Memorial Day

For Memorial Day I took the kids to Marley Farms at Val Vista and Hunt Hwy. It is a little petting zoo at the back of someone's farm. They also board horses there. It was a nice little place to take them before it got too hot. This is a "Zonkey" and mix between a Zebra and Donkey. It looks like a Donkey head and body, with zebra stripes on the legs and a few near his neck.

Dax and Derek feeding an Emu

This is "Nascar" the Emu

Dax feeding James the Camel. He was BIG.

Derek is petting James.

Of course, Derek found his favorite thing, a stick to poke the dirt.

There were some 6-week-old kittens, and some ducks in the feed store, which were fun. We also saw the biggest fattest pig I have ever seen. It looked like a cow with short legs. I think they said it weighed 600 lbs. WOW. The pig's name was Taco Belle.  Great place for kids.

Father's & Sons Outing

Derek (left) and some other boys, he is thrilled to be playing in the fire.

Two weekends ago (May 15-16) Curtis took Dax and Derek on the Father's and Sons outing up near Payson. It seemed like a really good idea at first, but when it came time to go, Curtis wasn't so sure he wanted to go camping up in the cold mountains. They went and had a good time. A little chilly. Derek loved the campfire, and of course, they came home with a stick that is also used as a light saber, sword, gun, and whatever other weapon they can think of. They came home F*I*L*T*H*Y. 

Our tent, which wasn't much of a tent, to begin with, died. I guess the wind blew it apart during the night. Now they have been on an official campout beyond our backyard. Curtis only needs to go one more time in about 4 years so Trey can have a turn.

There was a fish hatchery nearby so they stopped by there on the way out. There is a man in our ward who is a hobby photographer. He takes pictures at all the activities. He took these pictures and did a great job. He took nice pictures of each Dad with his boys.

Bird Flu...

...Or some type of bird epidemic in our yard. For the last few months, we have been seeing these ducks in our yard and mostly in the pool. This picture was taken on April 12th.

We started to see them more and more frequently, and we would wake up to "quacking" in the night. We liked the visitors.

More recently we would only see the Hen duck by herself, and then we started to see her daily, but she would come and go.

Yesterday I kept seeing her standing on the top edge of the negative edge. I thought it was funny how she was perched up there so I wanted to take a picture. Whenever I got close, she would hop into the water. I got up closer to her and she didn't seem frightened or bothered that I was there, but she kept hopping in and out of the water onto the top of the negative edge.

I looked into the trough of the negative edge and this is what I saw.....

OH MY GOODNESS 8 baby chicks. No wonder she didn't want to leave the edge she was watching over her babies. The kids were at school when I made this discovery, but Curtis was working from home. I thought he would be bothered (the mess they could cause in the pool), but he thought it was kind of cool. He told the kids first thing as soon as they walked in the door.

We had used the pool the night before and there were no ducks around, so we know they just showed up. It is a mystery where they came from. I don't see a nest or any broken eggshells around.

The Mother seemed distraught that they were in the trough and she couldn't be with them. She would occasionally hop into the trough, but there is not much room for her to move around in there, so Derek gently picked up each chick and threw them into the pool with Mom. Now they seem like a happy family, and the ducks are there constantly. 

When I woke up this morning There were 2 hens and the Mallard was back, now there are only 5 chicks. I'm not sure what happened there.

When we were kids my brother always asked my mom for a pet duck, and she said you can have one when you are 35. He's old enough now, I wonder if he still wants one?

We like them for now, but I know we can't have them stay long-term. We may be calling animal control in a few days. There is a pond right around the corner from our house, we often go there to feed ducks. I guess they like our house better. One of my friends around the corner said she had 2 ducks in her pool the other morning, someone told her when they lived in Tucson they had a mountain lion drinking from their pool. My Sister-in-law just found a rattlesnake in her garage the other day. I'll take the ducks.

Mother's Day

Yesterday was Mother's Day. My boys were very good to me. Throughout the week at school and scouts, they made me little gifts. They couldn't wait until Sunday so they gave them to me as they made them.

 Derek made me a little terra-cotta pot he painted and put pinto beans and it holds a flower pen. He kept telling me all week he was making it, but it was a surprise. It turned out cute. One of the cuter "flower pot pens" I have seen. Dax wrote me a Thank you note at scouts. He even had his leader sign it because he wanted to be nice to me. He is a sweet boy. In the note, he said, "Thank you for being my Mom, thanks for feeding me, thanks for caring for me, thanks for giving me a brother." I guess he is only thankful to have one brother, not two. At school, he made a little box with his picture on it. He is making a goofy face in the picture, (I hope he posed like that on purpose). He put little coupons in it like breakfast in bed, help with the dishes, spend time with you, and the one that makes me laugh is "play outside" He knows I have to force him to play outside. Then they did make me breakfast yesterday and cleaned up the kitchen, and gave me my most favorite treat of all ...cake. Treyson gave me the best gift. Earlier in the week, he started sleeping 11- 12 hrs at night. He was sleeping about 7-8. But when you put him to bed at 7p.m. he still wakes me up at 3:00. Life is good, we all sleep normal hours now.

Pinewood Derby

 

Dax recently had his first Pinewood Derby. This caused a little anxiety in our home since Curtis does not enjoy working with his hands not even a little bit, nor do we even have good tools to create such a project. They did good -Curtis cut out the car, then Dax sanded everything and I helped him paint it (just the stripe), Dax picked the colors, etc. Then off to the races and Dax lost every race, except for one that was a photo finish and in Dax's view, he won. So we'll go with that. Curtis said there were cars that were obviously bought and not the standard Cub Scout-issue cars. He said they looked sleek and professional and they won every race. It was apparent that it was about winning the Pinewood Derby rather than making the car. He said Dax has fulfilled his requirement of making one, and from now on we will be buying the pre-made cars. I feel like this is almost like the baseball players that justify using steroids because they have to be able to compete with the other players just stay in the game, but I don't care because cutting things out of wood is not our thing. Dax got the award for the most "Fuel Injected" car. He had to add some weight so he glued some bolts on top (after this picture was taken) I guess they looked like fuel injectors.

Disney on Ice

Once again our favorite magazine to advertise in gave us some family entertainment. I'm guessing we are the only ones in Real Estate that advertise in this horrible market, so they want to keep getting our advertising $.

This time they gave us tickets to Disney on Ice. This was the one where the Incredibles go to Disneyland, so Pirates of the Caribbean, Buzz Lightyear, and Star Wars were all in it. All the boy's favorite characters in one show. We had a good time, this "Syndro" mask came with the overpriced $10 popcorn. We had fun. When we left Dax said, "that was better than I thought, I didn't know it was going to be like a play" I don't know what he was expecting, he has seen Disney on ice before.

We had an interesting parking experience. We pulled into one of those little parking lots near the US Airways Center. The parking lot looked full, but the man guided us into an alley and we squeezed into a space. We were looking at each other not knowing if this was possible. Then we were sure the alley parking lot was full after we were in. Not so much then he guided one more car in. I looked at the driver and she was looking at me like "are you serious, I'm supposed to park here" I told her we thought the same thing. He guided her in and like magic we all fit. Then we had to do it all over and pull out when the night was over.

Signs of Spring

About a month ago we sent Dax and Derek to play outside and they came in telling us they found a baby bird that can't fly and they wanted to care for it. I had to go check this out because Derek asks me about once a day if he can have a pet parrot. I thought he would be saying this just to get a bird for a pet ... they were correct. I wasn't excited about this, but I felt bad for the little thing, it seemed hurt or sick, not quite right.

 I went online to find out how to care for baby birds. I found info from some bird society and it said that it is quite common for baby birds to be homeless, orphaned, etc. because they fall out of the nest and can't fly. It said they get hundreds of calls each spring and they can't possibly take care of them all so they just tell you what to do. First, it said to put the bird back where you found it and it may be the parents will come looking for it. So we did, and the parents did come back, and they walked around together for a bit. The problem was that Derek could not keep his hands off the bird and he kept picking it up and carrying it around finally the parents left. I was so mad at him. So then we tried to feed it baby formula through a medicine dropper. That is one of the things it suggested feeding the bird and we happen to have that so we tried. We couldn't get the bird to open its mouth long enough to get any in. We tried, tried, and tried. Long story short, the bird died.