beautiful day for a hike

We went to Pima Canyon today and our neighbor Jacob came along. The weather was great, the cactus flowers were in bloom and we saw some birds, lizards and a huge green snake.

This dried moss is where water used to be, it looked so weird.

The boys let the Desert Iguana and Earless lizard go today. Now they will be on the search for something else to put in the tank.

Best kiddos in the world.

We took a water and snack break in the shade.

The boys searching for reptiles.

eating strawberries

The intensity level the boys get to while lizard searching/catching cracks me up.

Marlee’s resting place doesn’t look too comfortable to me.

 

Laun took a bunch of really cool pictures today.

Early Mother’s Day picture- love my kiddos

Clayton is going to be taller than me any day now.

 

Marlee found a stick and made Laun hold on to one end and her the other end. Laun was the engine and she was the caboose. At least it made her hike faster.

She’s loving her new hiking boots and exercise pants.

Thank you Clayton for always taking pictures of your mom and dad.

What’s with the hand on her hip-this girl has attitude for sure.

I love being a mom…

I taught preschool today and it was all about Mother’s Day.

I loved hearing what all the kids had to say about their moms.

Here’s what Marlee had to say about me…

I love the picture she drew of the two of us.

lizard posing

Clayton took these pictures of the two lizards. It kind of cracks me up, it’s like their posing for the camera.

This lizard always buries himself, usually you can’t see him at all.

what a catch

Today Clayton spotted a sparrow eating out of a bucket in our front yard and he caught it bare handed. This boys animal catching skills are very impressive. He fed it a little bit of bird food and then sent it back on his way.

pet update

The other day we picked out some tanks for the kids rooms. The boys wanted a big tank, so they paid for half of it. The boys are using the tank for lizards.

This is the Desert Iguana they caught on the way home from our CA trip.

This is an Earless lizard that the boys caught while snake hunting. You can rarely see this one because it hides under the sand.

They’ll keep these for a bit and then let them go and catch some other lizards.

Marlee got a fish tank. She was excited to pick out a little castle and also got some plants and pink rocks. She was probably more excited about the castle than the fish:) She loves that she can turn on the glowing light at night and use it like a night light.

 

The cat has been renamed Roger instead of leopard and actually sticks around the backyard most of the time now. When you say meow Roger will come running to you.

Poor Raggles got spaded last week and we are glad that she is starting to feel better. With the hot weather starting I think it is time for Raggles to get a buzz haircut.

trailer

Laun welded and built this trailer all by himself around a decade ago, so it was time for some new wood. I even helped him with some of the project.

Here’s the old wood that was on the trailer.

I am so impressed with Laun. The man can build and do anything.

Cinco de Mayo

For dinner we made the Café Rio Salad and had Manzanita Sol -apple soda.

Darleen made this yummy lemon dessert with cookies.

I love any excuse I can get to eat Mexican food.

shortest-longest trip ever

We left for California yesterday around lunch time and got home late tonight. We weren’t gone very long, but it felt like forever since we drove most of the time. We didn’t go to a beach or do anything fun and we stayed in a ghetto hotel. The scenery was awful and the weather was hot. And to top it all off Laun and I were grumpy.

We went to CA to pick up a car that Laun bid on and won. This isn’t your normal car though…it is one of those crash dummy cars. Laun got a good deal on it and is either going to make a ranger-sand rail thing out of it or sell the parts to make some money, since the engine and other parts are just fine.

Here’s the lot our car is in-lovely, isn’t it?

The blue beauty is loaded on our trailer.

Here she is in all her glory, it was a side impact test in case you can’t tell.

The kids watched a ton of movies during the hours of driving.

The only cool things we saw on our trip were huge Joshua Trees and windmills. That just proves how lame this drive was- ha ha ha.

 

The highlight of the trip, besides picking up our car, was lizard catching. On the drive home the boys were excited to get out and search for lizards. It took a group effort, but Laun and the boys managed to catch this cool lizard.

Apparently catching lizards is a messy job…Porter’s clothes are filthy.

On the hunt for another lizard. During this time I’m pretty sure Marlee went potty like three times, she must have some Turley in her.

Now the boys can go home happy…Porter held the lizard in this bottle on the way home.

Maybe we just needed some fresh air, we seemed to all be in a better mood for the rest of the way home.