Time warp

Things have been so crazy around here for the last month. Let me see if I can back track. Michaela flew out here at the begining of August to spend her break with us. By then Tim was winding down on his work, so was able to spend time here at home with her. I started the school year teaching 6th grade for a teacher that was out injured. A few weeks into that one of our other teachers left to head back East. The job was offered to me as long as I committed to the entire school year. Tim and I talked it over for a bit, and realized that it was probably the best way to go. Our house is still sitting here on this stale market, with no bites at all. And since I need to be working full time in order for Tim to be able to survive up there on his own, I am now teaching Kindergarten! A bit of a strech from the high schools I am trained to teach, but fun non the less.
The movers were here a few weeks ago and stripped down the house, leaving only a few things behind for Scott and I. Right after that Tim took off for Colorado with Michaela. He got up there Labor Day and has been house hunting since then. He thinks he found a nice one, just waiting on the bid process. Never in my life did I think I would own a home, let alone be in a spot where I had to have 2 of them! So Scott and I sit here waiting for the house to sell, but knowing that when it does we'll be moving into an apartment, or something of the sort.
It's been a week now since Tim left and things are setteling into a new rutine, but lonley and quiet with out him here.

From Bobcat to Wolf

Scott has been eagerly waiting for me to post his scouting information here. Right before we left for Ohio we went to his pack night where he walked away with so many different awards that he couldn't carry them all! He was awarded his Wolf Badge which means that soon he can start working towards his Bear. He also earned beltloops and pins in 6 different sports and acidemic areas. To earn a beltloop the Scout needs to compleate 3 activities that have to do with that topic. For example for his astronomy one he had to draw a picture of the solar system along with two others. To earn the pin Scouts need to compleate an additional 5-7 items in that section. So for the astronomy one he learned about some different constilations, astronauts, and we even watched a show on the Challanger disaster. Scott earned beltloops and pins in: astronomy, baseball, swimming, collecting, soccer, and biking. He also earned this night his gold arrow award (for doing 10 extra activities in the book) and 3 silver arrows (one for every 10 after that gold). He has still been doing meetings, but at home we have taken a small break, but will pick back up with it soon.
Scott also reciently compeated in the Pine Wood Derby with Scouting. This is where the boys are given a block of wood, a few nails and 4 wheels and then told to have fun with it. The idea is to be creative and come up with the fastest car possiable. This years creation soon became lovingly known as the Cheese Mobile. Scott did up a yellow block of wood that him and Tim drilled holes into. Then when all was done we used some wall mount clay and fixed 2 Lego men into it, and had a small little mouse sticking his nose out of one of the holes. While his wasn't the fastest one there...it did make it through several races before being eliminated. Later he won for most original.

Last day....Chicken Run

Our last night in Ohio we always go to our favorite bar and have family and friends come up to meet us there. The have some of the best chicken wing and frys you could imagine! We usually draw a good sized crowd of love there. Pool is played, we get our fill of wings and drink too much beer (is that possiable?) As fun as this night always is...it is also bitter sweet because I know that when my friends have to say good night, that I wouldn't get to see them again for awhile. Maybe it would be different if we had a set travel time there, but we just never know when the next time will be.
One of the best thing that happened this night by far though was that 2 of my best friends were able to patch over a long standing gap that had been between them. Girls you don't know how happy I was to see you two talking to each other! It has made it so difficult to plan things in Ohio. I can't wait till the next time I head out that way and all the things we can do now!!!! Thank you....it was the best gift I could have ever gotten!

Day 5...Time with friends

After a few days of go, go, go I was looking forward to a small amount of relaxing. So I got up early that morning, got Scott ready for his big day with grandpa, and went out to visit my grandma. My grandma is the best grandma in the entire world. I remember when I was little being at her house every weekend doing things. In fact that is where I would watch all my "cool" shows. The Hulk, Wonder Woman, League of Justice...those types. I used to always joke with her when she told me that she was old and say "grandma...until your 100 your not old". Of course in the same breath I would ask her what it was like riding dinosaurs to school and if she lived next door to Jesus. Well many years have gone by since I asked her those questions, and now she is getting close to 100, so I guess you could say she is "almost" old! I look forward to the day that I can have her face posted with Willard Scott on the Smuckers birthdays!. Anyway I spent a little time visiting her and my uncle who lives with her to help take care of grandma. Was funny to see Scott next to him. I remember having to stand on a chair for many years to give him a hug (he is about my height), and there Scott stood giving him a good run for his money. I just have to face it...unless something drastic happens, Scott is going to tower over us all.
After spending time at grandma's house I dropped Scott off with his grandpa (my dad) and headed back for home. There we made plans to meet up with my dad at the Captians game (a minor league team to the Cleveland Indians that were established after we left Ohio). The older kids didn't really want to go to the game with us, so we dropped them off at the movie theater and Tim, Michaela, and I all went to the game. I love going to the minor league games. The are so much more interactive and so much less expensive. In fact while we were there we won free ice cream, Arby's fries, and White Castle burgers. (Mom...I'll have to mail you the rest of our coupons...as we can't use them here). Anyways our team won like 6-1 or something like that. I do remember that 3 home runs were hit, which always make for a fun game. After the game was over we said our good-byes to Scott again and headed over to Jerry and Celeste's house. I really enjoy going to their place. They have 3 boys and are such "normal" people. Celeste is also a great host. She put together a great dinner for us in such short time (she had just gotten back from camping a few hours before we showed up). We sat around with them and Leeann out on the porch just enjoying time...and being creeped out by the half naked neighbor that kept walking around his yard. See in Ohio you don't have 8 foot privacy fences in any yards,there might be a chain link one for pets, but that's usually it. Before dinner Jerry took a few moments to show off some of the armor that he has created. They are big into the mid-evil time period and do a big re-enactment every year. So he showed some of his stuff off to the kids (including Tim). They even dressed Eryk (Leighanna's boyfriend) up in a "Knight and Shinning Armor" outfit to pose for some pics. After dinner we were finally able to hurd the kids (Scott had rejoined us by that time) all down to the basement to watch a movie so that we could sit out back and just talk the night away. Leeann's hubby Tom showed up around 10:30 from work, and the gang was complete! Before I knew it, it was almost midnight. I knew that some of the group had to get up for work in the morning, and that some had to deal with kids, so we sadly said our good nights, and good byes. Celeste, thank you so much for a wonderfull night. I wish we could have more of them like we used to always do! Maybe one night we will be able to have our Italian Gangster dinner party again! By the way this photo in the upper left is for you (I'll never forget that moment!!!)!!!!

Flash Back to day 1

In my sleep induced delirum I forgot about one of the most important things to happen to me on the first day in Ohio. My little sister stopped by the house for me to see my new neices, Erica and Abby. They are identical twin girls that are about 6 months old now. They are SO CUTE!! I also had a chance to see my other neice Leah who is almost 5 and getting ready to start kindergarten this year, and my nephew Cory who will be 8 next month and going into 3rd grade. It was so nice of her to drive out of her way to get out to Madison to see me with all the kids! So Sara...Thank you sooooo much for that!

Day 4...The Big Bamboosal!

So the day had finally arrived. The day of the "Surprise" picnic for the In-Laws. Tension was running high with so much stuff to do before our deadline of 1330 hours. I had a cake to finish, and still needed to get to the store. When packing for the trip, the only thing that I couldn't find were my cake pillars. No big deal right? WalMart has a craft center with a wedding section to it, and a cake section to it...it would have to be in there right? WRONG! They don't carry them. I even went over to the bakery department to see if I could buy a set from them. Sure...if I was willing to buy the entire kit, that included the bases for 3 cakes, funny tier things, and 2 sets of pillars. Insert loud groan here. So now not only am I stressing that I'm not going to have enough time to finish the cake, but now I have no way to hold it up! After taking a deep breath and looking around I settled on 4 glass pilliar like containers and filled them with clear and blue glass beads. I had no idea if this would work or not, but I had to come up with something...I was desparate at this point.
Tim then went ahead and dropped me off at the American Legion where we were having the party. These guys there were just the greatest! They let me into their kitchen to work, no questions asked, and then kept checking on my progress every so often. I think they thought I was just going to be doing a basic cake, but as it kept progressing they got more and more interested. I probably spent the next 2 or 3 hours in there getting this all put together. By the time that I was done, Tim had led the kids in re-decorating the picnic area out back. They did a great job putting little touches to the area to make it special. People were already starting to mill around, including my In-Laws. When I talked to Tim's sister Sherry, she said that it was pulled off great! Bill and Dot had NO IDEA at all what we were up to! I went and said hello to people and ran home to change, as I was covered in frosting.
The day was even more perfect then the day before! We had done up these little hand held battery powered fans with the thought that it's Ohio in June which means warm and slightly humid. Not on this day though. The sky was a perfect blue with little white puffy clouds hanging around. A slight breeze to make the weather just perfect. We couldn't have planned it any better (unlike the Wally World trip)! Lots of family was there from all around the state. Tim and I had came in from AZ with all the kids just for this, Tim's sister and her family had come in from GA, so really we had come from all over to be there. Kids were all around playing with their cousins that they hadn't seen in many years.
Finally it was time for the cake. I was pretty nervous that my idea wasn't going to work, so we set it up on site instead of in the kitchen for a grand entrance. I put it all together, and not to my surprise it barley held! I was a nervous wreck as little kids kept trying to climb on the picnic table that it was sitting on. We had Bill and Dot come over qickly to see it and then dismantled it to avoid any possiable disasters! I was suprised because before I knew it the entire thing was gone! Not long after presents were opened. They really got alot of neat things from people.
It was so nice just sitting around with all the family from both sides enjoying the day. A little later in the evening some of our friends dropped by to say hello also.

As things were winding down we made plans to go bowling with Tim's friend Steve and his girlfriend Sam. We left Scott and Michaela at the house as we knew that they would soon be asleep from all the activity of the day. Then Leighanna and Eryk stayed at Steves house to watch a few kids there. Once there we met up with my youngest sister Emily, and her best friend Lindsay. I love hanging out with those two, as they are as crazy as I am...if not more so. Emily and I were joking around about my Bachlorettes party that we did at the bowling alley and how we discovered that a highlighter glows under black light. That night they had me covered in all kinds of designs. As we talked about this, Lindsay digs in her purse and out she pulls a highlighter. Now I don't know how or why we had one before I got married, but I now have to wonder...who carries a highlighter around with them? Before the first game was over we were covered in different markings all that glew an eerie yellow under the light. We were having fun bowling during a "Cosmic" bowl. We had just started our 3rd game when all of a sudden the power was killed to our lane. When we asked about it they said that you get to bowl as many games as you can in 2 hours. Heck if we had known that when we got there we wouldn't have had 5 people to each lane! We would have spread out and taken up half the alley!

Day 3...Friday night BBQ

So to keep my In-Laws off the scent of the party we were planning (see day 4 when posted), we had a cook out for them on Friday night. But before I get ahead of myself let me back track to that morning. As my gift to the best in-laws a gal could ask for I volenteered to make their cake. So the big problem was where to make it. While hanging out at Wally World (Geauga Lake...think to the very first Vacation movie) I asked my sister Sara if I could use her kitchen while she was at work. Details were worked out for a key exchange and everything was set. Well I got to her house with Scott early in the morning and started to set everything out, while I waited for the oven to pre-heat. Scott jumped into the shower (since there were 12 people staying w/mom and dad w/their 1 bathroom house I figured I'd take a bit of the strain off the shower and use Sara's). All of a sudden I started to notice this fowl chemical smell. I opened the oven thinking that there might be pans or something left in there, but nothing. I ended up having to open the windows and re-adjust the fan to get the smell out of the house. Thank goodness my mom lives right next door, so moved all my supplies over to her place to do the baking. This ended up being a few hour project as I only had one of each of the pan sizes I needed and had to do up 2 of each of them. When I talked to Sara later about why I didn't use her place she infomed me that she had never turned the oven on before in the time that they had lived there! My dad was home that morning, so he kidnapped Scott and they went on a search for Wacky Package cards. After all the cakes were cooled and frosting made, I wrapped them all up and headed back to the in-laws house to hide them in the garage fridge.
Tim then took the kids down to "Our Lake" to play for a bit while I just vegged w/Sherry's husband William, watching the 100 best toys ever on VH1. The hula hoop took the number slot in case your wondering. Not long after Tim got back with the kids people started showing up for the BBQ. Tim had made up shirts for his parents in the Disney font saying Sizemore's est 1956. The weather really was perfect for this evening. Sunny, breeze and warm, but not hot. You know those perfect days to just sit around with family or friends and do a lot of nothing! We (as in Tim and I) also had to get a DQ cake to seal the deal. For those that don't know, we don't have a DQ near us, and none of the ones around here sell the cakes, so now everytime we head back home that is one of the first things on our list to do. Get DQ icecream and order a cake for any reason that we can. This just so happened to be a perfect reason to! The kids seemed to have a great time playing as well. It was funny to watch them grab all the toddlers toys and just go to town with them! Funny because a lot of them had been theirs at that age, but hardly got used...now that they are too big for them, they had a blast using them! The only think that would have make this BBQ any better would have been a camp fire to sit around, and maybe a bug zapper!
Stayed tuned for our Suprise party, time with friends, and our Chicken Run!

Day 2....Wally World and Noah's Arc

So after much rest (or at least as much as you can get when sleeping on an air mattress in a tent in a garage.) We were off early in the morning to go to Geauga Lake. For my non-Ohio friends this is one of the oldest amusement parks in the country. A few years ago 6 Flags bought them out and added a bunch of neat coasters to it, and then changed their minds about being there. Now it is owned by Cedar Point, which is big on having the biggest, longest, fastest, tallest....whatever "est" in the world. This was to be an exciting day today as we were getting together with a lot of family for the day. Also this was to be Scott and Michaela's first roller coaster rides! We had a group of 17 joining in on the fun, so we made t-shirts for everyone with all our names across the back of them. We arrived at the park not long after the gates open. The weather as I stated in the last entry had been stormy the day before, so a lot of people stayed away from the park, and we had front row parking. It was almost as if we had rented the place out for the day as there was but a few hand fulls of people walking around. The vote was cast, and our first ride was the to be what was once known as "The Batman". Scott was excited and pulled us up to the front row (no wait for it either). Michaela was getting ready to change her mind and was protesting the idea of being on the ride. Scott and I strapped in the seat couldn't see anything behind us and just enjoyed the ride....as we hit the first hill I could hear a female screaming, and could only assume that it was Michaela. After the ride was over I saw that I had been right. Asking what she thought of it I was told..."OH MY GOD THAT WAS AWESOME!!!!" After the ride we went and bought the kids their pict

ure from the stand. Then we ventured off for our next roller coaster. After a few more rides it was about lunch time, so plans were made for the get together and off we went. It was a pretty humid day so everyone changed and headed to the water park. Wouldn't you know it though, before we could get on even one water ride it started to rain and they closed them all down. We found an overhang to sit under and wait it out. After about 30 minutes or so the sky cleared all up and rides opened again. We were able to get in 1 and a half more before it started raining again, and rides closed down. I say a half of a ride because about 3 people got onto the second one, the rest of us had to take the stairs back down. We headed back to the over hang to wait it out again, as it was just one little black cloud in the sky. After about an hour and a half we realized that it wasn't going to "just pass us by" and we were going to have to make a dash for the front of the park. Now mind you we are way in the far back of the park, it is raining bucket of water, lightening is going off all around us, and we need to cross a lake to get to the other side of the park, and then still have to get to the entry/exit area. It was raining so much that I swear I saw Noah on the lake just waiting for the moment to be right to set afloat.
The decision was made to leave the park to get some dinner in the hopes that the rain would stop and we would be able to ride a few more rides. We left and luckily a WalMart has open across the street from the park, so we stopped their first for some dry clothes. Then had dinner at Ruby Tuesdays. Well this took us about 2 hours to accomplish, and it was still raining cats and dogs, so with heavy hearts we headed out of there for home, only to find that many of the ways we could use to get out of the area were flooded out! After a few detours and some back country roads we made our way to Mentor for some custard style ice cream and then back home, with a car full of tired kids and parents. If you would like to see more of our pictures from Geauga Lake, go to:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/annsmore/album?.dir=/

100bre2&.src=ph&.tok=ph77uGFBK.VsmVLy

Then just click on the folder titled "Geauga Lake". If you run into trouble viewing them, just email me and I'll send you the invite by email. The ones that were take in the car were us, after running through the downpour.

DING! You are now welcome to climb aboard.

So this summer we were off to the mother land of Ohio. After much searching for tickets we could afford for a group of 7 we had to settle for a less then perfect travel itinerary. We left AZ around 7:30 at night to fly into Chicago landing there at 1am their time. We had a rental van there, however the company closed at 1am. So Tim grabbed a spot near the front of the plan and pushed his way to the front of the line when we landed. The rest of us headed for baggage claim to grab our mountain of luggage, and met Tim out front. Needless to say with 7 people and luggage for all we were a bit tight in there! We drove a bit then stopped to arrange things more comfy, and get a bite to eat. And then I started driving. As I neared the Ohio boarder there was a beautiful light show going on all around me. The sky was full of lightning, and the sun was rising. The two combined made for a fascinating drive. However with lightening usually comes rain (at least out East), and as I neared Toledo it started to POUR! I don't mean a light sprinkle...This was the kind of rain that made your ears ring it was so loud...wipers on high didn't stand a chance of clearing it off. I couldn't believe the the kids were able to sleep through it. The rain lasted probably for the next 100 or so miles before it finally started to clear up a bit.
We were supposed to have breakfast with Tim's parents and mine out in Madison. We called as we hit the East side of Cleveland only to be told that Dot had already started cooking breakfast at home. So with a quick change of plans we went ahead and met up with my parents at Eat n' Park. For those that don't know, this is the best resteraunt around...well at least as far as dinner styles go. It's kind of like a Denny's, but better, and they have the neatest smile face cookies. After breakfast there, we headed out to Madison. When we got to the house we walked in to surprise Tim's parents. Dot, you have no idea how hard it was to keep this secret! Sleeping arrangements were made and while a few took a nap, Tim worked on starting up his old 3 wheeler. Eventually I took a short nap also (seeing that I had been up since the day before). Tim tells me that he did get it to run for a bit and drove it down the street and back, but since I was napping I can neither confirm or deny this.

Stay tuned for more updates on our trip. Read about Scott and Michaela's first roller coaster rides. How we actually saw Noah and his Arc. Our BBQ's for Bill and Dot's 50th wedding anniversary, and get togethers with friends!

Updates coming soon!

I know that it has been a bit for an update here, but I wanted to add a quick post to let you know that I haven't forgotten about this site. In fact I'm here most days seeing if anyone has been by to say hello! We are getting ready to head out of here tomorrow for a vacation with the kids. They are all really excited about this! I also have lots to tell about Scott and school and BoyScouts. Don't forget pictures!!! I hope that all is well with everyone and look forward to hearing from you.

Bobcats and soccer...also a little bragging!

I know that it has been awhile since I last updated this, but life gets crazy. I have been filling in full time for a fifth grade class while there teacher is out on maternity leave. It took a few days to get into the swing of things agian ...but once I got going it all came back to me. Now my time in there is over next week. I keep trying to convince her that with only 7 days of school left after she comes back that I don't really mind sticking around the extra few days...she isn't falling for it. Oh well, I guess that will give me time to get things back in order here. The house has stayed fairly clean as EVERY weekend we have been doing open house's in hopes of getting a nibble. That and the thought that someone MIGHT do a viewing when were not around has kept us pretty good about keeping things tidy. The house has been listed now for about a month and we have had a few lookers, but our market is really almost non existant out here right now. The other day I did a count and there were 12 houses for sale just on our 3/4 mile street. In our develpement there are over 300 to pick from...not including all the new ones the builders are still popping out like crazy. The weather here has kicked up to our standard AZ temps. That is we have been in the 100's for the last few days and wouldn't see the end of them until we leave here.
Scott is coming to the end of the school year and has just amazed me every step of the way. Last week he finished up a week of testing to see if he would qualify for the gifted program (my moment of bragging!!!) Things are almost all back to normal here in the Sizemore house. We went to play in a softball game last weekend for the school and it reminded me all about how we used to play at Huachuca. We made up our mind that after our move we'll look into a team to play on. Scott has been doing soccer this time around and Saturday was his last day. We'll be taking the summer off because of the crazy scheadule that were going to be having. With having the house for sale...a trip to Ohio at the end of June...the girls coming up (or is it down?) for summer. On top of all that I need to get us up into place in Colorado by the 1st of July so that we can be there by the time that Scott starts school on the 5th! I know, it just gets crazier and crazier for school scheadules, but this one is actually a standard year round school so there will be lots of time off, as he will be going for about 2 months and vacation for 1. I'm kind of looking forward to it, as it could mean more vacations for us.
One other big thing that has gone on here is that last month Scott was awarded his Bobcat. For those that don't know that is a level in BoyScouts you get as you progress along in their program. He earned his Tiger last year, and now this one...were hoping that within the next few weeks he will have earned his Wolf. The markings on his face are part of the cerimony where he is given his award. Each symbol and color all have a special meaning to it. Also the parent is the one who gets to paint the markings on their face. After that they have to take a pin they are given and present it to the parents for their help along the way. I think Scott was nervous because it took him 17 seconds to pin it. For every second it took to pin was one good deed that needed done before I could put his patch onto his uniform. Scouting is something that he really enjoys, so I'm really glad that we were finally able to find a troop around here that he could get into. He is actually attending a troop that is attached to the LDS church, but if all the LDS troops are like this one, I'll make sure to have them stay with them. Our leader is AMAZING!!! She has so much energy! She has four boys, and 2 are twins that are about 5 months old. And of the 4, none of them are of Scouting age.
I'm not sure where our next adventure will be. We have been swimming as much as we can. I try to soak in our yard, the only thing I will miss from here. I look forward to hearing from everyone...remember that you don't have to create a "Blog" page to do so...all you need to is to click on replay or leave comment...then create a log on name...when you het enter from there the next page is one to create a blog page. Just close the page and your name will be created with no blog page will be formed.

An EGGcelent Easter!

Easter has come and gone and I am way behind in updating my site. So here is Easter in an egg shell. We went to an egg hunt here in our community. It proved to be an interesting event, as a little kid had taken the "golden" egg that was in Scott's age group section (ok..some wonderfull volunteer hid eggs on the playgroung that the kids were playing on). Anyways all the eggs were found but that one. Kids could care less about all the little plastic colorfull globes that they pick up. They WANT that GOLD one. Kids are willing to mame eachother in hopes of getting it, and when it wasn't found at all they were ready to riot. Finally they (as in the "officails") were able to locate the egg, distract the kids and re-hide it. There are no pictures of the bunny that was there as it was very scary looking. After that we went to WalMart to see their bunny, only to find that he had just excaped his cage where his owners forgot to feed him.

On Easter Sunday we woke up as many parents do on this day. To a very eager child waiting for their parents to get up so that they might hunt the eggs the bunny hid over night. We usually do a dozen eggs per person at the house, so there were 3 dozen for Scott to find. He had a hard time understanding that the older that he gets the more challenging the bunny will hid them! After the egg hunt we had my families tradition Easter breakfast...don't worry Dad...it's slowly catching on here too. Easter Sunday was a perfect day weather wise here so we were soon outside hanging around the pool and even took a dip or two in it.

Later that evening we did up a standard dinner of ham and potatoes, and had our friends come over and join us. I made a cake for dessert. Tammie gave me this really cool pan to make the checker pattern in your cake. I figured that I would make one of those. Well after reading the directions I got to work. I dyed half my batter pink and half blue for Easter. I cook my first and it just looked odd. Tim came in while my second one baked and I explained to him my issue. So he re-read the instructions to see that your not supposed to cook it with the rings in it....OPPS! I pulled that one out of the cake, and made the third layer the way it was ment to be. After stacking and adding jello and whipped cream to it, no one knew better! Leason learned.

Sam's Birthday

We had the girls here this past week and since Sam's birthday is next week after we take them home, we went ahead and did a little party here for her the other day. The timing actually worked out pretty well since I was taking my final cake class the day before we were going to do it. So for her birthday cake she got a 2 tiered "wedding" style cake! She was kind of hoping for a music cake, but with having this one already (4 boxes worth of mix) I didn't want to do another one on top of having all that...so insead I made her some music shapped cookies. I put them in a glass container that I picked up and then painted music notes on that as well to match, and then made the cookies on sticks so it looked like a bouquet of them. I still have a bit to learn with my icing technique, but they still came out kind of neat looking. We have a tradition that on your birthday you get to pick your special dinner, so we had homemade chicken pot pie that night...unfortunatly though it came out REALLY salty (and if I'm saying that you can be sure it was really salty). So I'll have to make that up to her next time.

It has been really great having the girls here again, the week has flown by so quickly that already it is time to take them back.

Rocky Mountain High

This past week we used part of Scott's spring break to venture into Colorado. It worked out where Scott was ending his 2 week break right as the girls were getting ready to start their break. So we drove up there to see the sights and pick up the girls to bring down here for the week. We got to see all kinds of neat things while we were there. I have to say though that it really was a long drive there. As we headed north in AZ there was lots of snow in the mountains there to see. Really a pretty site to see here in the desert.
Once we got out of AZ into New Mexico the miles past kind of fast...that is until we turned onto I25. I swear that has got to be the longest straighest road in the entire country. Honestly there were NO turns in this road for hundreds of miles. When they did have that rare random curve in the road they would post all these huge yellow signes with arrows to warn you in the hopes of pulling you out of that 30 mile stare you develop as you are going. You really need to click on this picture to enlarge it to get teh idea of the long and never winding road. So as I said our drive was long and uneventfull, but I'm enclosing a few pictures to show you some of the views I had along the way there.

So after a really long drive we got to Castle Rock rock around 9:30 and just went to bed. The next morning we went down to Fort Carson to see some of Tim's friends that were there. We also stopped in the PX and there Scott found "Wacky Packages" cards. For those that don't know these they are made by Topps and are spoofs of different products. Now let me interject something about Scott here before I go on. Scott is a really easy going kid that just takes life in stride. However when he finds something that he likes he dives in head first. For example he has gotten into Lego's. It has to be the kits though, since Christmas he has bought many differnt kits that are to the theam he is into. Well we made him wait till dinner time to open his packs that we got. We picked up 2 for each of the kids. Well within the day he had all his memorized and was begging us to go back to the PX for more. We made him wait till we got back home and when we went to Wal Mart he bought a box of the packages and was able to collect all the regular cards and is now going crazy trying to get all the special cards that they make...and has discovered that there were other sets out there before this one. Anyway I'm way off the track now. After our visit to the fort we drove back up to get the girls for dinner. On the way I was just staring out the window looking at all the wonderfull sites along the way. When all of a sudden I see an elk head up in the distance on the back of a truck. I was courious about that one...as we got closer I was able to verify without a doubt that yes it was an elk head. I've added this picture just because it was one of the oddest things I can ever recall seeing on the road. Back to dinner, it was great seeing them again. Talking with them they are really missing their daddy. After dinner we drove around their neighborhood a bit and then stopped at Michaela's school for them to play a bit. Scott was so excited about seeing snow again. Every minute of our trip all he wanted to do was play in the snow! Our next day there we went out and about and played the tourist that we were. Our fist stop was the Butterfly Pavilian in Denver. This was a small quaint little place. It had 3 different rooms. The first was filled with different bug habitats, and there Scott got the chance to hold a trantula. The next room had a few marine type animals like star fish and urchin's. The last room was set up as a tropical enviroment that was filled with beautiful flowers and tons of butterflys. I'm adding the pictures for these a bit futher below. After there we went to Hamonds candy factory for their tour. The last thing we went to do was the Natural History museum. It was full of all kinds of dinosaur bones and all kinds of neat things to look at there. I wouldn't mind going back there again to spend a bit more time enjoying the exibits that we didn't get a chance to see.

Ok...I think that is enough for now. I still have some other pics to share from the ride home, but I'll save those to share with everyone when we get back from taking the girls home. That's right we have to do the trip again!