Staying Cool at the Museum

With the incredible summer heat that comes in our part of Arizona, we like to find fun places to stay cool. That is why we have a membership to the nearby science museum. It's fun, and it's air conditioned! This past week we enjoyed taking the wife and children of one of the new Ph.D. students that Robby is going to school with to the museum. They just moved in and we had a great time introducing them to the museum.

Here Jenna is practicing her balancing skills. This walkway has a bunch of rubber things sticking up, and when you walk on it you have to concentrate harder on your balance.

Okay, Jenna has reached the cheezy grin stage. If you say, smile for the camera this is quite often what you get!
Jenna made friends with this beach ball. She did not want to part with it when it was time to go. In fact she tried to throw a nice tantrum, but it didn't work since I just simply picked her up and went on my way. Once she found something just as cool in the next room, the ball was long forgotten.
Well, I only have one picture of Little Robby because after this he tried to play "keep away from the camera." Here he is trying to get me with the blowing hose.
Pull hard Jenna! This is one of those chairs that you can lift by pulling on the rope and pulley system. Jenna has a few years before she will be able to make it budge. Once more, cheezy grin that says, "I had fun at the museum, Mom!"

Happy Father's Day!

This message is brought to you by Little Robby and Jenna! We want all the fathers we know to know that we love you and appreciate all that you do!

See the Father's Day Video

(By the way, we weren't aiming for a Michael Jackson theme with Jenna wearing one glove, she found Little Robby's biking glove and didn't want to put it down.)

Our Canning Adventure

Yesterday Little Robby and I embarked upon an adventure together. We had gotten to the point that we had more tomatoes and cucumbers from our garden than we could eat before they spoiled. As a family we decided that it would be good to make something that we could use for a long time, so we decided to make salsa and pickles. I bought a variety of peppers and an onion, and Little Robby and I learned all about canning.

When we got started, I read the recipes and thought that I would be able to make and jar the salsa and pickles in about 3 hours. 7 hours and three trips to Walmart later, I was the proud creator of 7 pints of salsa, 10 pints of refrigerator pickles, and one nightmare of a kitchen mess. The stuff I made turned out pretty good (although I don't expect any blue ribbons for my efforts).

Here is my diligent chopper boy. We were really glad to use our electric chopper (that collects dust most days in my cabinent). Robby did a great job preparing most of the veggies for the salsa.
Here is our simmering pot of salsa. I used a hot water bath canner to seal the jars of salsa. I had never done that before and I have to say I was grateful that I was able to chit chat with one sweet grandma while shopping on the canning isle at Wal-mart who gave me a couple tips that came in very handy. (One was not to use iodized salt because it will cause the pickles to change color - I was thankful she said that because we probably would have thought I had ruined them. Instead I went and bought a new container of non-iodized salt.) I was also equally grateful that I was able to get a hold of an experienced food storage person in our ward. She saved me from putting my jars directly in the boiling water (they might have busted.) I guess I never picked up on the fact that the jars go in the water first and then you set the pot to boil in the 3 the canning classes I have attended. Luckily for her advice I didn't loose all my hard work!

And here you see some of the results of our efforts.

An afternoon hike or a mountain climb?

Robby has been working hard on getting ready for his dissertation proposal, and he decided he needed a little break with the family. He thought it would be fun for us to go and hike Camelback Mountain. He looked it up online, and there were a few hikes to choose from. He liked the sound of the Summit Trail Hike. It was about 1.2 miles long which didn't sound to bad to him (never mind that it climbs 1, 200 ft over that 1.2 miles that equates to almost 30% grades on average and the hike we chose was labeled difficult).

So all four of us set off at about 6:15p to hopefully reach the summit and return by sundown 7:34p.

Jenna thought the first part of the hike was great, and wanted to "do-it herself."
Little Robby wanted to set a faster pace which left me in the middle.
Here we are stopping for a breather.

Click to see a short clip of our "Mountain Climbing Jenna" in action.
Did we make the summit already? No, this was just a nice view part way up the mountain, and someone offered to take a picture of all of us.
If you can't see the circular marker clearly, it reads 3/8 mi. Robby's expression reads, "What! I thought we had walked about twice that already!" And he thought he was ready for the 7-10 mile Grand Canyon hike planned for November. Luckily there is still time to train.
Around the corner from the marker we meet the mountain. Let me make a disclaimer now... I like to hike, I mean casually on prepared trails. I am not the person you will see boulder hopping or rock climbing (unless I am strapped securely). At this point I felt that I had met my match. I have a fear of falling and broken bones. Looking up this steep incline of bald rock I realized this was no longer my sort of hike, nor did I think it a good idea for us to take the kids (especially Jenna) up this incline. I wasn't as scared of going up as I was of coming down. And so here we stood looking up and watching experienced hikers scale this mountain one after another. Robby tells me, "It's probably not as bad as it looks!" "You're kidding, right? You aren't going to take Jenna up that, are you?" I reply. He replied in the affirmative and off Chap, Dad and Jenna went. I followed cautiously behind. Somewhere up by the handrail, it got especially steep and I finally called it. I certainly did not feel comfortable going up this way with Jenna, let alone watch Chap go higher and higher. Let's just say that my motherly insincts kicked in and I told Robby that I didn't want him to go any further. He listened and down we went, only to discover when we got to the bottom that Little Robby had gotten himself stuck near the top.
So Jenna and I stood at the bottom and watched as Dad climbed up to save him.
Eventually we all came down, a little disappointed that we didn't make it to the top of the hike (even if we still had .7 mi to go). We read later that once you get to the top of this climb seen here there is one other climb that is more difficult up higher. I think I am now resigned to the fact that I will never know what it looks like at the top of Camelback Mountain. Maybe Robby can find another hiking buddy and succeed in climbing to the top.
Finally, down we came to the bottom. Well, after a hike that was less than a mile and got our hearts going, I think we're ready for the Grand Canyon, don't you?

Karate Mama! Hi-ya!

For the past year, I have been observering Little Robby's karate classes from time to time, and as I sat there I thought, "You know, I should do this too!" And so I did, I started karate. Little Robby loves the fact that I am in his class, and he is a higher belt than me, which means I have to show respect to him.

So now I have to share some pics and a video with you...

Here we have Little Robby showing us how to break the board with your foot.
Next, I try... You'll have to watch the video below to find out if I succeeded in breaking the board, too.
Here we are after my first class. Little Robby got his new purple belt, and Mom started as a white belt. I got my uniform at the next class.

Here I am White Belt Mama!
Now you can see how I did my first day!

Last Day of 2nd Grade!

School is over and summer has begun. I wanted to take a moment though and record Little Robby's last day of 2nd grade. I thought it was kind of cool because during the last week of school his teacher organized something they called "Camp Learned-A-Lot." She set up five paper "tents" and the kids brought pillows and blankets and camped out doing fun activities during the last week in their tents. I figured Robby would look back on these moments fondly, and so I wanted to take a few pictures.

Here we have Robby and part of his group in their tent. They named themselves the reptile group.

Jenna thought visiting the classroom was great fun! (Especially since she has a lot of admirers, as you can see here!) They were teaching her to make faces! (How nice.)

Here is Robby (looking extra thrilled because Mom is taking yet another picture) with three of his best buds from his class.

Jenna really liked lunch time. Not only was sitting on the bench with the other kids great, but sharing Ashley's starbursts was even better!
Jenna says, "I'm ready for school, Mom! I really like the recess part!"

Robby enjoyed his last carefree day of 2nd grade!