Rock Food

We started Monday with swim lessons and then a trip to the Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum.

This is the only reason anyone would go to the Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum. Rocks that look like food. It's one little display case. Totally worth the $2 admission fee.

Then we headed over to the Arizona Science Museum. Spencer was in love with this model plane.
I got a tutorial on morse code. The guy seemed a little annoyed that I called it a button instead of a key.

Spencer hung out in the play kitchen and some other kids called him a nice boy.

I got my work out for the day lifting him on this seat.

Then Amy and Baby Jacob and Josh and my brother Nick came over and I made a fabulous French dinner.

Spencer bossed everyone around in typical Spencer fashion.

No pictures of the food. We were too busy cooking and eating. Here's the gem of a picture of Michael and Cathy peeling potatoes.
This is the menu. I used google translator so I apologize for the horrible French translations.

Premiere Cours
Soupe aux poireaux pomme de terre avec des croissants
(Potato leek soup with croissants)

Deuxieme Cours
Mixte salade verte avec vinaigrette francaise
(Mixed greens salad with French vinaigrette)

Tarte au fromage
(Cheese Tart)

Troisieme Course
Poulet cuit dans du beurre avec de la sauce Roquefort
(Chicken cooked in butter with Roquefort sauce)

Pommes de terre roties et des asperges
(Roasted potatoes and asparagus)

Quatrieme Cours
Mousse au chocolat
(Chocolate Mousse)

Beat the Heat

So. Cathy's here. We're pretty delighted to have her. She's sitting on my couch looking at photo albums from 2007 while I blog. You couldn't ask for a better friend.

I picked her up from the airport yesterday afternoon and we immediately headed to Tucson. I took her to meet my grandmother. My grandmother told her a bunch of random stories, including one about the cowboy Tom Mix. He died just north of Tucson in 1940. That's important. Remember it for later.

Here we are at dinner. Just me and my friend, Margarita.

I enjoy Margarita's company very much. Cathy's not bad either. (Elisa came to dinner with us, but there are no pictures of her- insert sad face) This is me relishing my first night ever without Spencer. I'm demonstrating how I'm going to utilize every inch of space in the bed.Cathy's trip to AZ has two themes. Rules if you will. #1. Beat the heat. In everything we do we have to beat the heat. #2. Cathy must drink more water. I'm forcing water consumption all day long.

Cathy and I went to Sabino Canyon this morning. We went early but it was still ungodly hot. We took the tram for most of the way and then "hiked" for like 10 minutes.

A lovely elderly woman who knows very little about centering a picture took this of us. I took no less than 6 pictures of this exact scene. You just can't see why. I can't even see why and I took 6 of these damn pictures. There's the reason. Can you see her? It's Sonoran Desert Bambi. Obligatory "visitor from the East with desert in the background" pictures. It would be against the law to not take these shots.

Cathy is a kindergarten teacher. Instead of Flat Stanley she has Sheila Laguna. I took a picture of her taking a picture of Sheila.

Here's Sheila with a prickly pear cactus.

After Sabino Canyon and a nice cold shower (and a glass of ice water) Cathy had a moment with Ginger.

And then they posed for a picture.

And then we posed for a picture.

Remember Tom Mix? Yep. We visited his roadside monument.

I really think it has been the highlight of the trip.

Except for maybe this. The native American ruins in Coolidge. We never did find a wheelchair for me to run her around in. And dammit if they didn't have a 50 gallon bucket of gatorade readily available.

Luckily though, Cathy still had some eegee left from lunch in Tucson. Always refreshing after 115 degree native American ruins.

More Cathy trip to AZ 2010 updates are coming. I already have a sweet, sweet picture of her and Michael peeling potatoes.

Cathy

My friend Cathy is coming to visit today. Cathy lives in New Hampshire. We met each other circa 1999 when she lived across the hall during the semester I went to school at the University of New Hampshire (I was doing an exchange program). I could show you a picture of Cathy but it would involve going and getting out an old photo album and scanning a picture. Not going to happen at 12:13 am. The last time Cathy and I saw each other it was 2005. I'm very, very excited for her to get here today.

I've been trying to figure out some fun stuff for us to do while she's here. The problem: the high in Nashua today is forecast to be 78 degrees. The high in Phoenix is forecast to be 108 degrees. Cathy is going to catch on fire and melt the first time she walks across the blacktop. I refuse to let her be the person on the 5:00 news who had to be rescued and packed with ice because they came to visit AZ in June.

A momentous thing is going to happen tonight. I'm spending my 1st ever night away from Spencer. I'm taking Cathy to Tucson for the night while my boys stay at home. It's going to be awesome. This is what is planned so far.

Dinner at Guadalajara Grill. Margaritas of course.

Sunday morning we'll pick up one of these bad boys,
so that we can take this bad boy, on a little journey up Sabino Canyon. I figure we'll be safe if we get there first thing in the morning, wear SPF 150 sunscreen, only sit on the tram, not hike and I hook her up to an ice IV. Then I think we'll take the scenic back roads to Phoenix so we can stop here, and see this. Most of the tour is an indoor, air conditioned museum. Maybe I can track down a wheelchair so I can quickly push Cathy outside and run her through the outside monument. Then I'll dump a 50 gallon cooler of iced gatorade on top of her.

Monday morning we'll take Spencer to swim lessons. Then I think we'll visit a meat locker, an ice cream parlor and an ice cube factory.

Leap!

READY

SET JUMP!!! Safe in mom's arms (Photography complements of Megan)

(Pool complements of Megan too)

Big Boy swim lessons

Spencer started his Tadpole swimming class on Monday. He's not thrilled that I'm no longer in the water with him, but he's enjoying himself and is doing well. It's really the first "thing" that he's doing on his own without my participation. I think it will be good practice for when he starts preschool in just over ONE MONTH.

He's the youngest in his class. The pool doesn't discrimate against females, there just aren't any girls registered during this session. On a scale of one to ten how bad is it that I can't, for the life of me, remember his teacher's name? 10- bad, bad mommy. 1- you're busy. It's OK.

 

(February 2, 2014 update: comments have been closed due to excessive spam)

Daddy Day

We were still in Tucson for Father's Day. We spent the majority of the day with both my parents and both my brothers. It was nice.

The day started with Nick and I driving around Tucson like crazy people looking for a new waffle maker. Sounds like an easy task, but it wasn't since we wanted to eat at 10 and most stores don't open until 11 or 12 on Sunday. We finally found one at Best Buy. My mom's 27 year old waffle maker has been retired. I'm sure I'll find it stuck in a box in the garage after both my parents die. That'll be my dad's doing.

After the golden, crisp, delicious waffles it was present time. The dads look happy about that.

Spencer was showing great grandma Girl his microphone. Let's do a little flashback to 2008 before looking at current pictures. Look at my baby. Heck, look at both of them. Michael was a young daddy here.
2009. The beginning of Spencer's aversion to looking at the camera and smiling. Current. 2010. Notice Spencer's severe allergy to taking a good picture.

All the kids in 2008.

And in 2010.

Some family shots.

This picture took the participation of 4 adults.

Spencer is not allowed to be a father for at least 24 years, but that didn't stop him from helping with the gift opening.

Hey dad, should I tell people that you bought this drill for yourself? Should I tell people that it reminded us of the time you bought a bunch of stuff from amazon and wrapped everything and put it all under the Christmas tree and pretended to be delighted and surprised every time you opened something new and it took us all a long time to start questioning who gave you all that stuff?

Nick's birthday is tomorrow. My grandma gave him this bucket. Spencer thought it was a cool place to sit.

Nathan gave Spencer a ride in the bucket. It got a little wild. He had to stop immediately. Nathan once threw Spencer in the air (don't worry, he caught him) and it took Spencer a good 6 months to let Nathan back into his inner circle.

After my brothers left and we all took naps we got Lucky Wishbone for dinner. Yummy, fried, greasy goodness. We were more than half way through eating 2 family feasts before I thought of taking a picture, so I got this from their website.

It was a good day. Mostly because of Lucky Wishbone. A little bit because of the waffles. And the company too, I guess.