternate each year so this year she'd like to do a birthday party with friends...at Skateland, a local roller-rink. I suggested we just have a few friends over and instead of having the full-blown party at Skateland, we take the girls to the rink for a couple hours, return home for pizza and cake and then she could have a couple friends spend the night. She was game...and I'm happy to say we all survived.

Following a busy day with family festivities and a Girl Scout cookie booth, she had four friends over for the skating which everyone (but, understandably, Gma) bravely took part in. Two friends stayed for the slumber night-in-sleeping-bags-with-lots-of-giggles-and-little-slumber party. The evening fun carried over well into the following day. When it was all over and she could barely stay awake another minute, she declared it her best birthday yet...so we've put another mark in the win-win category.

Nine!

My first born is nine now. It was official this past weekend. The last birthday before she hits the big double digits. It's crazy to me because it doesn't seem like nine years has passed since we first brought home this squishy little baby from the hospital without a clue of what to do...



But through instinct, reading, tremendous amounts of helpful advice from family and friends, lots of trial and error and undoubtably a lot of guidance from a divine power...we've managed to get her this far. She's bright, witty, beautiful, compassionate...really quite amazing if I may say so myself. She makes our heart soar with pride every single day.



Happy Birthday Emily Susanne!

Detox

I'm trying to detox from Facebook. I joined FB in November 2008 and I even blogged about how much fun it was at the time. But the numbers over on the right definitely confirm that the FB outlet has crimped my blogging. Those twenty words or less status updates are just so easy and right up my alley...but I found myself always thinking in quips whereas two years ago I was enjoying the outlet of creative writing on this blog. I won't be able to quit FB entirely. I still love the convenient medium FB allows me to keep in touch with new and old friends...but I want to get back to capturing our lives and my reactions to this amazing journey in a more meaningful way.

Based on that very idea, I introduce a published copy of Desert Doers...



Slurping up our blog through blurb.com...it gave us a published hard-copy of the first year of our blog. I gave this first one as a Christmas present to Steve with an extra copy ordered to save so the girls will each get a copy later in life. It suddenly became very apparent that focusing on the blog, instead of FB, will allow me to share a hard-copy of memories and photos with our daughters versus just a collection of status updates out in cyber-space.

Go ahead, call me old-fashioned. Then after that, stop by and catch up with us here at the blog. We'd love to have you.