The Dog Days of Summer are Here

Yes, the dog days of summer are here. The skies are gray and threatening rain, but never deliver! It just keeps getting hotter and more humid (is humider a word?!) Here is a picture is a quail family that frequents our birdfeeding area. The poppa bird is on the table keeping watch over the momma and babies that are feeding on the ground. If any other bird comes and tries to join them, poppa quail scares them away! Behind them is the beginnings of our garden which the birds like to eat from too! So far we have bellpeppers, green beans, corn, squash and assorted melons starting to grow. A little cottontail bunny that likes our garden ate our 2 strawberries that were growing. Oh Well!

ELISE IS HOME! Yep, Elise came back to St. David after her 6 month stint in So. Ca. with G & G Jones! We REALLY appreciate grama and grampa for taking such good care of her and we know you must be missing her. We are glad to have her back and right at this moment, she is playing the piano and singing at the top of her lungs---oh how we missed that!!!! (Teddy isn't impressed with her modeling pose in this photo!)

Before Natalie went to Idyho to visit her 3 sisters that deserted Arizona, she had a mishap on our scooter! She went around a sandy corner too fast and BIFFED IT! Right in front of a group of people to make matters worse! She was fine, but they kept asking! Her hand and knees did get a bit scraped up and here is the proof!! Hopefully by now both hands and knees and dignity are well on the way to healing!

OUCHIE!

Dead Windmill

Our windmill died :-(
While Craig was in Idaho and Kelli & Weston were in Queen Creek and only Natalie was home (but not at home at the time it fell), our windmill head bit the dust--literally!! We did some research and discovered that it weighs about 1300 lbs and costs $ 6,300 to replace!! We are going to hammer the dents out of it and put it back up as purely decorative--not functional--especially since we now have solar panels to pump our well water!!




While visiting Idyho, 2 girls (ages 25 and 21) got ahold of their dad's camera and decided to take some "glamour shots"!!! I guess dad's camera is too much of a temptation for even 20 something year-olds!! (what's that in your nose, V?!!)

Craig with his 3 beautiful grandgirls; Sydney, Tenley and Mallory. Cute Smiles!

We found a momma coyote and her 3 babies out in our front yard and Natalie and Weston thought it would be fun to howl at the moon with them. . .

It's Springtime in Arizona!

Spring has sprung in St. David as you can tell from all the Mesquite trees behind the ballfield where Natalie is pitching during one of her softball games! Yep, it's hot and windy and dry and we may not last through another summer!!Speaking of Natalie and softball, she had Athletic Awards last night and got the award of Rookie of the Year for her pitching abilities as well as being able to be a versatile member of the team and play 2nd base and right field! Purty excitin'

Weston continues to grow up (not that this picture shows any maturity!) He is taller than any of the girls/women in the house now and if family tradition continues, he may grow as much as 4 inches this summer like his dad did between 7th and 8th grade!! He was comparing his school picture to Chad's senior picture and said "I'm looking more and more like Chad!" You can decide whether that is a complement to Chad or not!!

We got to spend some time up in Queen Creek with the only Arizona grandchild when Craig took pictures at Justin's sisters wedding. Kelli got to be the main babysitter and loved it! Bryn is becoming such a character with her own definite personality--it's fun to watch her grow up!

Here is Craig's MR2 which he has totally fixed up and is very proud to drive. The last thing to do is to get it painted and he is thinking about silver. What do you think? He loves to drive it to work and around St. David because it "goes fast!" Kelli thinks he should get a customized license plate that says "CMDCC" which stands for "Craig's mid-life crisis car." Craig doesn't think that is very funny!!!

At the last report, it was 102 in Phoenix and 99 in Tucson today! Anyone brave enough to come and visit us in AZ??!!

Happy Easter

Happy Easter!

The whole state of Arizona is in the middle of a high wind advisory with gusts up to 30 & 40 mph for our Easter weeknd! My windchimes are getting a really good workout!

Here's a couple more random pics to keep you up to date!

Below is Padre Stadium in San Diego taken from our hotel room on a night when there was a Baseball game there. If we'd have had our binoculars, we might have been able to watch the game from our room!

Here are our 2 crazy mutts; Teddy and Noelle doing what they are best at--eating and sleeping. I thought it would be in bad taste to put in a picture of their other best activity--pooping. You'll just have to use your imagination!!

Noelle likes to smoke cigars too!
Teddy is a snuggler and likes to cuddle up on soft rugs wherever he is!

Dad and Natalie looking at Elise's blog!!!

(just teasing Elise!)

either that or they want us to check their throats to see if they are red! Crazy peeps!

For Easter Weekend we are going to the Annual Higgy Reunion out at the farm on Saturday morning, if we don't get blown away first. I doubt there will be swimming in the irrigation ditch this year because it's just too cold for us Arizonites yet! There will be lots of eatin', boatin' and egg huntin'! Have a wonderful weekend too!

More pics from our Cruise Vacation

This is a pic of us in front of one of the museums at Balboa Park in San Diego. We spent one day there going through a few of the museums like old people do! We didn't even go to the zoo!

Here is Craig standing by his rebuilt Toyota MR2!! Noooooooooo, not really--it is a Lambourghini from the Automotive Museum---he wishes it was his!

Craig---doing what he does best on all of our vacations---flip through the channels on TV!! He had to constantly be reminded that he was on a cruise and could do LOTS of other things besides watch TV!

Kelli and her animal loving ways--made friends with a Mexican Tabby in Ensenada!

There are wild Bison in the interior of Catalina Island--they were taken there for a movie shoot, but as soon as they were unloaded from the boat, they all took off into the interior of the island and were never used in the movie! Here is Craig standing by one that decided to return to have it's picture taken with all the tourists.

Cruisin' on the Ocean

Here are a few pictures from Craig and Kelli's cruise to Catalina & EnsenadaOn Catalina Island with a view of the "Elation" behind us

(it's way bigger than it looks! It held 2,000 guests plus another 1,000 crew!)

Our stateroom was in the back of the boat on the floor right below all the restaurants! We had a great view out of our window.

Here is Craig eating Sushi on board the cruise ship. Food is available 24 hours a day and it's an all you can eat type thing! Craig is a sushi lover, Kelli is not, but Craig had Kelli get a plateful so HE could eat that too!

In Ensanada, we went horseback riding way out in the country with beautiful views of the bay and surrounding land. Here's Kelli on "Nobelito" who turned out to have a little bit of a temper and liked to nip the other horses behinds and kick them! Craig's horse was named "Dos Equiz" after the beer!

The movie "The Pirates of the Caribbean" and 2 sequels were filmed in Ensenada and The Black Pearl is permanently docked there. This is a picture of it out of our bus window--pretty awesome!

Back home to San Diego rounding Coronado Point where there was a beautiful sunset.

Some other cruise highlights were that neither one of us got seasick!! We bought a new bottle of motion sickness pills and didn't even have to open it! No chumming the ocean this time!

To Mexico for Spring Break!

See this ship at the top of this page?? Well, Craig and Kelli are going on a cruise to Catalina and Ensenada and are going to be on a ship just like that!!! (Well, hopefully a little bigger!) We will post some pictures when we come back from our relaxing adventure without any children! Before we go, we have to go to the store and get Craig some Dramamine cause when we were in Kauai on a small boat, Craig got seasick and hurled his lunch into a little white bucket that the "helpers on board" chummed into the ocean---gross!! We didn't see any sharks though, so they must not be too hot on human hurl!! It's the blood they crave, I guess. Maybe this time, if he's medicated, Craig won't be apt to get seasick and chum the ocean! . . .to be continued. . .