Heather the Pirate

Well, the adventure for this week was going on a trip that had a Tucson overnight. I try to get them when I can. Nothing beats sleeping in your own bed. It is also a great way to break up a three day trip into only seeming like two. Anyway, Heather brought the girls up to the hotel here in Tucson where they have a fun pool and hot tub. We all had a blast swimming and hanging out together. The next day when I was calling home, Gabrielle answered the phone all excited, saying that "...Mom has poked her eye out!!!" Well, it turned out that Heather had indeed poked her eye accidentally, but the blood and gore that Gabrielle insinuated never materialized. The girls each did what they could to take care of Mom. Gabrielle made her an ice pack by freezing water in a cup and adding some colored yarn and toilet paper to spice things up a bit. Madison broke out the sewing machine and went crazy. She took one of the eye masks (I got it at a hotel on a trip since the girls love to play with them) and sewed a gauze pad on the inside of it so Mom could wear it as an eye patch. I couldn't resist taking a picture.

Trees in background

Here's a shot of Gabs in front of two of our trees. It's hard to tell, but they are full of blossoms (along with having a little fruit still on them) that smell absolutely heavenly. The bees are doing their thing. Next years crop will be OUT OF CONTROL!!! I hope I can grow fruit trees in Vegas. Otherwise we just might have to take out home off the market.

Egg Break Contest

Gabrielle's class had a contest to see if you could put together an indistructable egg carrier. They were going to drop it off a tall building as their experiment. Well, we took an egg, wrapped it in toilet paper, then added some packing popcorn, pop wrap, and additional air bags used in shipping. Then we tied it all together and gave it a shot at trying to break the egg ourselves before letting her take it to school. I was literally throwing it against the house as hard as I could, but it still didn't break. Because of that, we started joking around and saying (all gangsta-like) "aint no way my egg gonna break, foo". Well, Madison ran inside to add her own personal touch. After she printed out her two signs we taped them to the egg packaging and that is what we took to school. Needless to say, her egg never broke...

Holy Grapefruit!!!

Here's a shot of Gabrielle with a bunch of grapefruit from our tree out back. They grow in clumps like that, but this one was really big. Two additional grapefruit were on this clump, but they broke off before we could take the picture. I have been chowing down on them for months now. Come on by. There are still a few left for you when you come if you hurry.

Altoid Commercial

I couldn't resist putting this video in the blog. Madison and Gabrielle were playing with her digital camera and just having fun. It takes videos as well as pictures, so she loves to take videos of herself. Well, this is her last spontaneous creation. She loves the chocolate covered Altoids. She had just started eating some while she was taking videos with her camera. The two got mixed, and this was the result...

Baby rattler

Well, I wish I had a picture of what happened last week. I was out back with Gabrielle so she could show me the "fairy utopia" she and Madison had built out of sand, rocks, branches, etc. I was amused at their creativity and was having fun looking at their creations. Well, I looked out of the corner of my eye just in time to see a baby rattlesnake almost within striking distance to Gabrielle from where we were standing. I told her to GET BACK and, bless her for listening, she did. When I told her about the snake and showed it to her, her eyes got as big as silver dollars. Well, we chopped off its head and buried it (I remembered from boy scouts that they can bite and inject venom with reflexes long after they are dead) and then we looked very closely at the body to see the rattle and what the skin looks like. One less rattlesnake to worry about. We have had some fun critters visit our home in Tucson. Gila monsters, tarantulas, scorpions, black widows, brown recluses, and now rattlesnakes. Tucson keeps you on your toes, that's for sure.