July

This "July" post basically comprises the middle two weeks of July since we were in Mesa for the first week and will be in Flagstaff for the last week!

Weston still had preschool on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, but other than that, we were free birds.

Summer is nice in that there are no schedules. Summer is mind numbing in that the kids are together more than ever and tend to FIGHT like mortal enemies. Add on the constant snack wanting, begging for friends to come over, complaining that there's nothing to do, and general whininess, I did a lot of deep breathing these two weeks. Yay-summer. :)

 

Lest I paint a horrible picture we have been loving the monsoon season with it's cool afternoons and evening showers. Playing with friends and going to the park. Walks in the neighborhood and endless hours with the hose on in the backyard.

Here is one such afternoon with friends. ..

Steel had just stomped on Collin's stomach in this picture and I love Collin for just laughing like it was the funniest joke ever.

Warning: only a mother could be obsessed with their kids hair like I found myself one afternoon. Don't judge. I know you've been there. We were on a walk and I couldn't get over the striations of a million colors in Collin's hair. It gets more auburn in the summer, and on this particular day I swear the sun was bringing out tones and highlights like I'd never seen in his hair before. It was just so rich and beautiful. ;)  I was kinda mesmerized. ;)

The 18th was another free Saturday. Well, Josie and Brighton had driven in the night before so we were looking for something we could all do together. (Turns out, last minute they didn't come with us though) We settled on the Ice Caves! It's a little over an hour from us. We drove through Grants and stopped in at Kendelben's BBQ for lunch. Our friend's brother owns it and we'd been meaning to give it a try. Then, another 20 minutes of driving got us to New Mexico's Land of Fire and Ice! Haha. There's an old fashioned trading post where you pay (it's privately owned), then you choose which of the two trails to start with. One leads to the ice caves. The other leads to an old volcano.

We started with the volcano. We hiked at a pretty steady incline for about 20 minutes. The weather was warm, but we had brought jackets for the ice cave. Yeahhh, you don't need a jacket. We had a pamphlet that described different lava formations and tree facts along the way. I know how nerdy and boring that sounds but I actually eat that stuff up. And the boys did too! They were excited to find each number marker and ask me what it meant. Education and exercise?! Pfff! We were killing all sorts of birds with this stone. ;)

 

Here's an example of one of the "stops". It's an example of where trapped air under the lava, burst up and then cooled that way. 

The final destination! I guess it's called Bandera Volcano and it erupted 10,000 years ago. The boys were really concerned about all the people that probably fell in and got burned up in the lava. Not graphic at all.

 Hangin' out by the bathroom in-between hikes. Poor Collin got Mommy's stomach. :(

 

After we walked back down the mountain to where we started we got going on the other trail. This one was much shorter and not at an incline. I think it took us all of 10min to get to the ice caves. You can feel the temperature drop as you descend the stairs, finally getting to a cool 31 degrees. 



At the turn of the century, they had a trading post and dance hall here and it said they kept their beer cold on the ice. ;) It goes 20 feet deep!

That night, the boys went to Red Rock Park for a Motorcross tournament. I need to get some pictures. Jos and I stayed home and put Olive to bed, ate sushi, watched FRIENDS and got some talking in. 

Jos and Bright stayed until Monday morning. Brighton was always so good to play with the kids and they absolutely loved him for it. Blanket tie-up was a real hit.

There are many perks to being friends with Brinn, but one is that she's always finding things to do where you wouldn't think there was any. There is a sidewalk loop of about 1/4 a mile around an old train and some other "attractions" near our home. :) We killed several hours here letting the kids ride bikes and skitters and pretend to be conductors on the train. 

Just another visit to the zoo... I mean Daddy's office.

The heads have come in. Sooo wonderful.

 There was a primary activity day scheduled for the day we were leaving. Perfect timing! They got to pull "handcarts" and sing pioneer songs for a few hours while I packed! How cute are they?!

 Then, later that afternoon, Weston got invited over to the Jenning's house for some swimming. Such cute, happy boys!