Holiday Boutique

Not much to this story, I just like sharing pictures of my kids--especially when they're making goofy faces. We had a Holiday Boutique event at work tonight and my mom and Dave brought the kids up to the event. Mom brought my kids and Dave picked up Lacy and Matt for sleepovers, so they all hung out here, had dinner, smelled a bunch of candles at the candle booth, and then headed home.

Speaking of the candle lady, I chatted with her for quite awhile. She saw Ava's Mesa Academy sweatshirt and said she's an Academy mom too. Turns out she runs the candle fundraiser that the school holds every year, and last year it generated $5k for the school! Pretty awesome!

A new US citizen!

Our guest catcher/coach, Efe, has recently become a US citizen! His girlfriend posted this a few weeks ago, and I took a screenshot so I could remember to plan something next time he's here. He told us the story about this day, and it sounded pretty crazy. He's a CA resident, but spends much of his year in NY. He had to try to fly out in a blizzard, so it was quite the adventure to get there. He said the test was much easier than he expected. It makes me want to take a sample test and see how I'd do. I bet most Americans would have trouble with the test, sadly. Doesn't he look patriotic in his suit?

Last night was our first practice with Efe, but not being a normal fly night, not everyone was able to be there. We wanted to celebrate Efe's new found citizenship (he's from Turkey), we decided to deck out in our red, white and blue. We didn't let him in on the plan, and at first he just saw George and Jan in their flag shirts. He thought it was just something they were doing as a couple, but when I walked in, he knew something was up. We celebrate you, Efe!

We're looking forward to a great week of flying with this guy! I love catching with him more than anyone I've ever flown to. It's going to be a great week. Congrats Efe! Welcome to the US, officially.

Once a train kid, always a train kid

You all know that Tyler went through a serious train obsession from the ages of 2 until about 5. There were several years where there was always a train track set up in our house, when our weekends were spent at train parks, and when we were reading about, learning, about and drawing trains. One of the first times Tyler wrote his name, he put wheels on it like it was a train. You can go back through this blog and find countless posts about Tyler the Trainiac. If you got to the top left corner of this blog, you'll see a search bar. Search the word train and see how 

Check out the difference between Tyler at age 7 when we got this train and now. The kids definitely don't use our Polar Express train as often as they did in the first years we had it, but it has gotten used a few times this season. Doesn't he look thrilled that I'm taking his picture? 

An evening at Lost Dutchman

My aunt Karen spends many of her weekends camping in her little teardrop camper, and for the second Thanksgiving weekend in a row, we joined her at her campsite for a hike and a meal. This time, she was out at Lost Dutchman, which is a nice campground in the Superstition Mountains, and really close to our house. We headed out for our hike shortly after we arrived, and did part of the Siphon Draw trail. I've done this one before, as it's the first part of the trail to Flatiron, which I did a couple years ago with some friends. The portion of it we did was much easier, and I look forward to going out there again this winter. 

The scenery is so beautiful out here. The Superstitions are amazing--we really need to try to get out there more often. I need to get these kids to like hiking more! Tyler said he liked hiking with Karen's dog, Leia because she helped pull him up the trail. Sorry dude, not getting you a dog so you'll hike more. But, I'm sure Karen would let us join her any tie

You can't quite beat a bright blue Arizona sky, especially when it is up against these beautiful mountains. 

This is about as high as we went on this hike, so we stopped to take some pictures before heading back down the trail. 

I love the shadow of us in this one....

Karen has quite the fancy set up for her "glamping" trips. She has this cool tent that goes over the table, and she decks it out with fake flowers in a vase, a tablecloth, lamps, and even a chandelier (which is just for looks--it doesn't put out much light). She also has matching rugs and canopies to go with her red theme. It's pretty great! We also had a delicious meal cooked out of her little camper kitchen.

After dinner and sunset, we had some s'mores by the fire as we waited for the full moon to rise above the mountains. It was a great night! 

Cleaning day at the rig

I know this doesn't mean anything to any of you. More than likely, no one who reads this blog has ever stepped foot in the storage shed at George's. But, this was a surprisingly fun activity. George and Rod mentioned the other day that they wanted us to come early on Saturday so we could clean out and organize the shed. It hasn't been done in all the years that George has had the rig. I wish I would have thought to take a before picture, but you'll just have to take my word for it. It's so much more clean and organized now! We pulled everything out of there and swept everywhere, dusted off all the shelves, moved some stuff (holiday decorations, etc) to the other shed, put a bunch of stuff in drawers that were previously just randomly on shelves, put the extra rigging items up in the rafters that were lying on the ground----it's so nice! 

This one probably won't make it in to the blog book, but I thought I'd share anyway.

Baking with LaVa

I mentioned in a recent post that Lacy and Ava (aka LaVa) have recently been doing some baking when they get together on the weekends. Here's the last couple of things they made. I forget what creative name they used for this first one, but it was peppermint flavored candy glass. It was mostly a lot of standing there holding the thermometer waiting for the temperature to get high enough. 

This one was a creation of their own. They called it "Eagle Eyed Deviled Eggs." We all like deviled eggs, but we don't make them. We eat about a dozen and a half hard boiled eggs each week, but not deviled. Dave has an aunt (well, the wife of Claire's cousin) who is always in charge of bringing the deviled eggs to family parties, and since the kids don't know her very well, they refer to her as "the lady who always brings the eggs." The tricky thing is that she has an identical twin sister who is also at most of the parties, so the kids sort of tie them into the same person. Anyway, the first attempt at making deviled eggs went well. I think I'd recommend less mustard next time, but they all got eaten! I'm not sure anyone walked away with "eagle eyes" but at least they tasted good. What's next, girls??

TRAPEZ

I know it's spelled wrong, but it's the best I could do with what was available from the AZ MVD. I tried a few different combinations of words, TRAP3ZE (my second choice), TRAPEEZ (taken), FLYTRAPZ and ITRAPEZ (both of which could be read to say something entirely different!), various ways of using trapeze words like listo and hep (which no one would understand. In the end, I kept it simple. Here it is!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving started out with a relaxing morning, a little homework and the Macy's Thanksgiving parade in VR. Ava has a project due next week for her science class, where she had to do research and a presentation on Bill Gates. She is pretty good about getting her projects done early, even if it means working on it Thanksgiving morning while watching the parade. 

Speaking of the parade, this is a much more interactive, interesting, and modern way to watch the parade. Tyler saw that the parade was being broadcast in 360 degree virtual reality, so he pulled out his headset. It was really cool! If I didn't have to start getting my salad ready, I would have liked to watch more.

Thanksgiving is always held at Dave's uncle Marty and aunt Cheryl's house. Like all of the family parties, everyone contributes to the meal and it makes for a delicious dinner. Many things are the same from year to year, which makes for great traditions. The thing that seems to change every year, however, is how big all of these kids are getting! There are still a few little ones in the family though, and this year, the two youngest were there! Little Theresa is Mike and Bethany's daughter, and she is almost 2. She's a ham!

Hi Braden! 

Do brothers and sisters always act like this when they're supposed to take a nice picture together? I think so. 

Ok, that's better.....

Theresa sure liked playing with her big cousins. She thought they were pretty fun, and they enjoyed playing with her too. This is her "cheese" face right now. Pretty cute, right?!

Here's the newest family member. Kenny is the son of Claire's first cousin, Hal. He and his wife, Kristen, live in Dallas and brought their 5 month old baby, Knox to celebrate his first Thanksgiving his his Arizona family. He was a very happy baby, and he'd go to anyone who wanted him. 

These two are so great! I love seeing their friendship grow over the years. I hope they're always great friends. After all, cousins are your first (and hopefully lifetime) friends. We call Lacy our weekend daughter, and that's perfectly fine!

The Dairmans needed some updated family photos for Grandma Claire's wall. Here they are! What a good looking family.  

As always, Thanksgiving is a time to think about the many things we are grateful for. These two continue to bring our lives so much happiness, and I am proud of the awesome people they are growing in to. 

I'm grateful for this life we have together today and every day. Thanks to all of you who are part of our lives who help to raise and teach these kids, who share in our daily lives, and who help us be the people we are. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. Love from the Horihans!