Community Garden

For the past several months, we have been involved with a project sponsored by the local food bank to start a community garden. I agreed to be the project coordinator and have been able to meet lots of great people in the community. 

The town has a fenced off land dedicated to community gardening that has been abandoned for years. Ground squirrels, bunnies, and insufficient irrigation led to it's downfall. We took a lot of advice from the community garden in Green Valley and decided to invest in metal cattle troughs to plant in. Critters can't climb up the metal edges!

The before picture- abandoned garden plots

 I convinced Aaron to make the irrigation a service project for his 11 year old scouts. 5 of them showed up with their parents, and I was surprised by how hard working they were. 

Trenches dug mostly by child labor

 We had a compost soil mix delivered from a supplier up in town.

Elliot loved watching the tractor. Or at least he did for the first 20 minutes, after which he played with my phone. 

Parks & Rec guys have been really accommodating. It would have taken forever if we didn't have their tractor there. 

 We had some last minute setbacks with only 6 of our 10 tanks being delivered in time for our kick off. That ended up being ok, since a handful of the groups didn't show up. The ones that did had a great time, and hopefully we get into the swing of things with a full capacity of gardeners. 

Going for the coal miner look with his filthy face and rock collection

The after picture! Hopefully this will be brimming with greenery soon!

Chiricahua

We went on a camping trip to Chiricahua, a neat little place about 2 hours east of us. 4 families went, and we were the only ones without a kid under 1 year old and I felt kind of left out. Elliot is growing up too fast!

An aesthetically pleasing cliff by the campsite

The kiddos loved the bridge near the campsite

Hey. You. With the camera. 

Aaron was a simultaneously hilarious and terrifying and Troll

Love my little blondie!

 I think this was the first time I have every gone camping in Southern Arizona without having someone nearby blasting mariachi music. We cooked up some pulled pork sandwiches and blueberry peach cobbler, then played a rigorous round of Bonanza where everyone was nice to Lakin because she was loosing, then she came back to beat us all. Oh the irony.

Rays of sunlight in the morning

It got down to the 50's at night. Not freezing, but enough to get all of us desert folk all bundled up. 

We brought Elliot's chair for a change. He wanted to hang out there most of the time, even when he wasn't eating.

Getting in some puppy bonding time with the Wiscomb's dog

Busily stuffing the cup holder with assorted gravel and acorns

  After a hearty breakfast, we set out to hike Echo canyon, a trail rife with neon lichen and seemingly precarious boulder towers.

It was kind of like a differently colored Bryce Canyon

They both started kissing rocks during a water break. 

Looking straight up at this boulder ready to crush us in the grotto

Elliot was pretty good for the first mile, but then it got close to his nap time and we had to carry him crying most of the way back. Maybe one day we'll do the whole loop. 

The hikers (minus the Wiscombs who had to bail on the hike due to car troubles, and Lakin taking the picture)

Thanks for a fun trip, guys!

General Conference

General Conference: A time for attempting to be spiritually uplifted while attempting to convince a small child to stay quiet for several hours.

Drawing was great, but he freaked out whenever he caught me taking notes with my pen.
He has a strong desire to have a monopoly on all writing instruments at any given time. 

Inevitably we got to this point both days

 Luckily he slept through the Afternoon session, so we did get to listen to 50% of conference uninterrupted. On Saturday we went to the pool after the afternoon session, which was a great choice. I love living in a place where we can go swimming in October!

Clubhouse Adventures & The Zoo

Golfing at the clubhouse

Riding the train at the clubhouse

He was completely still the whole ride. Nary a smile was cracked.
You have to focus hard when riding trains!

 On a more daring level, we took Elliot to the zoo for the first time! He loved it. His face when he saw the tiger by the entrance was precious. 

This weird looking bird got super close to us in the bird enclosure

But let's be honest, he chose puddles over animals several times during the trip. He also got more excited about squirrels than about most of the actual zoo animals. 

We had to physically drag him away from the elephant board game

Elliot's Interests (21 months)

He abruptly started loving to draw.
He frequently scribbles on Aaron's homework, and insists on holding all writing instruments that are in his view.

His beloved Legos. He tenderly adjusts the baseball cap of the Lego man and will sometimes give him kisses.

Playgroup, especially the water table. He gets drenched every week. 

Watching cars

Light and Shadows

Gardening/anything that involves being outside

Eating with utensils. I donated an old shirt to replace his bibs because he always tore them off. 

Family Pictures

Our friend Melony took our family pictures for us at Desert Meadow Gardens. Elliot was not very cooperative with the family shots, but I guess we'll keep him anyway.

Sometimes family pictures result in unsuspecting dads being punched in the face

This one is my favorite

Why hello there, brilliant blue eyes!

Despite the fact that only smiles in pictures where we aren't holding him, he really does love his parents.
We hope.