Sonoran Desert Museum

Later in the week we went to the Sonoran Desert Museum in Tucson. I made sure to put sunscreen on before I left this time. Christian wanted to visit the caves first. Mom, Christian, and I tried the steep route, while Dad stayed on the safe route. It was cool.
At the end Dad went up a little ways so we could take some pictures with him in them.

Christian and Mom are trying to get her camera to work and they had to bend over the small lights to even see the camera.

In the caves was a bat exhibit. These are what our ears would look like if we were bats. Boy could you hear the sounds!

Obviously, Christian did not want his picture taken. (Actually I made him take the picture twice.)

There were little animal statues all over the museum. Here is Mom posing with an owl.

Dad had to take a break while Mom went back tot he car to get him a snack. He needed to eat about every hour or he ended up exhausted. Christian tried his hand at drawing a cactus. He did pretty good with it...then he turned it into a pineapple :)

This is a teddy bear cactus. I had to take a picture of it since the Kindergarteners, first graders, and I were wondering what a teddy bear cactus would look like when I was reading G is for Grand Canyon to them.

An otter. One of my favorite animals :) I remember learning how to swim by watching an otter.

I don't remember what Christian is doing here, but it's a cool picture :)

This bighorn sheep was posing for us, so I had to take a picture of it.

Taking a break at the tortoise exhibit.

Doesn't he look like a tortoise?

Inside the bird exhibit. We saw some cool birds, but don't know the names of most of them.

Next was the hummingbirds. I love hummingbirds and so does Mom. It helps that we see hummingbirds in our yards...but I don't have any nests yet and Mom does :(

Eating lunch at the car since there are no picnic tables around the entrance. We didn't want to drive to the picnic tables....we would have lost our great parking space.

After lunch we went to see the Birds of Prey Flight. Dad decided to wait at the entrance since it was a walk to where the flight was going to be. These hawks were amazing. They flew two feet above our heads. (The announcer had asked us not to put our hands up or place our children on our shoulders...now we know why.)

Four hawks ended up flying above us. I got this fabulous picture just as one of them left its perch.

After we left the Sonoran Desert Museum, we went to Gammy's grave. Mom wanted to get some pictures of her parents' graves. Then the long drive home. And guess what??? I got lobster red sunburned...and I had sunscreen on this time. I should know - I always get sunburned :(

Read the next post to hear about the Civil War Reinactment!

Civil War Reinactment

During Spring Break, Mom, Dad, Christian, and I saw a Civil War Reinactment. It was pretty neat. When we got there we saw a cannon demonstration. They told us how the cannons were fired and fired off several shots.
We found a good spot to set up our chairs to watch the battles. Dad read the about the battles while Mom and I found good pictures to take.

The first battle was pretty boring at first. It was just teh scouts moving up and taking shots every once in a while. Although, the rebels were really funny with their shouts at the northerns.

These rebel scouts were right in front of us. That's how we heard their ribbing of the other soldiers very well.

It started to get interesting when they started to 'die'. Many of the soldiers make sure they landed 'softly' with their hats over their eyes :)

When the battle was over, the narrator said "resurrection" and everyone came back to life. Here is a picture of them doing it.

Mom brought a picnic lunch. It was delicious.

Christian decided to try on my hat. What do you think? Doesn't he look pretty????

After we ate lunch, we wandered around the exhibits.

This Union soldier was showing us how they cleaned their guns.

When we got back to our seats, Mom took Dad's chair since it was starting to break. Well.....it didn't last long - about one second before Mom landed on the ground.

A lot more people came before the second battle. We even saw a couple of television cameras. We heard that this year was probably the last year for the reinactment due to the park probably closing down because of the budget cuts :(

A lot of the time the cannons would shot out these smoke rings. Cool, huh?

Second battle started. Here is the rebel flag holder - he got shot and was dragging himself to cover while keeping the flag up. One of the southern leader got shot and kept telling everyone what to do from the ground.

Here is a Union soldier who didn't get his hat on his face. Kept his arm up instead :)

We left after the second battle (didn't stay for the third). On the way out Christian wanted to get an old fashioned root beer bottle to keep as a memento. Take a look at the sign under the keg.

It was a blast. Unfortunately I forgot my sunscreen. Yep...I ended up sunburned :(

Life Scout

Christian advanced to Life Scout this Wednesday at the stake court of honor. He also walked away with 8 merit badges. Now he is going to start on his Eagle Scout project. He also has 3-4 merit badges to finish up.

Christian wanted to be funny:)

He was awarded merit badges for Geneology, Art, Family Life, Communication, Lifesaving, Computers, Music, Citizenship in the Community, and Music.

Sunday Check In

All right. I have nothing big to report - and no pictures either. I did find out what kind of bird made my nest though. It is a cactus wren. I found out by reading a book to my school kids. I brought an author to my library on Thursday (and she was really good - one of the best we've had). In her book G is for Grand Canyon it shows the cactus wren's nest and what do you know? It looked just like mine. I didn't know they made nests outside of cactus though.

Yesterday was Christian free. He left at 4:15 am to go snowboarding with the young men in our ward. He enjoyed himself although he couldn't feel his feet after a while (he had too small of shoes). He came home at dinner with stories to tell.

Now I am home relaxing after church. We have church at 8 am now (due to singles ward meeting in our chapel). So....that makes an early morning for all of us. Hopefully in the summer it will be easier as it won't be so cold then. It is still chilly in the morning and I don't want to get out of my warm covers. Everybody else must think the same thing since no one shows up until right before it starts. (Before most people were there 15-30 minutes early.)

Hope everyone is having a nice, calm, relaxing Sunday too :))))

Bird Nest

A few months ago I found a unique bird's nest in the oak tree in my front yard. Instead of having a top, there was a hole on the side of the nest. Although I looked for the owner, I never saw the bird the nest belonged to. Here is a picture of the nest.

Then, on Thursday night when I came home I found the bird's nest on my driveway. (Luckily to the side so I didn't drive over it.) I decided I should look to see if it had any eggs so I could try to save it. As I turned the nest slightly to look in it...a bird fly out and almost into my face. It happened so fast I didn't even get a good look at the bird :( I never could find the opening in the nest, so I moved it over by my lantana plants and hoped the bird would come back to protect any eggs there might have been. Christian was sure the next would get destroyed by the storm. Luckily, it survived. You can see a picture of where it is now below.

Christmas

Christmas started off as usual with an appetizer dinner with my parents. We learn every year not to make as much, so we kept it simple -- we still had lots of leftovers!
After dinner we played games until Courtney and Daniel came home. Then came the unusual part -- since I was taking Mom and Dad to the airport early Christmas morning (6:00), we decided to have Christmas on Christmas Eve.

It looks like Christian is really enjoying his stocking -- really he is, he just doesn't like his picture being taken.

Courtney and Daniel joined us Christmas Eve. They opened their presents to each other. We figured out that they were going to have four Christmases this year -- ours, Daniel's parents on Christmas Day, Christmas with Cheryl and Maria, and then there were presents sent to their house. What a haul!

Here Dad, Courtney, and Daniel are opening up a present from me. I had them open it together since it was the same gift -- a recipe book of famous restaurant recipes -- like Olive Garden, California Pizza Kitchen, etc. Mom liked it since she saw mine and wanted to copy the Olive Garden soup recipes. I told her she could get them later.

This is Christian and my Christmas presents. I love the quilt stuff Mom got me - I'll get to make some pretty quilts now. (I've already got my next three projects planned.) I enjoyed all my presents - and some of them were even a surprise (not ones I suggested).

Christmas morning after I got Mom and Dad to the airport and Christian and I slept some more (we didn't got to bed until 1 or 2 and got up at 5), Christian informed me that I need to get a better hiding place for Christmas presents as he knew most of the ones he got. Spoil sport! I told him to quit looking and next year they would be wrapped and under the tree before he got home from college:) That will stop him.

Anyway, I hope that everyone had a very merry Christmas. It was an unusual one for us - but very merry :))))))