O'Odham Tash Parade 2008

My son was in a parade on Saturday. He is the dude in the front corner carrying the red flag.

I enjoy seeing all the bright colors at the parade.

I have no idea what these rainbows signify but several children were carrying them in the parade.

And aren't these young ladies beautiful on their horses.

And more very bright colors.

What can you say about this ....................somebody has to keep the emergency room docs busy.

What would a parade be without a memeber of the Red Hat Society being present.

We were so lucky to have a beautiful clear day. It rained most of the day on Friday. It started out very cold in the morning but luckily warmed up a bit. One lesson learned that day................... hot chocolate is better at Chevron and costs much less than Starbucks.

Our trip to the snow....................

We took a road trip up north a bit last weekend to see if we could find some snow to play in. We didn't find much but we saw some amazing scenery along the way.

A stream along the way.

Picketpost Mountain, south of Superior Arizona.

A one way bridge along the way.

Another stream along the way.

And one final stream along the way.

A beautiful mountain.

The great snow tower competition. Who do you think is the winner?

This looks like it might have been a school. I have a thing for old buildings. I always wish I could go in and look around. Of course that would be after some hunky guy goes in and clears out the spiders and mice.

Our trip to the desert....................

Well our family took a trip out to the desert a couple weeks ago so I could see if I could catch some beautiful sunrise pictures. I shouldn't really say family because teen daughter stayed home in bed. No way was she willing to get up before the neighborhood roosters had even stirred. She is the city girl. Her vision of a perfect camping trip would be pitching a tent in the middle of the nearest shopping mall.

But I stray from my original topic. Trying to get some sunrise pics. I guess there are many more sunrises I can try because these didnt come out to great. I want to get a great silhouette of a cactus with the sunrise behind it. I realize now that I really need to get down on the ground and aim my camera up to get a good shot. Ah well I will try again another day. I did get a nice shot of some ruins at Sasco and doctored it up a bit with Paint Shop Pro.
So here are a couple shots from that day

Harley Come Home

November 17th two of our dogs got out of our yard. It wasn't the first time they have gotten out. We are always working on the fence trying to figure out how they do it. Usually they will just get out of the back yard enclosure and come around and hang out in the front yard until someone lets them in. Not this time. They were gone.

We searched and searched for days. We had posters all over the place. People called saying they had seen them but we could never get there in time. We were always in the right place wrong time. We were very worried because these two dogs are very skittish and we knew they wouldnt go to any stranger. So we knew nobody would ever be able to catch them.

I have called animal control, humane society etc. numerous times to see if they had any sightenings. Never any luck. There was one lady who got our number off the posters who called often to check and see if we had found them.

We kept this up for several weeks before we took our signs down and gave up. Finally several weeks after they had run away we received a very sad call. There was a possible sighting many many miles from our home but the dog was dead. My hubby and son went out and took care of it. It was definitely one of ours.

After that we totally gave up any hope. There was no way that the other dog could be alive. She is a very slender dog to begin with. She couldnt survive the desert elements. All we could do was hope that somebody had lured her in with food and she was safe and sound with a new family.

Fast forward to January 10th (today). I opened my front door at 6 AM to take my oldest to school. I couldn't believe who was on my doorstep. It was our other missing dog. Actually it frightened me for about a second. It was still very dark outside and this dog is mostly black with some white markings and has one dark eye and one blue eye.

It has been 54 days and here she is. Right on my doorstep!

She looks like she has been on the run the whole time she was gone. She is in pretty rough shape. She is very very thin. She is whining a bit. Definitely in some pain, won't put one of her back paws down. And her paws are covered in tar. I will probably have to shave most of those sections to remove the tar, luckily I do have dog clippers. We are going to feed her a little bit at a time today so that she doesnt over do it. She is sleeping most of the day away in between her feedings. I had to let my 10 year old daughter stay home today to help me out. I want to try and keep our returning dog apart from my other dog because I dont know how snappy she will be.

Well how is that for a feel good story for the day

Look what we made............

Or should I say look what I made last week. My kids love bread and butter pickles. They can wipe out a jar in one meal. So my proposition to make a few jars was met with skepticism and a bit of disbelief.

My first task in this mission was to find a recipe, so to my trusty computer I headed and found one that I felt would work.

Then off to the store for supplies. And a few hours later...........voila, eight jars of bread and butter pickles. Disgregard the fact that only seven are pictured. You will just have to use your imagination to figure out what happened to the last one.

Yet I still see skepticism on my children's faces. So I pop open a jar and offer samples to the doubting Thomases. The look on my youngest child's face after she bit into her first pickle was hilarious. Her eyes popped and she had a look of amazement. Her mother, who she probably feels is inept (as most children do feel) had actually created a masterpiece. Yeah, yeah they are just pickles but give me my moment of glory won't you.