July +August 2017

February 1, 2019February 1, 2019Leave a comment

It wouldn’t be July if we didn’t do Coronado! Even when it’s just for a few days, it’s always good.

I absolutely love sitting on the beach and hearing someone shout your name! I love running into friends and having the down time to actually sit and talk.

Cousins being cute in matching jammies.

I love this picture. It’s still the lock screen on my phone. Just watching waves, enjoying a snack in peace and quiet.

Ok the seaweed was a little gross…but the people were cute!

The famous beach lobster boil. It’s still talked about in hushed, reverent tones.

We took a vote, s’mores are better on the beach

Coronado is always the last hurrah of summer. Then there’s the dreaded 10 days before school starts where everyone is bored, tired of swimming and there are no camps. It’s a rough time. But thankfully we get to celebrate the best fur buddy anyone has ever had! Happy 4th birthday Mac!

Ah the first day of school. So much fun, so many nerves! 2nd grade and PreK.

The total solar eclipse was on August 21st. It’s the first time in years that a total solar eclipse was visible in North America. I remember the last one – we went downtown to the science center and looked through all their glasses and instruments to see it. The kid’s school deemed it “unsafe” and vowed to keep everyone indoors for the entire event. I tried to get enough glasses for at least one class at a time to see it, but apparently that was unsafe too…so instead I got doughnuts, sprung the kids from class and we had our own viewing party with friends in the parking lot! It was amazing – totally worth potentially damaging our retinas forever.

It was also August in Phoenix. It was stupid hot, as you can tell by Auggie’s face.

June 2017

January 14, 2019January 14, 20191 Comment

This isn’t *quite* where I left off, but it’s close and there’s always a lot going on so here goes.

June 2017 was a typical for us – nutty. It’s always filled with camp, swim team, birthdays, our anniversary and prepping for vacation. It’s jam packed, flies by and is always a ton of (hot) fun.

This is pretty much where we were if we weren’t in someone else’s pool….Also, you’ve never seen anyone happier than PW when Sylvia the Swan finally flew away in a monsoon.

Case in point:

Also it was clearly the year of enormous floats.

This sweet little lady turned 8. EIGHT! This one really threw me for a loop. The slippery slope to 10. And then she’s driving. And off to college. I tell both of them at night, I squish their head and their feet so they stop growing so fast.

And in true Wand style, you get two parties; one on your actual birthday with family with a cake of your choice; this year she went for my triple yellow cake with homemade chocolate buttercream frosting. What it lacks in beauty, it makes up for in taste! (Also it was like 110 degrees and even in ac, butter melts so)….

…and one insane party with all your friends.

I don’t know why she’s mad, but those eyes kill me.

Someone else celebrated 35 years (😲)

And we had friends celebrate birthdays in June too – including Abby who turned 8 right after B. Her amazing mom channeled her love of Target into a theme. And Target happily hosted it!! It was so much fun.

There was a lot of camp too. I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous following these two in every day. Not pictured; the stupid amount of crap from the snack bar that they ate and I allowed because they must have burned off thousands of calories each day. Or because I’m lazy. Either way, they had a ball.

*Do you see Auggie’s little ankle bracelet? And all 24 of Baylor’s? This was the summer that B really got into making bracelets – like the kind you do with the #4 knot over and over. Needless to say, the nostalgia was awesome and we tied bracelets until our eyes crossed and fingers bled.

And for our annual trip to Montana, we decided that splitting up with me flying with the kids while Peter drove with Mac was really not all that much easier. It was expensive and took almost the same amount of time. So we decided to ALL drive to MT! I have to say, it actually went much better than anticipated. The kids were awesome and we made it in two days. No one puked, we didn’t kill each other or lose anything out of the back of the truck – overall, it was a success! The return trip however…well that’s a post for July.

There is also a 75 pound dog in this picture. He’s laying on the floor with about 2 feet total to his name. And he does it like the saint he is.

Aaaahh. The payoff of 18 hours and 1,100 miles of driving:

More Montana 2016

December 29, 2016December 29, 2016Leave a comment

The rest of the week was jam packed. Did I mention that the Dehaven’s came to visit? They always bring the fun. And Jeff shared his pictures too!

We rodeo’d in Livingston…

We creeked…

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Creek cooler

Which lead to a lot of this….

Do you see the fish right in front of Baylor?!

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And after taking a year off from our last Yellowstone Park visit, we again braved the winding roads with all 7 of us. This trip went far better and we even made it all the way to Old Faithful without murdering each other and only one person vomiting. Success!

Stephanie studying the warnings carefully…

The amazing Grand Prismatics

I’m so bummed – the colors of the pools are amazing – but it was barely 32 degrees and so the steam made it hard to see.

Old Faithful

A tourist died earlier this year jumping into one of these pools. It’s so hot, by the next morning, they could only find a few bones….

We also got to see the Beehive Geyser. It’s less predictable than Old Faithful, erupts for a shorter period of time but is as intense. Plus you can get a lot closer!

And the Old Faithful Lodge was fantastic. At 112 years old, it’s seen some amazing history. Also I’m sure it’s haunted.

And it wouldn’t be Montana without visiting the Long’s for some horseback riding lessons. The girl’s favorite, Duke, was donated to a school to be a therapy horse. They get reports once in awhile about how happy he is to be ridden every day! Thankfully the ladies were happy to give Heidi a try – and they now have a new favorite.

Auggie is still not sure he’s a fan

Auggie with the safety check

And we drove kids and a dog around in a gater. While taking selfies. This looks safe, right?

Yellowstone Adventures

July 25, 20141 Comment

Our Yellowstone adventure as a group of 7 looked more like the Griswalds headed to Wally World. We were packed into our rental SUV…but still, 7 people is a lot to squish into one vehicle. Not to mention Auggie was a particularly unhappy camper that day. We also imposed a “no electronics rule”. No iphone or ipad games. We were in nature, dammit. And everyone was going to look out the window and enjoy it by God.

We also had a loaned “Audio Tour through Yellowstone” CD. It. Was. Awesome. Mostly because for every feature that it described, it usually included a cautionary tale that was less cautionary for us and much more hilarious. It went something like:

And that brings me to the story of little Andy Shmandy from Portland Oregon and his dog Moosey. While visiting Noris Gysier, Moosey left the boardwalk and jumped into one of the boiling pools. Andy, defied those around that were trying to restrain him and jumped in after Moosey. He was able to climb out, but was severely burned over 90% of his body. While first responders were removing his clothing, his skin came off with it. He was transported to Salt Lake City where he later died. His last words were “that was pretty stupid, huh?”.

No really. I’m not making it up.

The stories were so gruesome, they were hilarious. We were sure to remind each other often about each victim often. Stay on the boardwalk kids! You don’t want to be the next Andy Shmandy!

Warning: picture overload ahead

I love that you immediately see elk when you drive into the park. They are really really close to the cars and you realize how big these guys are.

(Side note: run fast little elkies! Please don’t come home to my home in the stuffed form!)

First stop: Noris geysers. But first, a warning illustration. Who the hell draws these?

Everyone of these pools is hotter than the boiling point of water. But they don’t bubble because of the altitude. The color comes from a special form of bacteria that only survives in super hot water.It’s like the surface of the moon

We caught one of the geysers going off

The Griswalds Do Yellowstone!

Not the happiest camper….

But he does like a camera so that helps – take a look at his shoes. He loves them because they look just like “dada’s”, but he wears them between his second toes!

“Pose in front of the boiling hot water!!”

The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone is amazing. The only problem is that it never looks real in pictures. The dads win parent of the year award for carrying each girl UP the 200+ steps from the bottom of the canyon. Jeff still can’t feel his shoulder. Auggie fell asleep in the car so someone had to hang back and nap with him. I was happy to fill that position.

These two kill me.

Can you see the lip gloss on her eyes??

We did pretty well with the wildlife sightings. This guy was just off the road scratching his head on a tree. It was awesome.

We passed a horse drawn wagon. Some go out for tours, others for overnight camp outs and they are original to the park.

The wildfire devastation is still very visible. Some is very old – from the fires in the late 80’s. Some is more recent. I was really surprised to learn that they don’t thin the forest to prevent large fires. They found after the “Summer of Fire” that a lot of the pine cones will only open when introduced to the extreme heat of forest fires, thus self regenerating the forest.

Baylor and Morgan had the way back seat to themselves. They are fold down seats so they were a little isolated in the back. At one point they asked the moms for lip gloss. We made the mistake of not asking for it back. Eventually we looked back and realized they had “done” their hair and used some of the lip gloss as eye shadow. Then they passed out.

America the Beautiful

July 18, 2014July 17, 20141 Comment

All American 4th of July 2014

Small town parade….

Rodeo…where the only limit on the number of beers you can purchase is how many you can carry

I’ve got some work to do on high speed low light pictures….

Fireworks, pig roast, family and friends

‘Merica

(Did you notice Baylor’s missing tooth?! More on that later when I can stop crying…)

Loving Cousin Z time

There was much controversy brewing over the ring in my back pocket. Anywhere else? No one would notice. In MT? Everyone things I’ve taking up dipping…I assured everyone it was my lens cap, not a can of tobacco!

We did discover that Auggs is not a big fan of fireworks. But he was a trooper and agreed to watch them from inside so there’s hope he’ll be with Peter on the fire duty in the future!

Nailed It

July 7, 2014Leave a comment

On the second day of our Montana adventure, Peter took the kids to Baylor’s ridding lesson. When he asked me what I was going to do while they were gone was A. work and B. clean up/laundry/dishes.

So substituting “beach” for “mountains” this article nails it. Sigh. Oh well. At least it’s cool and the windows are open!

http://www.theonion.com/articles/mom-spends-beach-vacation-assuming-all-household-d,33431/

Big Sky July

July 3, 2014Leave a comment

In a moment of stressing about packing lists, I realized how far we’ve come and how much we’ve done in a short time to make a dream of ours come true.

Let me back up to last summer. After a long flight and drive to the ranch, Peter and were sitting in rocking chairs on the deck waiting for Auggie to doze off. It was after 10pm and the sun was almost down. It was cool and quiet and…perfect. We started seriously thinking about how we could make a transition that would allow us to spend more time in Montana. After a lot of conversations, we came up with a plan.

In just under a year, Peter has passed the Montana bar, been admitted and we have booked a rental house for all of July. We can both work from here and he’s working on a Montana client list – ensuring lots of summers in Big Sky country to come – and I’m sure a few “client meetings” during hunting season too…

The logistics of getting here were a little daunting. We settled on having Peter drive the 18ish hours with Mac and all our ~~crap~~ stuff while I flew with the kids. I’ll save you the details…but there was a barf bag involved in my part of the trip. But we made it all in one piece! The house we rented sight unseen has turned out to be great (with a few additional baby proofing measures post Auggie’s minor tumble down the stairs. Hearing Baylor scream “Auggie fell down the stairs!!” was as close as I’d like to come to knowing what a heart attack feels like).

We’re unpacked, settling in and awaiting the arrival of our friends/house guests! And this morning, we’re waking up to this:

Summer Time and the Living Should be Easy

June 4, 2014Leave a comment

When Baylor was a toddler, I dreaded trying to keep her entertained in the summer. There’s a limit to how much pool time a two year old will do. I got sick of sweating it out at the splash pad. The museams start to loose their appeal….and trying to get a bored toddler to nap? Did not happen.

As soon as she was old enough to go to day camp, I would sign her up immediately. Our days went from being filled with bordom to being jam packed and allowing just enough time for some mommy and me fun without putting either of us in the looney bin.

That is until this year. I jumped at the chance to sign her up for camp at the swim club. She was bumped into the older group because she can swim well (score one for weekly swim lessons – yes I am patting myself on the back) and she gets to play tennis, golf, basketball and anything else they can play on the grass. And she loves it – she comes home with rosy cheeks, tired eyes and a belly full of junk food. She is running with an older group and the kids are allowed to move between their activities without a lot of guidance – plus there is free time where they can do whatever they want from video games to swimming. She is in love with the independence!

The down side is that I’ve heard her say a dozen times “we have to leave now?! I just want to play with my new toys!”. And pick up time is smack in the middle of Auggie’s nap. Which means my mid morning is spent trying to push his nap time out which is amazingly fun.

That’s when I realized that somewhere in the last year or so, we’ve started to transition to the big kid “I don’t need constant entertainment” phase. And Auggie has never been in that phase which is leaving us a little over scheduled and for no reason. So we pulled the plug. I canceled the last two weeks of camp and instead, we’re going to spend it getting bored. We’re going to stay in our jammies until nap time. Hit the pool. Watch Frozen too many times. Make and eat popsicles. Play with birthday presents.

So here’s to easy living, catching our breath, getting bored and enjoying a relaxed summer.

I Love a Parade

July 11, 2013Leave a comment

PW does not, however, which is why he’s not in any of these pictures. He claims that he doesn’t enjoy it, but I think the fact that he has a heart attack every time Baylor runs into the street to get candy has something to do with it. Which is why he goes fishing when we go the Livingston Parade.

I, on the other hand, LOVE the parade. I love the rodeo queens. I love the Costco “float” where they throw out rolls of toilet paper. I love the totally random groups of people that roll down the street and call themselves a float. I love the man who drives his truck through with a sign saying that he’s been in the parade for the last 65 consecutive years. I love that you can sit on the sidewalk outside of a bar and legally drink. It’s all around good fun.

The Noni with Ms.B and me with Augg.

Ready to get started!

Love the rodeo queens. Actually, I think was a queen wannabe…

In my defense – it was empty and I didn’t know he was chewing on it…

Baylor, Zoe and Siena trolling for candy

The big man enjoying the wagon to himself

Wild Montana Skies

July 8, 2013Leave a comment

The summer vacations continue! We landed safely (and on time thankyouverymuch Allegiant)last night and as I loaded up the pictures today, I realized how bummed I am to be back in the desert. MT has a little piece of our hearts and it gets harder and harder to leave.

This marked Auggie’s first real trip and plane ride. It went….ok. Not amazing but not horrible either. There was a fair amount of crying before and after takeoff but I think the temperature was to blame. Temperature you ask? Yes, it was 117 degrees while walking across and standing in line on the tarmac and then at least 102 on the plane. Peter bought a little battery operated fan and I totally made fun of him…until we were sitting on the plane. Yes PW, you were right. The fan was a fantastic idea. Pun intended.

Someone did really like taking off.

Eventually we got to this. I got to eat my Mike and Ikes AND read my book. The return flight? Not picture worthy…

This girl? Is amazing.

The worst part about traveling to the ranch is that once you land after the 2 hour flight, you have a two hour drive. It’s rough when you’re an adult. It’s murder when you’re a baby and just. want. to. crawl. We finally pulled in and turned the banshees loose in the grass. After a little unpacking when the sun was finally setting around 11pm, we sat on the deck in rocking chairs. I was holding Auggie and my brain was buzzing. And much like a loud noise stops you in your tracks, the dead silence hit me like a train. I suddenly was able to take a breath and realize that we had made it. We were in one piece and not in too bad of shape. So there we sat, breathing in the cool air listening to the soft squeak of the rocking chairs and letting vacation begin.

The Goon Room

A little of everything and nothing, all in one blog

Tag: summer vacation