Hodgepodge

There's real no rhyme or reason to what I want to talk about.  It's just a big hodgepodge of stuff.

We decided to go out for snowcones on Tuesday evening.  What could be better on a hot day, right?  So we drove to a local snowcone place and had ourselves a little treat. 

We ate there.  Then it was time to get on home and get Spencer ready for bed.  As we were driving home we noticed this HUGE wall of black coming at us.  And we were going to be driving right into it.

Sorry the picture quality is bad.  Michael was taking these through the windshield.

So, we kept driving, and after 2 miles we drove into this huge dust storm.  It went from day to night in seconds.  If I didn't know where we were there would have been no way to identify the location because you couldn't see anything on the sides of the street.  You could see headlights, taillights and street lights though, and we only had a couple miles to drive, so we just kept driving.  We never felt like we were in danger.

I borrowed this explanation from the news:

An enormous wall of dust that barreled across the Valley during a monsoon storm left so much dirt behind on the ground and in the air that it didn't just coat cars and clog up pools, it prevented pilots approaching Sky Harbor International Airport from seeing the runways a day later.

The windstorm that took Valley residents by surprise Tuesday around sunset was a rare monster that reached theatrical proportions. It spawned a 100- to 150-mile-wide plume of dust more than 5,000 feet high, moving at 50 mph to 60 mph from northwest Tucson along Interstate 10 through the Valley before petering out in Yavapai County, according to Elizabeth Padian, a National Weather Service spokeswoman.

I also borrowed these pictures.

It was all anybody could talk about yesterday.  We are personally fine, but our floors are covered with grit, our backyard gazebo got ripped up, the backyard toys got tossed around and the air quality yesterday was crap.  Spencer's swim lessons were also cancelled on Wednesday because the pool and filters were full of dirt.

So, in lieu of swim lessons, Spencer got a haircut and we went to the grocery store.  Pretty boring day.

This is his official 3-year, 10-month shot.

We are on the official countdown to 4.  I have a party theme figured out, I'm looking at dates, I'm thinking about invitations.  It's happening.

Today is another boring day.  We already took some pictures of Spencer in his new suit.  He looks a little like a NASA astronaut. 

Then we went to swim lessons, where Spencer is rocking the back float. 

We also went back to the grocery store where we bought $26 worth of stuff we forgot yesterday.

On the agenda for the rest of the day is baking banana bread and taking a nap.

Oh, one more thing.

This is my friend Laura.  She's been in the blog often.  This was our girl's night out in October.

Laura sends out an email with a link to her picasa album about once a month.  It's just pictures of what they've been up to and what's going on with her daughter, Sara.  She sent the link out last night.  I was enjoying the album since it included the pictures from our pool party in early June.

Then this was the last picture.

Sneaky.

She is due, get this, February 18th.  We are exactly 1 month apart. 

How exciting is that?

P.S.  Happy 38th wedding anniversary to my parents!