Phoenix Zoo

Our adventure today took place at the Phoenix Zoo...it was hot...it was busy...it was fun! We even saw a few animals! We took a train ride through the park, a paddle boat ride in the duck pond, and Charlie and Max even rode real live camels. Here are the pictorial details of our fun, very tiring, day.

Max on the camel

Charlie on the Camel

Turtles in the duck pond

Mickey and Charlie in the paddle boat

Giraffes - from the train

Wallabys

And that's it - I'm too tired to do any more tonight. Lloyd just arrived for his week of meetings, and Quincey is arriving in an hour or so to travel home with the rest of us tomorrow. Be prepared for more mundane blogs in the next little while.

Build A Bear

Sara had promised the kids that today we'd go to Build-A-Bear so they could each get a new bear. They were more excited about that than about going on another day-long car ride. Kids are strange critters!

Charlie and Max each chose their favorite bear to be stuffed, and Sara chose a lamb for Ellie. They stood in line while a kindergarten class finished getting their bears stuffed, then had their turn. Elly had no idea what was going on so she just stood around and watched, until she realized that it was a hands-on kind of place.

Max standing in line with his newly stuffed bear.

After the bears were stuffed, and hearts put in them, we had to choose their clothes. Max chose a Batman costume for his panda, Charlie dressed her bear in a pretty summer outfit with glass slippers, and Elly's lamb was dressed in embroidered denim shorts and a flowered top.

Me and Max dressing Batman

Charlie with her finished bear

Max with Batman

Elly came home and cuddled up with her sweet lamb.

The kids loved their creations and played with them all evening. The whole event took us all morning. It was a hot day so we came home and spent the afternoon in the pool. Probably our last day in the pool as it's supposed to cool down too much to swim - even for us hardy Canucks! And then we head home on Friday. Oh well - it was nice while it lasted.

Charlie - the last one out of the pool

Elly's new dress

Tired kids watching Super Hero DVDs in the evening

Mickey relaxing with Elly

Up close and personal with the videos

And that's it for today.

Sedona, Jerome and Camp Verde

Good news today. When Max woke up his fever was gone, he had an appetite, and he was feisty and ready for adventure.

I found my little Fuji camera under the back seat of the car, where it had fallen out of my purse. I still can't download the pictures, but that can wait till I get home to my PC.

I went to good old WalMart and bought a charger for my Rebel - one that included an in-car charger attachment - so my camera became photo ready again.

With that all done, we all (Mickey and Me, Sara, Quincey, Charlie, Max and Elly) decided to go to Montezuma's Castle, since it was an easy 1 hr. plus drive from here. We checked maps and guidebooks before leaving so we wouldn't repeat the disastrous search for Monetzuma's Castle of two days previous.

It was a great trip - it's always so peaceful and special feeling at the cliff dweller's abandoned home. Even the kids liked it.

Charlie and Max on the trail

Elly, in a rare moment of stillness, at the base of the cliff.

From Camp Verde, we drove to Jerome, which had been recommended to us last night by Penny and Cath. That was quite a drive. The drive up to it is described in the guidebook as "not for the faint of heart". Jerome is an old deserted copper mining town perched on top of a mountain. In the 60's some hippy artists moved into the deserted buildings and have built a thriving art and craft center up there. It's a very unusual town, twisting roads, switchbacks, and old decrepit buildings, but it has an amazing charm. Most of the buildings are said to be haunted and one in particular, the old Hotel, has had it's ghostly resident verified by Allison DuBois (TV's Medium). Max and Charlie hesitated on the doorway of the hotel (which now houses a funky dress shop) on the lookout for the ghost. Max finally decided that the ghosts only come out at night, and he gladly accepted the lollipot from the nice lady who worked there.

Max and Charlie on an ancient bench

Looking in the door of the ancient fire station - the fire truck was still in there.

The Central Hotel - home of the bona fide ghost!!!

The front of the old jail - the wall is partially gone.

From Jerome it was a short drive to the world famous town of Sedona - famous for it's red rock formations and beautiful scenery. The town lived up to it's hype! It's beautiful. We didn't have much time to spend there because we wanted to be on our way before dark, but what we saw, we liked. I'd like to go back again some time when I have a whole day to explore.

The Hardwicke-Brown's in front of one of the red rock hills

Me and Mickey

Red rocks and green trees

I'm so glad we decided to stay over till Friday. Today's excursion alone made it worthwhile. Lloyd is flying in to Phoenix on Thursday for meetings all next week. So we'll have one day and night together until we're both back in Edmonton again.

Talk to you again tomorrow.

Change in Plans

No pictures to post today - my Rebel's battery is dead and I lost my Fuji this evening. SO you wo't see the pictures I took of me and Mickey, Clyde and Cath, Les and Penny at the Mexican restaurant.

We've made changes in our plans. Quincey declared it was too cold to go home tomorrow (-44 with wind chill in Edmonton) so we hauled ourselves out of the pool and changed our flight home to Friday evening. It should be around +3 in Edmonton by then. Also, Max is too sick to fly tomorrow. He woke up early this morning with a burning fever and was feverish and lethargic all day, poor little boy. Hopefully he'll be better by Friday and no one else will come down sick in the meantime.

So now we have to plan how we're going to spend the next few days...maybe we'll try to go to Montezuma's Castle again...without getting lost!

Dinner, Sunset and Desert

I didn't do my blog yesterday. My camera battery died so I couldn't upload my pictures. The pictures in today's blog are ones I downloaded from Mickey's camera (except for Montezuma's Castle, which I took in January).

The kids were excited to have their Mum and Dad back last evening. Mickey and I went out so the family could have some time alone. Today we all went to IHOP for breakfast...a really good choice, as there was a man circulating through the patrons making balloon creatures for the kids.

Elly got a pink donut to chew on...

Charlie got a white and yellow cat...

And Max was thrilled with his Spiderman. (all three creatures are still 'alive' tonight)


From there we split up - the family to do together stuff, and Mickey and I on a search for Montezuma's Castle.



All I knew was that we went through Anthem when we went there in January so that's where I instructed the GPS to take us. How were we supposed to know that there are two towns named Anthem in Arizona...one just north of Phoenix and the other way southeast of us. Darn GPS...sent us on a wild goose chase.

It was an exciting adventure for a couple hours though...we saw some of the less than beautiful (ugly underbelly!!) of beautiful Arizona...real desert...sand and all...not a soul in sight as we drove through decrepit dusty little towns...even the cactus looked tired and dirty. I must admit that at one point I was watching the gas gauge pretty closely and wishing we had brought at least one bottle of water with us! We're such gringos! (whatever that means).



Our salvation (and I wish we had taken a picture of it) was....


are you ready?......





WalMart!!! In the middle of the desert!!!

Well, actually, on the outskirts of a town called Collidge..although we only saw one other building there. That's where a kind lady told us that there are two Anthems in Arizona and apparently we were heading to the wrong one! So embarassing. So after stocking up on water and pop, and making sure we had enough gas to return home, we turned around.

Once again we made the mistake of trusting the chick who lived in our GPS when she told us where to go....she made us take an exit off the I-10 and re-enter it, heading right back to where we came from! At that point we decided to trust our instincts (we're such seasoned explorers after all) and made our way back to civilization. Where we promptly found a ladies clothing store and treated ourselves to a few new shirts and pants.

The day ended on a relaxed note as Sara and Quincey served up barbeque steak, salad and corn-0n-the-cob for dinner, topped off with pie and ice cream.


Followed by a beautiful sunset.

Cacti, playgrounds, friends and White Tank Mountain

We went to White Tank Mountain today. Mickey had been wanting to go since we first arrived. It was the last place she wanted to go when we were here in January, but since we didn't see any snakes and/or scorpions then, it became her favorite place down here.


We drove to the end of the trails and found a lovely awning covered playground for the kids. They had a great time there and Elly even learned the art of positioning herself to go down the slide safely all by herself.

And there she goes. Max and Charlie liked the twin slides.


Charlie took this picture of me and Mickey as we watched them play.


Mickey took this picture of a bird (cactus wren??) on top of a saguaro cactus. She took lots of cacti pictures but this is the only one I'm using here.



And, as usual, it was in the pool for us when we got home in the middle of the afternoon. We don't even get out to answer the phone. Aren't cordless phones a wonderful invention!!!


So now it's our last night alone with the kids. I'm kind of sad about that - we've had such a good time with them and they've been so good. Sara and Quincey will be home tomorrow afternoon. Then I have to turn the reins over to their parents. On the positive side, it'll free Mickey and me up for a few days to do things we couldn't do with the kids..like go to Paradise Cafe for lunch, visit Scrapbooks, Etc. in Mesa, check out JoAnnes, and the mall, etc. etc. And the kids will still be here to go swimming and play with.

Zoo Park Day

This is how my day started - with three great kids bouncing on my bed.


Elly wanted to keep me company while I dried my hair so I put her in the sink - one of her favorite places to play. And yes, she did turn the water on and get a bit damp.

I don't even mind sharing my toothbrush with her. She did a pretty good job polishing her 10 little teeth.


We wasted no time getting to the zoo - arriving half an hour after opening. The ducks are always a favorite stop. Max let this little fellow eat the pellets right off of his hand. He also enjoyed wearing the Arizona Cardinals hat that Papa left behind in the van.



Posing with the camels - me, Elly, Charlie and Max

We went to a buffet for lunch - great fun. As we were leaving, people at two different tables remarked about how well behaved the children were and one woman said that she had been captivated by the baby's sweet smiles. It's always so nice to hear compliments about your children and/or grandchildren.


When we got home we all got ready to go swimming - Elly and Charlie in their matching zebra bathing suits.


Max blew some big bubbles for everyone's entertainment.


After swimming, Elly cozied up with a bottle and Mickey.


Charlie worked on her scrapbook.


And here it is. I gave her some pictures and she got her construction paper and made a scrapbook, glued pictures and colored paper embellishments in, and created a beautiful first-time scrapbook.

Then, when we were upstairs watching our before-bed video, the doorbell rang. There stood Cath and Clyde with bags of oranges from their tree, and grapefruit from their friend. Charlie had mentioned how much she liked them when we were here in January, so they brought some over for her We cut a dozen of them into quarters and sat eating them while we watched our video. They were sooooo good, much appreciated. We're all looking forward to having more for breakfast.

What a great day!