My new office

This is a picture of the condo where I work. The fenced area is a courtyard that has wicker chairs and side tables so we can sit out there when it's cooler.

This pool is right across from our condo/office. It has tables and chairs under an awning so we can eat lunch out there, although in the summers it's too hot, but I'm looking forward to fall and winter to be able to eat there more. The white wall in the middle of the picture has a waterfall running down it, so the sound is relaxing.

This is the view that you see when you first walk in the front door. This would be the living room if it were just a condo.
These bookcases hold books about various artists, and then you can partially see the kitchen in the background.
This is my desk, which is up on the loft level. It's a bit messy as I haven't had much time yet to actually arrange it. But it's a bright and cheery space and I like that.

This is a sculpture that one of the artists did for us that hangs from the ceiling when you first walk in the front door. You can see the loft level where I work up on the right-hand side.

This is one of the two bedrooms where artists stay in the condo. This is the one on the same level as the loft where I work, and it has a bathroom. Then there is another flight of stairs up to the third level where the master suite bedroom is. That room has a king size bed, a full bath, and a closet as big as Erik's bedroom!

Erik's Court of Honor 9/14/2008

Erik had his advancement tonight in Boy Scouts. His leader, Bellamy Brown, is presenting him with the merit badges that he earned over the last year, which were: Family Life, Bird Study, Basket Weaving, Swimming, Rifle Shooting, and Emergency Preparedness.

He received his Star Rank Certificate.



I'm putting on his Star Rank pin. Mothers get a pin too!

Here's all the boys his age that are in his Scout troop from our congregation.

Sarah's Graduation from Elementary School

Getting her "diploma"

Singing for the parents

Sarah's speech teacher and resource math teacher, Mrs. Johnson and Mr. Villa, aka, Mr. V

Sarah's 5th grade teacher, Ms. Foster

Sarah's peeps

Our Trip to Kentucky and Ohio

These are some pictures from when the kids and I went to Kentucky and Ohio in late July-early August. But the order of these pictures is kind of backwards. This was actually our last day of the trip. My dear friend, Rebecca, was kind enough to drive us back to Louisville from Cincinnati to catch our flight out to Phoenix. But before we left, we ran by to see Rebecca's classroom. She's got a new job teaching third grade. This is a picture of her outside the school.

These are some of our other dear friends, Charlie and Heidi Moreno. As luck had it, they were on vacation in California and had flown out of Louisville, so I was able to retrieve their SUV and drive it around when I was in Louisville the first several days. We picked up the Moreno's on Saturday night at the airport and crammed everyone and our luggage on the luggage rack to drive together to Cincinnati. Their oldest daughter, Caroline, is one of Sarah's dear friends. We met the Moreno's through her aunt, who lived near us in Stonegate Townhouses about 8 years or so ago. The girls are really growing up fast! Caroline used to be a lot smaller than Sarah. Caroline's had a growth spurt - Sarah hasn't....





This is the pool/backyard at Mamma Debbie and Paul Beck's house that their daughter, Tiffany is living in while her parents are serving a mission here in Phoenix. We got to swim in the pool for a bit, and Rebecca's daughter, Katie, enjoyed playing on the swingset. We had a great time visiting with the Beck's other two daughters also, Tricia and Tracy. Tricia's blog already had pictures of some of the things we did, so I didn't add them to this post as most of you already saw those in an e-mail I sent.

While we were visiting at the Moreno's house, the kids were outside playing. Suddenly, one of them burst in the house saying that the cat outside had a mole. Heidi and I went outside to see, and I thought, "That's a funny looking mole." I realized then it was actually a baby rabbit. It was tiny, just barely born I would guess as it still had a bit of its umbilical cord on its tummy. The cat had peeled a bit of skin off it, but it was still alive. Erik and I ran to the computer and searched the internet as to what to do. It said that if a rabbit's ears are standing up and its eye open, just to hide it in a bush somewhere and the mother would find it again. But for rabbits that are injured or younger, it would need human intervention. They can't have cow's milk, but can survive on goat's milk or even pedialyte (who knew?). But they require a heat source, and other special care, so instead, the website recommended finding a caretaker that had experience with wildlife. We Googled Ohio and wildlife and were able to find the name and phone number of someone that lived close to Heidi who could take the rabbit and care for it, so we dropped it off to the lady, and we hope it made it.




These pictures are actually from Louisville. There is a place on the Ohio River called the Falls of the Ohio. It's an area where the water is damned up at times and it exposes coral fossils, which proves that the area was once under an ocean. There is a museum there also, although we didn't go through it. The kids were just as happy exploring the rocks and looking for fossils! Sarah is pointing at a horn coral, and Conner (my nephew) is standing next to a good sample laying up on the rock.



Another day, we went to visit my grandmother, who is my mother's mother. I call my grandmother Mom too because we lived with her when I was a baby, and I spent all my spare time at her home growing up. She has 46 acres or so of land, so my children enjoy visting it and running around. There had been a storm recently, so one of these pictures is Erik picking up some of the blown down leaves. Another is of Sarah picking weeds, which she thought were flowers. Still pretty nonetheless, huh? My grandma is 92 years old and still lives there alone. Amazing! She's very spry and gets around without any problem. However, her memory is going quickly. She didn't know who I was, although she still recognizes my mother and her own children, just not her grandchildren or great grandchildren anymore. But that's okay. She can feed herself and live independently, and I think that's pretty good considering that a lot of people her age are feeble and bedridden in expensive nursing homes.

We had a wonderful trip, visiting many other people and doing many other things that I didn't include. We miss our friends and family in Kentucky and Ohio, and love them all very much!

Labor Day 2008

Since we all had the day off on Monday for Labor Day, we decided to ride over to Apache Junction (about 30 miles northeast of our house) and check out a Ghost Town called Goldfield. It was the area where a big gold mine was in operation over 100 years ago. They took the equivalent of $66 million dollars from it. There are still two working gold mines in Arizona, and lots of people search on their own as hobbies panning for gold.














At this ghost town, there is a "mine" that you can tour. There is a very unstable "elevator" that seems to take you down to the depths of the earth, but I quickly realized it was just bumping us around and wasn't really going anywhere. The other side of the door opens and you feel like your in an old gold mine. The miner in this picture could easily have lived a 100 years ago....except for the bottled water bottle that he kept in his hand! Anyone want to guess what this is pictured? It's a toilet for the miners. They would use it underground rather than having to come back to the surface. The tour guide side sometimes they would smuggle gold nuggets into it because the mine officials wouldn't search the toilet! The worker that cleaned the toilet out above ground would then get half of the money from the nuggets.





There was a lot of old tools and machinery lying around, as you would expect in a deserted town. This one caught my eye, having made it to the Arizona desert from Cincinnati, Ohio.

One of the highlights was the small reptile room that they had at the ghost town. They had about 75 poisonous snakes and lizards found in the Arizona dessert. These two are rattler snakes. I'd never seen a live rattler before.

It was a gorgeous day. It's still hot, in the low 100's, during the day, but that temperature is tolerable here if there is some shade to rest in.

Lars' 40th Birthday "Party"

I took Lars to lunch at Arriba's since he had the day off work. Then when the kids came home from school, and Lars' sister Miriam came home from work, we went to sushi. Kevin Wright, a friend of Lars, went with us too. He was in town for the night from Safford, and so we all came back to the house for cake and Lars opened his presents.