Aquarium

While we were up visiting Mary, we took the kids to the Arizona Sea Life Aquarium. It is really fun now that Elliot is old enough to really get excited about things. He was giggling and pointing every which way. This included the drive in the minivan getting to the aquarium- he isn't used to having other kids to watch while driving!

Benjamin was sporting his awesome deep sea goggles

They had lots of exhibits where you can crawl under the tank and pop up inside of it. They also had a full on glass tunnel where you could see sting rays and small sharks swimming under, over, and all around you. It was a kids aquatic wonderland.

Andrew and Benjamin Fishes

Checking it out with buster bubbs

Elliot will now say cheese on demand. Even while being eaten by a giant shark fossil.

Splash Pad

Our community built a splash pad! Elliot loved it. It is really nice to have an option where I don't have to worry about him non-stop trying to drowning himself.

Aaron's comment on this picture was "This is very reassuring. He still looks little next to the flamingo."

Splishing and Splashing

Having a grand ol' time

Montezuma's Castle

After we wrapped up at Slide rock, we headed back to camp for dinner. Unfortunately, Aaron and I were in charge of dinner and we left the cooler in the fridge at home. Major fail. We bought some pizza and had that instead. 

After the kids went to bed, we got to enjoy some star gazing, citadels (I totally won for the record), and watching Lakin get mauled by large beetles that were attracted to our lantern. 

We woke up to the lovely sight of Robb making us blueberry pancakes. They followed through on their meal assignment much better than we did!

Nature's kitchen

Lakin and Alice snuggling for warmth. We Arizonans don't deal well with anything colder than 60.

 On our drive back, we stopped at Montezuma's Castle. It is an Adobe Native American structure built between 1100-1400, when it was mysteriously abandoned. It is 5 stories tall in some places, and the surrounding cliffs are full of caves that groups lived in.

So impressive

We were all exceptionally sweaty, which provided a nice juxtaposition for our freezing morning.

Colby and Alice doing the Jr Ranger scavenger hunt.We almost had a catastrophe when we couldn't find a squirrel before leaving the park. Fortunately Colby "saw" one right before we got to the exit.

Sedona Slide Rock

We spent a weekend camping/ adventuring in Sedona with the Hays. They have a natural water slide up there that we have been meaning to check out for a while now. Robb found us a dispersed camping area, which means that it was free, much more secluded than what we are used to, but there are no facilities (bathrooms or water). That made this a prime opportunity to try out the water barrel thing I got Aaron for his birthday. 

We figured out a great way to fill it up using the filtered water from the fridge without having to stand there.
It was good to put all those fluid mechanics classes I took in college to practical use. 

 The drive up was about 4 hours. The campsite was really scenic and there was far less mariachi music blasting than there have been at other Arizona campsites that we have been too, although there were some loud ATVs driving around after dark. 

Alice nailing the tree with her pine cone pelting skills

Claire loved her first camp out

After setting up camp and attempting to give a very excited Elliot a nap in the tent, we got our swim gear on and headed to Slide Rock!

For some reason, there was a storm trooper walking around the park as we were walking in.
Colby was starstruck. 

The water was very shallow for most of the river, but it cuts deeper in a few places. This forms chutes that push you along the slick rock when you sit in them. The water was cold, which felt nice on a hot day. There was a cliff to jump off of that Aaron and Robb checked out while Lakin and I kept the kids from drowning. 

The view from our claimed section of the river

Friends (minus photographer extraordinaire Lakin)

Elliot arching wildly to escape. The water was a bit too cold for him.

Aaron goes down the slide

Elliot started throwing mud at people as they went down the slide

I was able to divert him to coating a rock with mud. Over. And Over. Endless entertainment!

A contentedly filthy boy

 I think that this series of Robb and Colby is hilarious:

Elliot miraculously became mud-free on our walk back to the car

 Overall verdict: Slide rock was a gorgeous, scenic place. The slides were fun, but not age appropriate for our bunch of kids. It was also hard scrambling up and over rocks with a bunch of kids that needed to be carried as well as our stuff. We will have to go back when we have older kids that will enjoy more than the mud.

Eyes Closed

One of our favorite games right now is telling Elliot to close his eyes. We think that he thinks that it goes dark for everyone whenever he closes them and it is ADORABLE. 

Food Bank Garden

Aaron found us a great service opportunity. Our local food bank is experimenting with a community garden to grow produce to give to the needy. This is their first year trying it, and if it goes well then they will expand it into a lot next year.

Aaron in his element

Buster Bubbs was very well behaved. He watched from his stroller contentedly before getting out to gently rearrange some rocks and look at the plants.

Evaluating the tender young plants

We are excited to be a part of this!

Holidays

Since Father's Day and the 4th of July were both rather under-documented, they get to be combined into one post. 

Father's day breakfast in bed with a very attentive son.
Aaron is such a great dad!

Look at these great paternal skills

 We celebrated the 4th of July with a potluck with some friends. 

Life is more interesting when you have friends like Brad Baggs. 

Patriotically-outfitted Bloods
(Elliot's shirt has a monkey waving a flag because nothing says America like flag-bearing monkeys.)

We debated going to the fireworks show at Town Hall, but Elliot was pretty darn tired. Luckily some of our neighbors were setting off some fireworks that definitely would have been illegal in Virginia. So, we watched those from our driveway before putting Elliot to sleep. He didn't mind the loud sounds as long as I was holding him. He was adequately awestruck.

June Videos

Elliot and I often participate in Synchronized Leg Dancing. Legs Up, Wiggle Feet, Legs Down, Legs Up, Apart, Together, etc etc. This video caught the very cute tail end of a practice session.

Sometimes Aaron and I will get jealous because he will kiss his toys/books more often then he will give us kisses. 

Elliot closed himself in the bathroom and wouldn't let Aaron in. Many giggles ensued. 

Bye Bye Poopies

Elliot recently developed a fascination with toilets. He freaks out whenever I close the door while using the bathroom, dissolving into tears and pounding on the door until I'm done. When I let him in, he immediately goes calm and starts waving and saying "bye bye poopies" over and over again. It got to the point where he would walk around the house saying "bye bye poopies" just thinking about it. 

We decided to capitalize on the excitement and get him his own little potty. It was a hit at first. I got some library books with potties, found some YouTube videos for kids, and settled down for some potty time. 

Fully pantsed, sitting on the potty

Hanging out on the potty. I love this picture. 

End result: I got him to sit on the potty for about half an hour each morning for a week. He peed twice! It was very exciting both times, but by the end of the week his enthusiasm had diminished and he wouldn't sit on it for longer than 5 minutes, even with me sitting next to him reading books. I wasn't actually expecting to fully potty train him this time around. I'll wait until he has more words and can better understand the mind games. I think this was a good exposure, and we'll keep bringing the potty out every now and then until we're ready to crack down for real.

Miniatures

We went to the miniatures museum in Tucson. It had a lot more going on than I had anticipated and was definitely worth a visit! All of the exhibits were incredibly detailed, and many were humorously meta. One miniature house included an attic room full of  in-process miniature houses. A lot of the larger miniatures took thousands of hours to create (everyone needs a hobby I guess). It was a great exposure to the sub-cultural movement of miniatures. Apparently it's a thing!

A violin shop built inside a violin!

Elliot was majorly weirded out walking on the glass floor over Christmas Village

They had this cool tree with little fairy holes at child eye-level

Of course, my favorite miniature is this lil' fella!
(Here pictured being a clingy stinker that refused to let me play volleyball)

Things that Happened in June

Lots and lots of stacking

Kinda sorta pushing himself around on the Lion

Ridiculous amounts of cheesing at the park 

He still ends up sitting on the counter while I get ready every morning

He can run now!

Sharing his goldfish with his beloved Lego man

Crying, probably because I tried to feed him lunch or something equally offensive

So Zen

Sweaty hair is awesome

So is feeding mom

Doing manly car maintenance 

Elliot has a new best friend named Wyatt. He just moved in to the ward and they are 2 weeks apart in age. They follow each other around copying each other and having a grand old time. They are in the same nursery class (which is saying something- our ward has 3 nurseries!)