A Cold Day at the Arboretum

Jeff's parents are here visiting and we're having so much fun exploring Arizona and doing lots of stuff where you walk and learn.  Yesterday Jeff and I joined them at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum.  It was super cold on the mountain that day.  (Like sleeting on our faces cold.)  That didn't stop us from taking a two hour tour with Clyde and some couple from Iowa.  I decided all my pictures looked best in black and white.

This is before it was sleeting and we were all cold.  Jeff and Pops were feeling pretty good about themselves.

Patti looking like a teenager.

Pops and I called dibs on the umbrellas.  No shame.

This is Jeff's "You can take a picture of me, but I'm not going to look happy" face.  Adorable.

This is his "Clyde just got super excited about a bird again" face.

There were some pretty spectacular views along the way.

I was so happy for Jeff to get to spend some one on one time with his parents.  Except I was there, too, so not exactly one on one.  Also, there are two of them, so . . . nevermind.

The arboretum was founded by Colonel William Boyce Thompson.  He built this house for his New York socialite wife, Gwendolyn.  She hated it and the desert.  The end.

I mean how cute are they?

Answer: so cute!

Maybe someday Jeff and I will be that cute.  #goals

Boney Bash 2015

A few days after Christmas, my sister, Allyn, and her family of nine drove all the way from Virginia to visit us.  They're so adventurous!

Our kids were so happy to have cousins to play with all the livelong day.

Denham totally knows his way around a kitchen.  Most impressive.

Adam got Settlers of Catan for Christmas, so the kids showed the Boneys how to play.  It looked painful.

We took them to the Superstition Mountain Museum for some historical funtimes.  Everyone spun a wheel to try and win a ride on this donkey.

Lilja was the big winner!

I think she's engaged to this old dude now.

They're going to live happily ever after.

This place had everything!

I spend most of my day alone, so being a part of this parade was a real treat.

Allyn and Aron are so game for anything.  It's truly inspiring.

Cutest crew on the mountain!

Lilja may hate me for this, but she obviously did this because she knew she was on camera so that's on her.

Harrison thought these two little boys were the coolest kids, ever.  

Just the girls!  (Because the boys ran ahead to try and win another burro ride.)

Aron and the girls.  Happy times at the ghost town.

Everyone was standing together so I asked if I could get a picture.  Then that old man got in the picture and it was perfect.  See that Elvis chapel in the background?  It's pretty creepy on the inside, but awfully adorable on the outside.

Later that afternoon we took everyone to Organ Stop Pizza.  Everyone seemed to enjoy it very much.  Here the organist is playing the song Harrison requested: The Indiana Jones Theme.  

After pizza we went to the Mesa Temple to see the Christmas lights.  We only got separated three times.

These boys.  Can't you just see the mischief in their eyes?  

This is one of my favorite pictures, ever.  Don't know why.  I just love it.

And this is my new favorite picture of Allyn.  She looks like a sparkling diamond.

After Christmas lights we headed to Bahama Bucks for some shaved ice.  Aron filled up a punch card in one visit.  Nice.

That night the kids warmed up in the hot tub and then dared each other to jump in the pool.  There was a lot of happy screaming involved.  

The next day, the Boneys headed to downtown Phoenix to find the fun.  (Spoiler alert: there isn't any.)  The house seemed deathly quiet and my kids were so bored.  We were so happy when they came back and we could have a fun house again.

Thank you so much for driving all the way here and for making our holidays merry and bright!  And thanks for going halfsies on that 40lb bag of oranges.

Reading and Eating

Yay!  We have the Internet again, so we're no longer living like savages!  Except that the big truck carrying all of our belongings is still in a warehouse in St. Louis, so that's lame.  Today I registered the kids for school and they were able to check some books out of the school library.  They have all been reading happily for hours.  Huzzah!  That reminded me that I had not yet blogged about our latest Mother and I Book Club picks.

In May I had Harrison read Holes by Louis Sachar and he had me read Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life by James Patterson.  It has been years since I've read Holes, so Harrison had to tell me the entire story again.  We both agreed that it was a great book and that it was perfect for his age.  Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life was kind of the worst.  The cover and illustrations made it look like it might be similar to the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, but it's so not.  It's super heavy and not at all fun to read.  I'm sure there are young kids out there who can relate to the main character's crappy life, but Harrison and I just thought it was a big downer.

Harrison and I decided to go to Fitz's one last time to talk about our books.  They brew their own sodas and just seeing this picture makes me thirsty.

I decided to go nuts and get the gooey butter cake and cream soda.  It was the best gooey butter cake I'd ever had.  Rats!  Now I'm hungry, too!

Since Harrison had recommended that book to me, I didn't want to hurt his feelings by telling him it sucked.  I asked him if he enjoyed the book and he said, "No way!  But that was the only book I could find that I had read and you hadn't."  One of the rules of our book club is that we have to read a book before we recommend it.  We decided we would spend the summer reading lots of middle grade books so that we can have plenty of recommendations for each other the rest of the year.  So . . . help!  What books have you and your 10-12 year old kids enjoyed?  I would love some suggestions!

Harrison and I have a little inside joke about Phyllis Diller (as one does), so we were pretty excited to see that she has her own star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame.

Off I go to judge another sock skating competition.

Cakeway to the West

A few months ago I sat down to make a bucket list of everything I wanted to do in St. Louis before we moved.  In addition to everything we hadn't done, yet, I wanted to be sure we also had a chance to visit some of the places we've been to a million times.  I wasn't sure how I was going to fit it all in.  Then something awesome happened.  The city of St. Louis is turning 250 this year, so to honor this milestone, 250 birthday cakes have been placed throughout the city.  Happy Birthday to me!

As I mentioned before, Harrison and I found many in Forest Park during our book club meeting.  It sparked something and we continued cake hunting every few days.  Sometimes cakes were just around the corner and sometimes we had to drive all the way to Illinois to find them.  (Like the cake at the World's Largest Catsup Bottle in Collinsville, IL.)

There's no cake in this picture.  I just wanted to be sure this picture made it into our blog book.

Today we found our last cake at Sweetology.  It was our 150th cake!  We stayed and decorated our own cupcakes as we talked about our thrilling cake hunting adventures.  It's been so fun to spend time together and to see different parts of this city.  We checked everything off of our bucket list and then some.  Harrison named us O.C.H.O.  (Obsessive Cake Hunting Organization.)  I'm glad we'll leave town knowing that we saw as much of St. Louis as we could.  

We've been here during a very magical time in our family's life.  A time when we have to spend every second together because no one is old enough to be left home alone.  A time when playing with lightsabers and dressing up like princesses is awesome.  A time when they jump up and down when Daddy comes home and McDonald's is the greatest place on earth.  I think our memories of St. Louis are going to be very rosy because we were here during this magical time.  

A magical time when there's nothing you would rather do than drive around town with your mom looking for fake cakes.

Six Flags--ALL DAY!

Six Flags has a reading program for the schools every year where if you read for six hours over the course of a month, you get a free ticket to Six Flags.  Harrison pretty much lives for this.  Spending the day at Six Flags with his dad is his favorite thing in the universe.  Chloe loves it, too, so they both earned their free tickets . . . which are good for the month after we move.  Lame.  But they couldn't miss out on the best day of the year, so we decided we would all go as a family.  Jeff would take the older kids on scary rides and I would hold The Bag while Miles went on little kid rides.  It worked out great.  (Except the part where they made me ride the scary Ferris Wheel.  Amusement parks are not my idea of fun.)  I told Miles that we were going to stay their ALL DAY.  It blew his mind.

Here's Harrison at the top of the Ferris Wheel acting like it's not scary at all.

Chloe was the best big sister, ever, and went on all the kiddie rides with Miles.

She was particularly embarrassed to be on the baby swings.  Especially after riding this:

We met up with Jeff and Harrison for some more challenging entertainment.

Jeff and Harrison's favorite thing to do is make funny faces for the roller coaster cameras.  My husband is Phil Dunphy.

This is Harrison trying desperately not to sit right next to Chloe.  This would be a good date ride.

Chloe gets it from him.

Apparently it's tradition for Jeff to buy them giant ice cream cones, which he finishes for them.  Everybody wins!

I love this picture.  Harrison thinks he's really driving that car and something is making Miles crack up.  Awesome.

After a lot of begging, the kids finally agreed to ride MY favorite ride at Six Flags.  It's a steam engine!  With real steam!  Shut up.  It's cool.

Then they made me ride this.  Harrison said we all had to do finger guns for the camera, but Chloe was the only one who pulled it off.

Chloe decided she wanted to ride Pandemonium.  (You know, because it has the word "panda" in it.)  She immediately regretted that decision.  And then didn't regret it at all.  It was literally a roller coaster ride of emotions.

Harrison and Jeff were too cool to ride the carousel, but not to cool to get teary when it played "Meet Me In St. Louis."