A Brain Break or Road Trip?? Part 1

The fabulous the thing about "modified year round school" is that we get these little Brain Breaks every nine weeks. For our break this time we headed north to visit family and honor my dad on his retirement, it was a quick trip...2 days in the car, 2 days in Utah. Here are some things that we saw on the 13 hour drive....(it is hard to pass the time in the car)

A view of Lake Powell.

My favorite part of the trip. The Virgin River, with the red rock mountains in the background.

An indian hogan.

Sleeping children, somehow make the road trip even Nicer!

"Excuses are like feet...."

Okay, I orginally was going to give you a bunch of excuses of why I have fallen out of 'bloggy land.' From tissue paper state flag projects to an 11 page research paper, or farm town and face book; I decided after catching up on all of your blogs, and quoting Rex from Toy Story,

"I have guilt... " Excuses are like feet they all stink!!

I have missed my bloggy friends, believe it or not!

I have missed a friend who has lost 50 lbs,

another has lost a loved one,

another has written a book,

another started student teaching,

one is on vacation in Disney,

and another had a rock thrown through her master bed room window in the middle of the night!

I have missed Chanelle's Thrify Thursdays and my neices and nephews running a 5k for school.

I promise to not let time be to long before you hear from me soon. We are on fall break now, and I am off to paint base boards! (gotta love year round school)

HiP HiP HoORaY!!

Three cheers for C! She tried out for cheerleading again this year and made it!! It was so much less stressful this year! This year the coach posted the new team on a school cheer blog. I will never forget how sad I felt and how devasted it was orginally for her, as she searched on the list for her name and number. All the while, the coaches, and some of the girls who made the team were standing there giggling and gloating. C cried herself to sleep for 2 days. Then, three weeks later, we got the call from the principal that C's score card had been put in the reject pile, and they were adding her to the team! She makes such a good cheerleader. She is physically strong, and so energetic! Her first assembly is next week and the first football game is in 2 weeks. I guess, I will get out my megaphone again!

July....It came in warm and went out like an Infereno!!

YOU KNOW YOU LIVE SOME WHERE HOT, WHEN YOU CAN REALLY COOK AN EGG ON THE STREET!!!

I have been so busy this month, that I am doing a post in dedication to the fun times we had with family and friends in the month of July.

July started out with a camping trip to Overgard with Ty and CC, (my brother and sister-in-law) Mike Piazza and his son, my father and mother in law, and 7 dogs for the 4th of July!!!

Here is CC and I enjoying a relaxing moment by the fire!

The men caught crawdads and we boiled them and ate them. Here they are sucking the heads off!

Here is Mike fishing.

We took the kids into watch the 4th of July parade in Overgard.

The kids had a good time riding the quads.

JULY 9th - C's friend Ginny came for a visit from Arlington, Washington. We took her to the lake and she enjoyed a ride on the tube.

Ginny and C had a good time. They went to the Queen Creek Monsoon Madness Mud slides and came home covered in red mud! Needless to say, there underwear is no longer white:D They did pedi's, went to the movies, and had slushies!

July 16th- My brother Brent, his wife Jessica, and my neice Bailey came from Utah to visit us. I warned them of the heat, but they came and we had a fanastic time!

Here is Bailey and M wishing that they could fill the bikinis. But don't grow up too soon girls!

Day 1: I took them to Chandler Mall and the girls bought school clothes. Bailey and Maddie got matching shorts and t-shirts. After Jessica and Brent treated us to Chili's for lunch. For dinner that night, the kids stayed home and swam in the pool, and the adults wento out to all you can eat sushi. Mike and Brent tried chicken feet.

Day 2: We took them up to the lake and we tubed and played in the water. We had a good time. The lake was the perfect temperture and we enjoyed a relaxing day swimming and boating.

July 29th. THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT??? i guess if it is so hot outside, we might as well be inside learning!

My body parts are talking to me...

I got up to run this morning at 5:00 a.m. It was already in the 90's so I crawled back into bed. Now I am having runner's remorse!

If only it was this easy!

"Kiss my Grits"

C was invited to a really fun Murder Mystery party last weekend. She was assigned to be "Miss Jade" the hair tonic salesman. We decided to be a hair tonic salesman she needed to be "ALL ABOUT THE HAIR!" My neighbor Tiffani does hair and used to do hair for the Phoenix Sun dancers and cheerleaders so she came over and did C's hair. We decided to go with the "Beehive" hair do from the 60's. Remember Flo from Mel's Diner?Well, here is my C as "Miss Jade" or "Flo"

C won the prize for the best dressed and most enthusiastic, and guess what? she ended up being the murder! SO as Flo might say "Kiss my Grits!"

Our Heaven on Earth...

Our favorite little piece of heaven on Earth is Lake Powell. We decided to take a long week end for Father's Day and head to the lake; Mike could fish with the girls and I could study for my final and read a good book. Saturday, brought rain and wind, so we decided to take the girls up to see Rainbow Bridge, since they have never seen it. The lake was a little higher this year so we docked our boat, and hiked the 2/3 of the mile up to the bridge. C and M walked all the way to bridge. (Directly under the bridge is Indian land and the children were not allowed to stand under the bridge because the land is sacred to the Indians) However, they thought is was pretty cool! On the way back to Wah-Weap Marina, we docked at Dangling Rope, and bought ice cream for the girls....A family tradition carried on from Mike's family, although, Mike and I were looking forward to the traditional bomb pop! which they unfortunately no longer sale:(


Sunday:
Brought fishing and wind and some relaxing. M caught the first fish a small bass and then a blue gill. T caught a nice striper! I caught a nice nap!












after some fishing and Mike not catching anything... C decided to waterski
and the girls wanted to tube with their dad, and then we went exploring and looking for new canyons, another family favorite!














Monday:
We found a nice beach and the girls played in the sand, and I got stung by a scorpion. If you have not experienced this pain, I can tell you that a spinal tap for a C-Section hurt less! Here is a picture of us trying everything to help the pain stop. (We squished up an Excedrin tablet and rubbed it on the spot and I tried the urination thing that they do with sting ray bites, and let me tell you that worked!!! We finally ended our beach excurision and went to find a benadryl.


A trip to Lake Powell is not complete with out finding the perfect cliff to jump from. (Years ago, I witnessed my brother in laws and husband jump from pretty high cliffs) But.... I will not let the girls jump higher than a 2nd story house boat. In the one picture, you can see C doing a toe toucher while jumping off the cliff.