Auto-biopoems

Each of the girls wrote an auto-biopoem, and I thought I'd share them here. I know I still need to post pictures of my "garden" as well as pictures from our adventure last Saturday. I'll get to that, I promise!

Here they are:

S----

Silly, lovely, fabulous

Daughter of Gina and David

Loved going to the fair and being in the magic show

Has felt sad, mad, and happy

Afraid of spiders, snakes, and mandolins

Was in the top 3 scores of my reading test

Wants to see "Hamilton" and New York

Born in Tacoma, Washington, living in Arizona

E----

L----

Awesome, cool, totally tubular, redundant

Daughter of my parents, sister of my sisters

Loves musical theatre and joking on essays

Has felt cold, hot, and thirsty

Afraid of spiders, having my face crushed under a tire, and S----

Biggest accomplishment was memorizing all 46 Hamilton songs

Wants to try Baked Alaska and fresh coconut

Born in Olympia, Washington, lives in Arizona

E----

A----

Cool, fun, kind

Daughter of Gina and David, sister to L---- and S----

Loves her grandparents and loves to bake

Feels happy, sad, and loving

Fears the dark, robbers, and bad people with guns

Made oats great again and bought a fish (Lion) with her own money

Wants to see her aunt and cousins, get a cat or dog, and see her fish live a good, long life

Born in Washington, lives in Arizona

E----

Biopoem template

Family Field Trip: Catalina State Park

On Saturday our original plan had been to head up to Lost Dutchman State Park (near the Goldfield Ghost Town) for an astronomy talk from 7-9 PM. When David called the ranger station to verify the details, he was told they had to postpone it until the end of May. (Bummer!)

So I quickly got online to see what else might be going on that we could see and do.

Catalina State Park near Tucson had a concert scheduled for 6:00 PM with a local group called Mother Cody Band. Their style is a mix of rock, country, and blues. So we packed a picnic dinner and headed out the door at 3. We figured we'd have enough time to take a short hike (yes we had lots of water with us!) before the concert.

We chose a short .75 mile hike called "Romero Ruins". Rather than give you a diluted history of this thing, here's a great little article all about it.

Now to the part everyone really wants to see--the pictures!

This is a part of the Santa Catalina Mountains. It's a bit greener than
where we live, and there's more underbrush.

Aww...look at this little guy!
Isn't he the cutest fish hook barrel cactus EVER?!

He's actually not THAT little!

A bit of dead, dried cholla cactus

The only surviving building from the Romero ranch.

Can you see where they had their fireplace?

Here are the girls on top of the trash heap!

Mother Cody Band. They were pretty great!
They even played some songs that Lucy knew.

You just can't beat the sunsets here.

Next Saturday we're heading to Lost Dutchman State Park for a full moon hike! Can't wait!

Family Field Trip: Goldfield Ghost Town

Yesterday we headed out to Apache Junction, AZ--actually a little past there, to Goldfield and Lost Dutchman State Park. Goldfield is an old mining town turned tourist trap, and the Lost Dutchman was a nearby mine, but no one has ever found the exact location. The state park has lots of trails that we didn't hike because it was hotter than we are used to (91 degrees!), and we didn't want to die. (Literally.)

We took a picnic lunch, enjoyed Goldfield and saw the on-the-hour town shootout, which Lucy described as "Shakespeare in the Wild West". And she was spot-on too--all but one of the re-enactors who showed up got "shot", and by the end there were bodies everywhere, with one person left standing.

I'm not sure we'll go back to Goldfield specifically, but we have plans to return to Lost Dutchman State Park for a couple of nighttime activities later this month--an astronomy talk and a full moon hike.

Here are the pictures!

The girls thought this was quite entertaining.
Lucy said, "Well, that makes the 10 commandments
easier to understand!"

Doin' a little shootin'

Amy insisted on taking a picture of me in the
shooting gallery. Don't I look fierce with my
giant sun hat and the sunscreen sticking out of
my purse?

Superstition Mountains

View of Goldfield from the upstairs house of
ill-repute.

Saguaro

Cholla

And guess what we saw on our way home! This is the Gilbert temple--our temple. It's surrounded on three sides by fields, but also right on a busy street.

Coming up--pictures of my vegetable "garden".

Cacti

Right now is the time for cactus blooms. There are several in our neighborhood and around town that are showing their colors. The photos at the bottom I took at night because the blooms were fresh, and by the next day, they'd be wilted and spent. (This is the second set of blooms on that cactus.) Thankfully, the neighbors didn't come out and ask why we were standing in their yard in the dark.

Family Field Trip: Pinal County Fair

A couple of weeks ago, we decided to head out to the county fair. We planned to stay for the day, but ended up leaving after a couple of hours because the wind was kicking up so much dust. We did enjoy some pretty awesome potato chips, racing pigs, and Sadie as the juggler's assistant!

This was what it looked like.
We decided to head for home shortly after.

Sadie the Juggler! I took a video as well, but I'm having a hard
time uploading it to YouTube/the blog

Family Field Trip: Mesa Temple Easter Pageant

On Wednesday evening, we attended the Easter pageant at the Mesa Temple. We got there just after 5:30 and David met us there after work. The pageant didn't start until 8 pm, so we had time to eat dinner, walk around the grounds, and go through the Visitor's Center to see the Christus statue. The pageant was superb. They did a great job putting it all together. And it's a big thing! They have 9,500 chairs set up, as well as some space on the grass for blankets and lawn chairs.

On average, there are over 7,500 people who visit each night. The cast is made up of 475 people and this is the 90th year it's been performed! (click on easterpageant.org to learn more)

We had a great time and the temple grounds are always peaceful and beautiful to look at. And thanks to the fragrant trees, the smell was heavenly! (Pun intended.)

This section of petrified log was donated to the
temple grounds in 1976.

These trees and the citrus trees were the wonderful smell!
I believe this is a Texas Mountain Laurel.