It's *gasp* a *gasp* dry *gasp* heat!

For all of you who are living in a new swamp or under a rock, some of us are frying. Literally!  Each day it is a new fun game to get the mail, that is in front of our house. Can you get to the mailbox, open it without loosing fingers, retrieve the mail, close it and get back inside before third degree blister burns begin to appear? A real fun game!

Do I sound melodramatic?

Well check this out:

Do you believe me now?

The poor ice cream truck just melted!  Apparently some lady somewhere -you like my sources?- has a thermometer that tests the temp of the sidewalk. It was 170* or more!

I know, I know, it's a dry heat.

It was still 99* the past couple of nights at 10:00pm -NINETY NINE folks at 10:00PM!!!  I let Panther out this morning at 1AM, and when she laid down outside, I told her to get her crazy butt back inside as it was still HOT outside! The sun had been down for over 5 hours!

Tomorrow's forecast?

This is the first time, since a long time, that starting on June 1st all the way to June 30th we had triple digit heat EVERY.SINGLE.DAY!  Our electrical bill was "slightly" higher than normal this month. It was higher than our average highest use month of August. YIKES!

Tomorrows' science project might be:

So, this is my excuse for not blogging much. While I have lots of pictures to share. Fun stories to tell. Birthday presents I need help finding. We are currently hiding. We are hiding from the sun. We are also praying for the monsoon rains to come, although we all fear that instead of the typical evening relief they bring, it will just add humidity. Oh can you imagine this crazy intense heat with the oppression of humidity?


But I will ask for your help. I have now less than 6 months to find our little man his birthday request.  He would like a dinosaur. Not a T-Rex (THANK GOODNESS!!) but a triceratops. And NOT a baby one. And NOT a pretend toy one. --uh...I'm kinda stuck. I'm also hoping that maybe a new kick ball will distract him, but if you could help me find a heat tolerant, fully grown triceratops, that would fantastic!

Now I'm off to drink a gallon of water.

Weekend whirl

Summer hit and our weekends seem to be just as busy as any other time!

SLOW DOWN PLEASE!

To kick off the celebratory weekend, our wedding anniversary was last Wednesday, 14 years!  Today is of course Father's day but it is also Eric's birthday! It is a blessing to have them both fall on the same day this year.

Typically for our anniversary, if Eric is home, we try and do a little something. More often than not, due to schedules, baby sitter needs and what not, it is kept super simple with a treat to a movie.  However, I have asked several times now, "Can we see other movies?"  This year it happen to be Superman that came out near our anniversary, other times it's been Spiderman. It has become a running joke, see a trailer for one of these types of movies, and we both look and say, "Oh our anniversary must be coming up."

While I don't mind these movies, they are not my first choice.  I've learned there are different comic companies and I will forever mix up which super heroes belong to which, much to the dismay of my dear husband.  So each year he is home, we head to the theater and see our choices, and I beg that we see different movies.

This doesn't work though. He might be a movie buff, comic book loving, action seeking kind of guy, be he is also hopelessly trying to be romantic and insists that since it's our anniversary we see the same movie. *sigh* Let's do a collective, "AWWWW".

Friday night and we did a family activity that involved no cape wearing super heroes.

 We headed to the minor league, Tucson Padre's baseball game.  Playing catch in our grassy spot.

 Cartwheels up and down the hill as we all payed close attention to the game.

 Watched the monsoon clouds roll in.  Official monsoon season began on Saturday with a lovely mid day shower. It was fantastic!

 As pleased as he could be, all big boy sitting watching the game. He cut his first tooth on Wednesday!

 Then today for Father's Day and his Birthday, we went to our Sunday afternoon bowling league and Eric had a much better time of it this week than last week! Once home, it was full on time to play dollhouse and princesses.  The kids LOVED it when his doll began "vomiting" over the balcony. He might get down and play the games, but he has to put a boy spin to them.

 A week ago Eric developed a black eye. He has no recollection to the cause of it, which means he either got knocked out, or his belief, the baby got him.  As you can see, Doodle does not sit still!

 Silly Daddy playing up the black eye.  When Doodle sees the little light signalling a picture, he gets this cheesy grin.  He learns quick! And he has older siblings teaching him too.

Happy Father's day and Happy Birthday from all of us. So happy to see you this year for all of our celebrations!

Weekend Review

 Sweetness had her dance recital. She is the third one from the left.  It was a cute dance called Tweedle Dee

This was from dress rehearsal.

 Despite the late hour, all smiles after the entire show!  Her teacher has been impressed in the way she has taken off in tap, having just started in January.  Eric was amazed and turned to me after her dance and said, "Wow! She hit every one!" Which means something in tap, but since I have never taken tap, I took his word for it.

 With so much playing, one gets wiped out and just lays down to nap!

We picked our first zucchini from our garden.

And tonight, we picked a couple of hills of blue and red potatoes!  YUM!!

Summer adventures

We love our little adventures. Here is one we took over Mother's day.

 Chiricahua National Monument. A really cool place. And it was cool the day we visited!

Alligator Juniper pine. The bark looks rough like an alligator's.

 Chief Cochise's head.  Do you see it?

Beautiful rock formations in every direction.

I didn't get any pictures of the Faraway Ranch, but it has an amazing history all of it's own!

Just for fun

 Celery. It went to seed and was very woody. So I chopped it up to put into soups later.

Speaking of soups....I got my "Mother's day gift".

 A Vitamix!  This -don't call it a blender, blender- has the motor power of a 1960s VW Beetle's engine.

 Right out of the box we made a couple of green smoothies. I think the kids liked them.

 And then we made humus. A big batch! It was quickly devoured!

The kids also enjoyed the orange sorbet and are eager to try ALL the recipes.  Thanks honey!  I see more soups, smoothies, dips and more yummies in our future!

 Carrot juice this morning. Not so loved. Sweetness enjoyed it. I thought it was okay, but we're going to need to tweak the recipe a bit. It is odd to drink carrots. The recipe is: water, carrots, a dash of lemon juice, ice.

Look who's sitting! Such a big boy! Last week he was a wobbly nearly independent sitter, over the weekend he became a confident independent sitter, with lots of encouragement from his own personal cheer squad!

 Now that he's mastered sitting for a few days, it seemed appropriate to introduce him to chores. For now, he'll be teamed up with a partner, but I'm sure he'll be on his own soon enough!

 First up, dishes!

 Both enjoyed!

Graduated!

 So excited as she headed to school.

 Parents, get your tissues ready.

 Back row on the right.

 Receiving her 'diploma'.

 YAY!

 The obligatory picture with mom.

 Her wonderful para.

She really loved her teacher this year.