Montezuma's revenge

So we had a 3 day weekend from school and I wanted something a little different to do that would get us out of the house, and be able to take Teddy with us (he dosen't like being left alone). I asked around and a good friend told me about Montezuma's Well. I looked into it and found out that there was also a castle right next to it (well a few miles down the road). So Saturday we packed a picnic lunch and loaded the dog in the car and set out for the great unknown. We got up to the castle and luck was shining down on us, because with my military ID card we were able to get in for free. Montezuma's castle is about 800 years old, and is the old cave dwellings. What is funny though is that it has nothing to do with Montezuma. The ruins were discovered about 125 years ago and were mistakenly identified as Aztec, so it was given this name. Well the Aztecs had nothing to do with it at all, yet the name stuck...probably to draw in visitors. Would would want to go and see the Sinagua Castle? Everyone has heard of Montezuma, little could tell you about the Sinagua. These cliff dwellings are simply amazing to see. Not only for the age of them, but for the life style that went along with them. They sit hundreds of feet off the ground, and up until the 1950's they let visitors climb old wooden ladders to take a peek inside of them. However they soon discovered that letting all those people up in there, that the dwellings were quickly falling apart and put a stop to the up close tours. Now you can just walk around and look. They also have a cut away modle built at the end of the walk way to see what it might have been like at that time. It was about a 2 and a half hour drive up to go and see them, and the day was just beautiful for it. After walking around the castle site for a bit we drove down the road to check out the well. This is a thousand year old water site that runs more then a million gallons of water by it a day, and no one has ever been able to figure out where the water souce is coming from. Scientist have been able to determin that it was formed by a collasped limestone cavern, and that the area has really high carbon concentraions making it great for plant life to grow. In fact this area is home to some plants and animals not seen anywhere else in the world. The Sinagua Indians took advantage of this water source and built amazing irrigation ditches from it out to their farm lands. There were all kinds of trails to take here and old stair cases leading to the well and irrigation ditches. Walking around the area I almost felt like I was back in Ohio walking around the Girl Scout camp that we would take the kids to. We waited to have our picnic here at the well, and I'm so glad that we did. We found this really wonderfull spot to lay our blanket out, surrounded by a bed of leaves everywhere we looked. After this trip, I'm looking forward to figuring out our next adventure spot to see!

A down scaled Halloween

Usually Halloween at the Sizemore house is a pretty big deal. We deck the house up with black lights and webbing. We have all kinds of decorations for inside and outside the house. I also do up a big "creepy" dinner before the kids head out. Well this year, all the Halloween stuff was up in Colorado, and all we had here was Scott's trick o' treating bag and a few chem lights. I also picked up a black table cloth with owl eyes on it for our picnic "kitchen" table. This year Scott wanted to be Superman for Halloween. For the first time in his entire life, I broke down and bought him a costume. I've always made them before, but this year it just seemed more practical to buy it. I have to say that as I stood in that check out line that I honestly felt like a bad mommy for doing that to him. Scott loved his outfit though and it worked out just fine, but he did look really strange with black hair! Before Halloween we went to the "fall fest" (because heaven forbid if they call it Halloween...you might offend one or two people, leaving the hundreds of us that love Halloween to suffer a name change...kind of like saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas, but that's a different topic). Anyways we went looking for something to fill the time, and that it did, and that was about it. The next day we did a pumpkin carve. I think that the reason we continue this tradition is so that the adults get to keep doing the fun kid stuff. Same with Easter Eggs. Anyways, for Halloween this year I kept our dinner kind of simple. We had Mummy Dogs (a favorite here) on a bed of mold, and monster mouths to go along with it. We went Trick o' Treating with some friends of ours here, Mike and Tammie and thier son Michael. It was really fun going around the neighborhood with them. Just let the boys run and have fun while we walked the streets!

The new Joe Cool

Scott took this picture of Teddy chilling out. Was too cute not to add a posting for it!!!