The event

Last Saturday something happened.

















Chad and I were sound asleep taking a delightful afternoon nap. Chad was awakened by Duke's excited barks. He stepped out of our room just in time to see Duke picking up a rather large bird from our floor. Still in his sleep haze he shooed the dog outside while he got a dustpan and placed the birds dead carcass in the trash. Then he proceeded to the office to do important internet research. :)

There was quite a mess on the floor but he didn't want me to feel excluded from all the fun. Isn't he generous? I came out and as I was cleaning up the mess I realized that the mess was feathers and bird seeds. Like tons of bird seeds. Why in the world is there this much birdseed on the floor? Did Duke slash through his skin/feathers/stomach that quickly?






















Once I finished cleaning up the mess on the floor I turned around to behold our beautiful view. It was then that I realized exactly what had happened. The sizable splat across the window was my first clue. I quickly deduced that the bird had flown in through my open french doors and hit the window so hard that it exploded (evidence of explosion on window glass--yum-O).

Spring time = good times!

The first snake

Almost a year to the day we found our first snake. Chad and Lily found it dead on the dirt road. Upon hearing the news Luke raced out to inspect for himself. I went along to document. I imagined that he'd poke it around a bit and then leave it be.






















Naw. He picked that baby right up and brought it home to stare at it. Not a moments hesitate to touch it. I put a brave smile on so as to encourage his fearlessness. Personally, I do not possess that kind of fearlessness, but I love it in my boy.















He and Lily wiled away a lovely Saturday examining that bad boy from top to bottom. Luke wanted to keep it as a pet. FYI, we still just have one pet.

Owen's clubhouse

Just in front of our house and is Owen's original clubhouse, Luke informed that he has abandoned this spot for the latest real estate. Trends, trends. Have I expressed how much I am loving Arizona and my desert? No less than three times per day are the children all kicked outside and directed to not return until I call for them.

This, my friends is sanity for a mother of four.

Lily is allowed in the clubhouses, which is a good thing since when I asked Luke where his clubhouse was and he said, "all the way up to there (pointing about two miles east) to all the way over there (pointing to the road about 150 yards away) and just about all of this over here."

Everyone loves Luke.

When I start missing items from the house I know that they are in one of twenty places. The clubhouse is a pretty good place to start though. A tomato wire climber thingy serves as a trash can. An old yoga mat found in the desert serves as an area rug. Wood pallets are furniture. Luke loves to load up on snacks and go down there to 'hang out'.

Y'all know that we're arming them, right?

Does the age in which you own your first firearm correlate with how awesome you are? Yes, it absolutely freaking does. Owen is loving roaming the desert with his gun, shooting stuff. Here is the front of our house, isn't the desert beautiful? Further to the right the view of the city lays out below. At sunset and during the evening lights the views are lovely, we are loving the winter here in Arizona.




So, now we're armed and dangerous round these parts.

Mountain life.

Y'all know how I love my mountains, right. Well, I do and just wanted to make sure you knew that. This is the hike I take a couple of times a week. I go and contemplate the mystery's of life while listening to Selena Gomez's song, Love you like a love song. I'm deep.
Update! Remember them? Well, it's growing bigger and bigger by the day, and there is now a blow up snow man on the roof! Sweeeettttt.

Bless their hearts.

On mountains there is dirt.
When it rains something crazy chemical reaction occurs and mud is formed. I know! Very messy but if you're four very fun. I have many a fond memories of my friend Lesley Mickelsen and I swimming in an irrigation pond and catching polliwogs. Oh the joys, I distinctly remember my mother shrieking one afternoon upon discovering my nest of polliwogs. Which I had cleverly hid in the bottom drawer of my dresser. Everything would have gone off seamlessly too if they hadn't continued on their growth cycle and spouted legs. Only to then use them to jump around my closet floor.
Maybe it's things like this that make my dad smile from ear to ear when he hears of the shenanigans my children put me through.

There is also the rabbits. Oh we love the rabbits around here. It is Duke's one and only mission in life to catch one. He will sit patiently by the dog door waiting for the perfect moment to strike, then he will dash out after them attempting to supplement his diet. He has his dreams.

I walk around my home and feel blessed. Mountains surround us on every side, and the view of the city lays out below us. This is beauty. I pull open the curtains and carry on with a smile on my face and gratitude in my heart for seeing the beauty that surrounds me.

After all, it's not just about having something that makes you happy; it is being grateful for what you have that makes you happy.

Recognizing that you have something great.

You're welcome.

Go and buy the Killers album Day & Age, listen to the song Joy Ride. While your listening picture me dancing around like a complete idiot. Or if you peek in my windows you can see the real deal.


In other news. I unpacked my last box. The china is now out and available for use. This is especially good because we just had Thanksgiving last week and it would have been absolutely silly to have unpacked it before. So now we can switch from using paper plates at every meal. Go big or go home, either we're using the fine china or paper products.

A love letter to Arizona.

We've kind of gotten off to a rocky start. I was sick with pregnancy. You were hot. I missed my friends so so much, I missed my kids having friends. You were lonely place. I missed knowing where every cool store was. You were hot. I missed Becky. You were dusty. I missed my weekly tennis games. I missed our wonderful babysitter who came every Saturday night and loved us so well and we loved her. You had scorpions. I missed going to yoga everyday with an amazing instructor. You weren't Texas.

But. You do have mountains. And I love mountains. So much. I've missed being near them more than I realized.

If you look closely at this picture you'll see Owen and Luke way up there.

View from my patio. The desert can be beautiful if you look for it. I can feel myself almost softening. Opening up to the possibility of Arizona. The possibility that I could actually grow to love it here. It's hard to say that. Silly though, but it almost feels like I'm cheating on my love for Texas.

I've realized over these past months that while I loved many many things about Texas what I loved most were the people and connections I had there. My people as Lily says. But, while I miss those people everyday, there are people here too. . .


Making good friends is a process that takes time. There are no shortcuts to getting to know somebody. Seeing if you connect and understand each other. Developing a sort of shorthand communication. Laughing and getting each other. It just takes time.

No way around it, the process of blooming where you're planted can sometimes, be a painful, lonely time. For me, it's been compounded by a time in my life when I've felt I could have really used my friends shoulders to lean on. To be strong for me when I can no longer bear what I am called to bear. I'm better now, but still writing this down tears well up, unbidden to my eyes. It has been hard. But mostly, it's just been lonely.


I've always been a social creature. I'm so used to seeing my girlfriends everyday. Doing fun stuff with them every week. Going to parties, get-togethers, waving at them while riding by on my bike, shopping trips together, impromptu lunch, meeting up at the park, taking walks with them, putting on our workout clothes to go and hit it hard only to wind up sitting down for an hour on the grass chatting.

Mick Jagger's song comes to mind, You can't always get what you want, but, sometimes, you get what you need.


I know one day I will have this again. These connections with people. That I'll drive around in my car (now a mini-van, no wonder I'm having an identity crisis) and I'll have someone to wave to as I drive by. Eventually. And! I'll still have all those people in Texas.


While I will always have passionate love for Texas (Texans if you didn't already know are fiercely proud of Texas) I'm developing a love for Arizona. It's almost like the love you have for your children. You love different things about them, their own special qualities that makes them, them. But, you still love all of them, just differently.

For now though, I feel gratitude for the mountains. My doors are always open as the perfectly comfortable, lovely air wafts through my house. I can hear the vague sounds of my children playing in the desert. Running wild, finding creatures, building forts, climbing mountains. . .being children. This, this is the childhood I've envisioned for them, and that, my friends is, as Mick says"sometimes. . .you might just find you get what you need".

Arizona, you're growing on me. . .