Category: Family Time

Botanical Gardens and Butterflies

On Friday we went to the Tucson Botanical Gardens to see the Butterfly Magic exhibit. We did this last year in December and loved it. This year I decided to organize a fieldtrip for one of our homeschool clubs. This way, we were able to get in at discount and see our friends.

When we walked in to the butterfly house, we were immediately aware of the tropical conditions. The cold camera lens fogged up for a while. A butterfly quickly decided to camp out on Paige’s head.

Daniel took most of the pictures of this exhibit.

Here we learned about a Citrus Swallowtail caterpillar. Its strategy for staying alive is to look like bird dung and when you touch it, it rears its head and shoots out reddish orange tentacles and an odor that will curl your hair (imagine an odor as you note the reddish orange “tentacles” on the head).

As we finished our visit, a butterfly finally landed on me. Yes, it’s on my rear end.

How silly.

Gingerbread 2010

We made graham cracker “gingerbread” houses with Grandma and Grandpa.

These colors are irresistible on Paige’s house. I like the decorative frosting curlicues, the tootsie roll mosaic on the front, and the flawless star she made from a gumdrop on her first try.

Daniel spent time on a wood pile, fence, sparkly snow, and a marshmallow snow house out back for a Boy Scout winter camp.

Timothy has very classic taste. It took a long time to place those sprinkles in a row on the roof. I love the  Lifesaver wreath.

Mark spent a very long time working on his house. He and Grandpa built a Ramada, a very tall “Dr. Seuss” Christmas tree, and scattered sprinkles… many sprinkles. I like the cereal windows and the “M” for Mark.

Our family is held together with royal icing traditions like this.

This one’s for the boys

We decided that Grandpa needed to see the Air and Space Museum where he could see hundreds of planes and drink up some history.

The boys spent most of their time with this big guy (Blackbird). Its allure was power, speed, spy capabilities, and history.

Richard asked for a picture alone with the plane to remember the special moment in his life. (Richard, are you reading this?)

I enjoyed the museum, not for the planes but for the walking history inside its hangers. There were veterans and historians everywhere just ready to tell you their stories. I loved the displays about individual pilots with their uniforms, photos, and mementos. As much as I enjoyed the day, I did not experience the museum on the same level as the boys. Oh, boys in paradise…

Here are a bunch of shots of kids. This picture above shows a real plane.

This was very educational… for me. I saw my boys like I have never seen them before.

When Mark gets angry he threatens that he will not come and visit me someday in his airplane.

Daniel helped with transportation.

And since most readers of this blog are girls, here’s one for you:

Tomorrow I’ll share our gingerbread house masterpieces.

Nutcracker 2010

This weekend we spent with the Sanchez grandparents. We had many adventures, but the main event was Paige’s Nutcracker performance on Saturday night. She danced as the Dewdrop Fairy in Waltz of the Flowers (above).

She danced in the Snowflake number.

She was also a Chinese dancer.

She was lovely and she was strong. I can’t believe the stamina she showed in the Waltz of the Flowers. I’m so glad she had this opportunity.

Challenges + Friends = Joy

Five and a half years ago we left central Texas. If I were to list the challenges we faced in Texas during our eight years living there, you would wonder why we loved it so much. If I were to list the people who touched our lives during this time you would see that challenges+ friends really did equal joy in our lives.

As we drove into Austin a week ago, Mark asked, “Dad, why did you ever have to get a new job and leave this place?” It took me years to get over leaving. I think that I have finally settled in my heart the decision to leave our friends and family there. We knew it was time to go but we didn’t want to leave Rob’s family and our friends and we’ll always think about them.

Here are a  few of the reasons we loved our time in Austin.

Melinda and Rob threw a very nice open house for us. The Mitchells were friends who taught our children in nursery, parked outside our house each morning for years at 6:00 a.m. during seminary, and served with me in the Relief Society. I was so glad to see Annie and Cody! They looked so good. Cody’s wife is expecting a baby in April.

My first Relief Society president in Austin was Mary. She became a good friend and sent Jed and Laura to seminary at our house. She carries several pictures of Jed’s baby Jillian in her wallet to show to everyone.

Dave and Susan took good care of us during the big moments and small, offering gifts to the kids along the way. We served in Primary for a while with Susan.

Pat and Carol were mentors and friends and the hub of the social circle we enjoyed so much. Melinda is doing her best to smile despite a BYU football loss just moments before this picture was taken.

We didn’t get pictures of everyone. It was a blessing to see my grown up seminary students again and hear about all the good things they are doing. Stephanie’s hug meant a lot to me, as did Aileen’s. And we’re always glad that Ricardo can be of computer service to Paul Parks 😉 I’m leaving a lot unsaid because Austin is a piece of my heart. I am just very grateful.

A Summary and a Question about Timing

I hope you had a nice weekend. We did many things, but I won’t bore you with every detail.

We had a nice Veteran’s Day. I invited a WWII veteran to speak to our homeschool group #2. Since all public buildings were closed, I rented a hall for the event. The kids decorated handkerchiefs with patriotic messages to send to soldiers and we also collected goods for 4 care packages to send to Afghanistan. The guest speaker served in the South Pacific and was very good at speaking to children. I felt really good about the event.

The 3 boys sang a trio in the adult session of Stake Conference on Saturday night and I played the violin. Richard sang with the choir. Mark bumped his head on the podium as he was climbing up to sing, but managed to sing through teary eyes and some pain. It was a good experience for the boys and they enjoyed some Lego rewards when it was all over.

I was reading about discipline in an education magazine that I receive from BYU. One article said that the greatest measure of how well you are doing as a parent is how your family treats one another. Do you think I can measure my success during a time when the kids are all watching a movie together or playing around in the mountains? The results would be so much better then.