Birthdays

 Ok, let's kick it all the way back to David's birthday in June! 

I can't remember for the life of me what we did. Birthday for us are pretty low key anyways. Birthdays in the middle of a pandemic, not so exciting.  We did make him cake! And this was the only picture I took. I'm sure he got some presents and I made him lasagna.

His real present came a few weeks later when he got a brand new Honda Accord. It's a sweet ride and I'm so glad he got himself a car he enjoys. He did tons of research on it and was contacting dealerships all over Arizona. He finally found one in Phoenix and settled on a price. We were going to drive down there and get it, but it was the end of June and they wanted to close the deal, so they drove it up to us!  It was awesome. Talk about service.

Then, came Noah's birthday. We went to Chick-fil-A and brought it to the park. With everything being closed, we can't eat in, so we've done this a few times. It's actually really nice.

And he requested a pumpkin roll for his birthday cake. He got some gifts and had his best friend, Collin, over for a sleep over.

 

 Noah also wanted his room painted. It happened a few weeks after his birthday. But, it went from this awful green to gray. Why did I ever think this was a nice color for a nursery? It looks like the hulk threw up in there.

 Noah picked out the gray and really loves how it turned out. We've since gotten a few pics for the walls and it looks really great. He now sleeps in there. He used to sleep in the bunk beds in Ben's room. Ben's been wanting to kick him out for years. So, it finally all happened.

Emily's birthday was her sweet 16. Yep, sweet 16 and in quarantine. Kind of lame. But, she made the best of it with her best friends. Yes, there are normally 4 of them, but the other one is pretty much locked up during the pandemic since her Mom is high risk. So, she can't come out of the house.

They went to Olive Garden for lunch.

Emily got to drive them! We gave her David's old car, so since she had her permit, she drove them around.

They tie-dyed shirts and masks, because you know, we're in the middle of a pandemic.

They just hung out and had a sleep over. I wish it could've been more exciting, but it is what it is. I think it was still a good birthday.

She got some presents. It's always so easy to buy stuff for her. Most of it was stuff for her car, like a steering wheel cover and stuff. It's cute.

I made her a pumpkin roll also. It's the dessert everyone loves and requests.

Neither of them can keep their eyes open.

And a few days later, she got her driver's license!  Yea!

It's been so weird having her dive, but so nice as well. I think she's enjoying the little bit of freedom and independence. She's a good driver.

 

Ok, so that wraps up summer birthdays! I have one coming up in a few weeks and we are going to be in California. I just pray that nothing ruins this trip. We haven't had a real vacation in a year and it's desperately needed. We all need some Vitamin Sea!

A Visit From Longtime Friends

Ok, I'm going to attempt to catch up here as we are going on a real vacation for the first time in a year and I'm sick of being 3 months behind on my blog. So, prepare for several posts today! 

A little backstory here. Pam graduated NAU and started writing for the Red Rock News, a newspaper based in Sedona. She rented a guesthouse from Stephan. He cuts hair. Pam left Sedona and paper and moved back to Phoenix a few years later, but could never find a hair stylist that cut her hair as well as Stephan. So, when Pam and I were young and carefree in our 20's, we used to drive to Sedona every 6 weeks for a haircut. I know it seems crazy, but we made a fun day of it. We'd get bagels at Einsteins, shop at the Outlet mall, get our hair cut, eat lunch. Yes, a bit much to drive 3 hours round trip to get a hair cut, but we loved those getaway days. Plus, Stephan is the Michelangelo of  hair and worth the 90 minute drive. Plus, it's Sedona, any excuse to go there is a good excuse.

Did I justify that enough? 

Now, Stephan lives in Dallas with his partner Jonathon, who we adore as much as Stephan. John messaged Pam and I saying they were going to be in Sedona and wanted to met for lunch! YAS!!!  They also wanted to drive to Prescott to get a feel for the place, so we made a lunch date! 

I hadn't seen Pam in forever. All this Covid crap has put a damper on everything. It was so great to see her. We got there and it was raining and I didn't have an umbrella in my car and we literally ran into the restaurant after getting a flash flood notice on our phones. It was hysterical. Here's Pam using my sun screen to try to cover her hair.

We had a great visit and it was so nice to catch up. I love these guys.

 

 

Pam was going to stay the night if the weather was crazy, but it was fine, so she made the drive back home. It was a short but sweet visit.

Here's hoping it's not another 15 years until we see these guys again!

Cat Bite

I get home from work today and take one look at Noah's face and knew something was wrong. Apparently, he had just been bitten a bunch of times by our cat.  

Ben and Emily were in the rooms on Zoom calls for school. Noah does his school at the computer in the living room. He heard Prim screaming, literally screaming. He ran in the other room. We have a cat tree by the window and she got her foot stuck in the cord and was hanging upside down freaking out. Noah picked her up to and got her paw freed. In the meantime, she bit him numerous times. 

 The cat was screaming so loud that Ben and Emily thought it was just Noah being loud and annoying and neither of them even came out.  Ben couldn't believe that it was the cat screaming and not Noah.

This bite on his arm was by far the worst. The wound on top was deep and bleeding a lot. His finger was totally swollen. He's a little allergic to cats, so he was swelling up fast.

 

Poor guy had about 2 minutes to tell me what happened and he had to get on a video call for school. As soon as it was over, he took a shower and washed all his wounds. I got Neosporin on them and got them bandaged. Then, Dakri tells me that cat bites get infected easily, especially if they are deep like Noah's. Oh great. So, we did a teledoc conference call with some doctor from our insurance. It was so nice and easy. She said she doesn't think he needs stitches and prescribed him an antibiotic. The one deep wound could probably use a stitch, but we'll see how it does. 

 

As fate would have it, he already has a doctor's appointment scheduled on Wednesday for his 11 year old shots. It'll be good that they can check it out and make sure he's fine.  

 

Oh yeah, the cat's just fine.  

Sedona

One day in June, we took a trip to Sedona. Sedona is a place a lot of people have on their bucket list. Me, I've been there lots. Pam used to live there, so I would visit. Then, Pam and I would spend a girls day every 6 weeks driving up there, shopping, hiking, getting our hair cut. It was fun. Sedona is always beautiful, and we did something I've never done this time. So, I got a whole new perspective.

We did the Sedona airport loop trail.

First you hike up a big hill for a great view.

Doesn't this picture look like it could be from the 70's? I don't know if it's the lighting or the shorter shorts, but it so gives me a 70's vibe.

Then, the hike continues all the way around the airport. I had never even been to that area before and the view was amazing.

It was hot. Very hot. We had to stop several times to rest and hydrate.

Now, the thing to do is stay and watch the sunset. So, we had pizza in the parking lot and then watched the sunset.

It totally reminded us of when we saw the sunset at Haleakala in Maui.

Unfortunately, there weren't any clouds. Clouds make a sunset amazing. But, it was still pretty and a fun getaway for the day.

Bullpen

I somehow missed blogging about our entire summer. Maybe Covid just has me feeling blue since we missed our usual big trip to Idaho and Canada. Maybe I'm working 50-60 hours a week and up at 3AM most days. Maybe it's a bit of both. But, we actually did have a good summer. We tried to do fun little trips with the kids so that it wasn't a total boring summer.

We've heard of this place called Bullpen forever and have always wanted to go. It's not that far from here, maybe an hour drive, but it's down a crazy dirt road that we probably had no business taking a mini van. But, we did anyway, and we are darn glad we did. 

When you see a bunch of green trees in a valley, you know you've found lots of water. 

We had heard from friends to head the opposite direction of the main place and you'll find an area all to yourself. It was about a 20 minute hike. We found a great spot with a rope swing and nobody was there. It was lovely. The kids all practiced being tarzan.

We were advised to bring some inner tubes and it was so nice to float around.

I wish there was a place on this wall somewhere to jump off, but it wasn't deep enough.

Here's Noah and Clara swimming back from the little beachy area.

We hung out there for several hours and had lunch. But, we all decided we needed to see the main spot with the cliff that everyone jumps off. So, we hiked the mile back to the car and then another mile the opposite way to get to Bullpen.

And here it is... It was more crowded than this, but it wasn't awful.

Noah jumped off the little ledge. Since we aren't able to jump off the pier in Canada this year, this was the next best thing.

Emily jumped in.

Ben's turn.

But, of course, my kids wanted to go higher, so the jumped from almost the top. David didn't want them to do the top since someone had said it hurt their ear drums. So, here's Emily and Ben jumping.

Then, Noah had to do it. Emily was so sweet and helped him up there.

It took about 5 minutes of deep breaths and false starts, but he finally went for it.

I was so glad he did it. I know him and I know he would've regretted not doing it later. 

The kids jumped and played. I jumped too! 

It's so green and pretty here. You forget your in the middle of the desert.

It was such an awesome day with our friends. We loved it and can't wait to go back. 

First Day of School

Well, I went from Ben's graduation to the first day of school. I guess it was a boring summer. We did take some trips and I have to post them sometime.

As for now, here's the first day of school in 2020 during a pandemic.We are doing online school until October.I'd rather my kids be in school, and so would they.But, the school district made this choice, so it is what it is.

Emily seems to be having a blast. Way too much fun for the first day of school. It's very structured and they have to sign on at certain times and whatever. Emily has a really tough year with lots of honors classes, so I'm hoping she can get ahead with doing some schooling at home and not having to fit in time for color guard.  She got all set up in my bedroom, so she has lots of space.

Ben's first day of high school didn't go how I hoped it would. But, again, it is what it is. He'll do great though and adjust. He has to take PE, and basically, they'll have to turn the camera around and do the exercises. We'll see how that goes. Oh well, he's lucking out right now because it's 100 degrees out.

Noah has a similar schedule as the 2 high school kids. He has an awesome homeroom teacher and we did a drive thru meet and greet with masks on the other day. It was weird.

Overall, I know they'll make all this change work and do just fine. In the grand scheme of life, this is merely a blink of time. They are good kids. I'm happy with have lots of space and computers and they can all do their own thing. Oh, and very grateful for unlimited data!