Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Wheeler Farm
I guess I've been to Wheeler Farm, but I don't remember it. Fair enough - I wouldn't want to drag 6 young kids to a place like this either, especially with moody teenagers at one end and crazy toddlers at the other.
In any case, it was fun to actually see it and remember it! When we were up in Utah this past weekend, Mav got to go with his cousin, Elodie, and they had a lot of fun together.
She's dressed in her cute skeleton costume and he's wearing a skeleton t-shirt, so they pretty much match ;-)
The only animal he showed any minute interest in?
Shaun the Sheep.
In any case, it was fun to actually see it and remember it! When we were up in Utah this past weekend, Mav got to go with his cousin, Elodie, and they had a lot of fun together.
She's dressed in her cute skeleton costume and he's wearing a skeleton t-shirt, so they pretty much match ;-)
The only animal he showed any minute interest in?
Shaun the Sheep.
Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails... Wait, that's gross...
As far as toddlers go, people seem pretty convinced that girls are more mentally driven and boys are more physical. According to my mom, I broke the mold on that one by being a nut-job little girl, so between Danny and I there was really no hope that Mav was going to be a calm, relaxed sort of toddler. Things like this:
...are not unusual sights in this house. Walking across the arms of the couch, jumping from heights far too advanced for his age, and running way too fast into certain danger are standard behaviors for this little boy. But he's not atypical in this, as I've learned over the last few weeks. See, two weeks ago, he was running really, really fast. And he stopped very, very quickly when he ran into the corner of the CD cabinet. His head swelled instantly and we had to watch for concussion symptoms (which I remembered from Micah's incident).
The next morning, he did it again, same spot on his forehead, against a wall. In seconds, his head looked like this:
I ask you, how do you not panic?! This picture doesn't even do it justice. Every time he even brushed against it, it got bigger. I finally took him into the clinic. They sent us to the ER, who sent us home with instructions we already knew. "Watch for throwing up a lot, disorientation, etc, etc." Got it.
Luckily, he's been completely fine, he just looks awful. The bump has gone down but it's still there, and all of the fluid has seeped down into his eyes, giving him 2 black eyes.
Everyone that sees him just gives a little chuckle and says "Yep, that's a boys for you."
I think I'm in for a lot of ER visits with this kid...
...are not unusual sights in this house. Walking across the arms of the couch, jumping from heights far too advanced for his age, and running way too fast into certain danger are standard behaviors for this little boy. But he's not atypical in this, as I've learned over the last few weeks. See, two weeks ago, he was running really, really fast. And he stopped very, very quickly when he ran into the corner of the CD cabinet. His head swelled instantly and we had to watch for concussion symptoms (which I remembered from Micah's incident).
The next morning, he did it again, same spot on his forehead, against a wall. In seconds, his head looked like this:
I ask you, how do you not panic?! This picture doesn't even do it justice. Every time he even brushed against it, it got bigger. I finally took him into the clinic. They sent us to the ER, who sent us home with instructions we already knew. "Watch for throwing up a lot, disorientation, etc, etc." Got it.
Luckily, he's been completely fine, he just looks awful. The bump has gone down but it's still there, and all of the fluid has seeped down into his eyes, giving him 2 black eyes.
Everyone that sees him just gives a little chuckle and says "Yep, that's a boys for you."
I think I'm in for a lot of ER visits with this kid...
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
The Haboob We Actually Saw...
When we got home from the last Utah trip on July 5th, we got half a dozen texts from people asking us if we lived through the big dust storm.
Dust storm?
You mean the half a minute of wind we barely noticed hitting our windows when we were watching TV?
After watching the videos of it I was shocked. We missed a WALL of dust?! How did we do that?!
Frankly, I was disappointed. A massive tower of wind and dust and the only evidence it came through at all is a thin film of dirt on Danny's car? Not that I wanted felled trees or broken windows, but there was nothing!
I had finally gotten over my deep, soul-crushing sadness over missing this when I got a second chance. Monday night Danny, Maverick, and I were driving down Thunderbird toward the 17 (for some of you that means nothing, but it's kinda in the middle of the valley) when what we thought was just storm clouds turned into this:
And here, due to lighting, a far more dramatic representation (This one kinda looks like the cloud in Independence Day that's hiding the alien ships' initial arrival. Just without the fire and aliens inside.):
These pictures can't even begin to portray how huge this thing feels. Remember that scene in The Mummy where the tiny little plane is swallowed by the sand storm? Yeah, it's like that! But I don't think this one was started by an angry, curse driven zombie. Could be wrong. Just a hunch.
These storms are, apparently, pretty rare down here. They're a phenomenon called a haboob (no, I didn't make that up) that only happen in a select few places in the world including AZ and the Middle East. It's part of the monsoon weather (which is a technical term for heavy rains due to weather patterns of some such or another - not just a panicked term we here in AZ call any old rainstorm because they're such foreign, inexplicable things in our sunny desert!) and it has to have very specific conditions to occur.
And we happened to be driving into it.
Did it occur to us to turn around? Not really. How often do you get the chance to outrun a dust storm literally the size of Phoenix?! It was like driving in fog. The particles are so fine it's not like you hear it hitting the windshield or tearing at the car. It's dust, not sand or dirt. So it really didn't "feel" like anything.
The coolest part that isn't in the video is driving out of it. I took this picture to show the difference:
See the brown in the rearview? See the blue ahead? Yeah, that quickly things went from murky and dark to clear and bright.
It was actually really pretty.
On a side note, there was some destruction "near" to us. Our friends Nick and CJ were in the hospital having just welcomed their brand new baby boy, Wyatt, the day before when the dust storm blew their room's window in! Nick had to grab it before it fell on the baby! Scary!
Dust storm?
You mean the half a minute of wind we barely noticed hitting our windows when we were watching TV?
After watching the videos of it I was shocked. We missed a WALL of dust?! How did we do that?!
Frankly, I was disappointed. A massive tower of wind and dust and the only evidence it came through at all is a thin film of dirt on Danny's car? Not that I wanted felled trees or broken windows, but there was nothing!
I had finally gotten over my deep, soul-crushing sadness over missing this when I got a second chance. Monday night Danny, Maverick, and I were driving down Thunderbird toward the 17 (for some of you that means nothing, but it's kinda in the middle of the valley) when what we thought was just storm clouds turned into this:
And here, due to lighting, a far more dramatic representation (This one kinda looks like the cloud in Independence Day that's hiding the alien ships' initial arrival. Just without the fire and aliens inside.):
These pictures can't even begin to portray how huge this thing feels. Remember that scene in The Mummy where the tiny little plane is swallowed by the sand storm? Yeah, it's like that! But I don't think this one was started by an angry, curse driven zombie. Could be wrong. Just a hunch.
These storms are, apparently, pretty rare down here. They're a phenomenon called a haboob (no, I didn't make that up) that only happen in a select few places in the world including AZ and the Middle East. It's part of the monsoon weather (which is a technical term for heavy rains due to weather patterns of some such or another - not just a panicked term we here in AZ call any old rainstorm because they're such foreign, inexplicable things in our sunny desert!) and it has to have very specific conditions to occur.
And we happened to be driving into it.
Did it occur to us to turn around? Not really. How often do you get the chance to outrun a dust storm literally the size of Phoenix?! It was like driving in fog. The particles are so fine it's not like you hear it hitting the windshield or tearing at the car. It's dust, not sand or dirt. So it really didn't "feel" like anything.
The coolest part that isn't in the video is driving out of it. I took this picture to show the difference:
See the brown in the rearview? See the blue ahead? Yeah, that quickly things went from murky and dark to clear and bright.
It was actually really pretty.
On a side note, there was some destruction "near" to us. Our friends Nick and CJ were in the hospital having just welcomed their brand new baby boy, Wyatt, the day before when the dust storm blew their room's window in! Nick had to grab it before it fell on the baby! Scary!
Monday, June 20, 2011
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Yay Zoo!!
In a lot of ways, I think I'm still 5-years-old.
I still cut the crust off my sandwiches (they're gross!).
I love Gushers, Pop Tarts, and most things fake but delicious that I know I shouldn't eat but I do anyway.
And I tend to get inordinately excited over the silliest things.
Case in point: Not a month after we moved down here to Phoenix we got a zoo membership and have already been there a couple of times. I can't tell you how thrilled I was when I got that little pass in the mail! I can go to the zoo as much as I want? Heaven!
I have always loved going to the zoo and aquariums. I had the typical childhood fantasy of becoming a biologist of some sort (Marine biologist was the front runner until I realized that involved a lot of time underwater - no thank you!) and spending my days up to my armpits in smelly, wonderful animals. Once I decided to be a mom instead of a scientist (Was it really ever on the table? Yeah, not really, but it's a nice thought.), I knew that my love for animals was one big way I could connect with my toddler.
Yep. I'm still kind of a toddler, too, I guess.
The zoo is so much fun with Mav! He's so curious. I don't know how much he sees or understands yet, but he gets very interested in certain animals (the giant Komodo Dragon, for instance) and just stares in stunned silence - a feat not often accomplished with our little chatterbox!
Here's my boys, having fun together:
This is why Phoenix Zoo is so cool: you get so close to the animals! In the picture above you can kinda see a spider monkey just to the left of Mav's turned head. In that exhibit you're actually walking in and around the monkeys! How cool is that? They just tell you to not touch the monkeys or pretty much anything in the enclosure because they pee on everything. Below you can see how cool the cheetahs' exhibit is and the new orangutan exhibit. They've got 4 in there, including this funny little guy:
Lastly, for Grandpa Holmgren, an adorable koala that we were lucky we got to see since he and his friend were on their last day at the zoo:
Aren't they cute, lazy little fellas?
I still cut the crust off my sandwiches (they're gross!).
I love Gushers, Pop Tarts, and most things fake but delicious that I know I shouldn't eat but I do anyway.
And I tend to get inordinately excited over the silliest things.
Case in point: Not a month after we moved down here to Phoenix we got a zoo membership and have already been there a couple of times. I can't tell you how thrilled I was when I got that little pass in the mail! I can go to the zoo as much as I want? Heaven!
I have always loved going to the zoo and aquariums. I had the typical childhood fantasy of becoming a biologist of some sort (Marine biologist was the front runner until I realized that involved a lot of time underwater - no thank you!) and spending my days up to my armpits in smelly, wonderful animals. Once I decided to be a mom instead of a scientist (Was it really ever on the table? Yeah, not really, but it's a nice thought.), I knew that my love for animals was one big way I could connect with my toddler.
Yep. I'm still kind of a toddler, too, I guess.
The zoo is so much fun with Mav! He's so curious. I don't know how much he sees or understands yet, but he gets very interested in certain animals (the giant Komodo Dragon, for instance) and just stares in stunned silence - a feat not often accomplished with our little chatterbox!
Here's my boys, having fun together:
This is why Phoenix Zoo is so cool: you get so close to the animals! In the picture above you can kinda see a spider monkey just to the left of Mav's turned head. In that exhibit you're actually walking in and around the monkeys! How cool is that? They just tell you to not touch the monkeys or pretty much anything in the enclosure because they pee on everything. Below you can see how cool the cheetahs' exhibit is and the new orangutan exhibit. They've got 4 in there, including this funny little guy:
Lastly, for Grandpa Holmgren, an adorable koala that we were lucky we got to see since he and his friend were on their last day at the zoo:
Aren't they cute, lazy little fellas?
Sunday, April 10, 2011
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