Tide Pools in Maui

The first few days we were in Maui, it was a little rainy and not so warm. So we went exploring the tide pools after walking to the Farmer's Market. This park is such a great park, with it's own beach, a great children's playground and just across the street from the Bad Ass Coffee Company. Awesome morning!

Maui, here we come!

The boys are marveling at the beautiful flowers and lush, green grass at our layover in the Oahu airport. It was a long flight, but so, so worth it! Thankfully they both travel well and we had the added adult presence of Grandma and Papa to help out when Mommy and Mama got tired and/or ran out of ideas :)

His 1st Trophy!

Emmett received his first trophy at his soccer party the other night. It even has his name on it. He is so proud and excited to have a trophy. He is taking it with us everywhere to make sure everyone can see it. Such a cute boy, growing up too fast!

Playing at the Park

Reid Park in central Tucson has some nice bike paths, lakes, and lovely green grass... all located on the same campus as the regional zoo, a children's train, and a large heated pool facility. The kids LOVE going there!

Granny Doughnut!

I don't think this picture needs any extra explanation :)

Farmers Market

We have been sampling the local farmers markets since moving here. This one has been the favorite so far, the kids loved it and we found lots of yummy produce... even some grass-fed local beef!

Cousins!

Our niece, Lucy, has started staying with us once or twice a week now that her Mom has gone back to work. Miss Lucy loves her cousins and her cousins love it when she comes over. The grown-ups are in love too! The only glitch so far is Lucy's natural preference for breast over bottle. Hopefully, she'll get more used to taking the bottle on her visit days really soon.

This is a picture of all three cousins on our bed the other day. So sweet!

SNOW!

The boys learned what snow was today. Kirsten and Granny Susan took the boys up to Mount Lemmon, just 45 minutes from our house. They all had an awesome time, including a trip to the local pie shop. I was very jealous that I had to stay home and work :(

Cousins on Christmas Eve

The kids had the best time at our Christmas Eve soup party. The picture at the kids table is Emmett (4), Jayla (5), Jaeden (2), Harrison (2). They thought they were so very cool with their own table!

4 generations on Christmas Eve

We had lots of family over for our Christmas Eve potato soup traditional dinner this year. All of my living grandparents were there, Grandpa Bill and Grandma and Grandpa Richter. My parents were there. Kirsten's mom too. My brother and his wife, Lynsey, attended with our lovely niece, Lucy. Lynsey's mom came and brought her two other granddaughters that love to play with our boys. We had a great evening and this picture is pretty special!

Hiking in the Cold :)

The boys are loving the hiking that the mountains around Tucson offer. Are they hiking or posing for a GAP commercial??

Santa at the grocery store

We took the boys to a local grocery store where they were having a Holiday party/sale. Harrison's nose is green because they went to the cookie decorating table and ate their cookies before seeing Santa. There were also tables where you could write your letter to Santa, new ice cream flavors to sample, meat and cheese tray samples, green and red balloons being handed out. We had a great time even though you could barely walk through the aisles. Even bought some Wheat Thins for only $1.27 a box! They had a couple of other good deals, but that one was my favorite :) Our overall purchase shows price paid of $37 and amount saved of $33... almost 50% discount on a grocery trip doesn't hurt. Especially when you get both boys to see Santa at the same time without crying ;)

2008 Family Photo

I know it's been a while since an update (I plan on filling in between May 2008 and now, sometime over the holiday break...) In the meantime, here's a great family photo that was taken at a Rainbow Families event hosted by Wingspan here in Tucson. www.wingspan.org is a non-profit that has been working on GLBT issues here in Tucson for many years. Their most recent launch, Families You Know, is a great program designed to help people understand that gay marriage is not just an issue of semantics or religion, it's about real people and real families who deserve the same rights as other families!

4th Avenue Street Fair

This is one of the events in Tucson I missed the most. The 4th Avenue Street Fair happens in the Spring and Fall every year. The City closes a couple of blocks along 4th Avenue and vendors and artisans set-up along the run, with all the 4th Avenue shops open for business.

We enjoyed ourselves, especially at the local restaurant, Bison Witches. The street fair is awesome and did not disappoint, BUT it's not usually freezing and raining!

Emmett's New School

Emmett is attending the Tucson Country Day School for pre-kindergarten. He still misses his Four Freedoms Florida school (and his mom's miss the wonderful teachers there) but we are all getting comfortable with the new school. This is a picture from his first performance and lunch party at the school. In the performance, the younger kids were helped by 4th graders. This is Emmett with his 4th grader, neither one of them looks overly thrilled. The performance was cute, relatively managed chaos!

Emmett perked up when it was time to check out the buffet line :) Harrison really wants to go to school too, but with his "bubby". So we'll see how he feels when he turns 3 next Spring.

El Tour De Tucson

My brother rode in the El Tour De Tucson this year. It is a 109 mile bike race that has been in Tucson since as far as I can remember. We are all very proud of his commitment and his top 50% finish out of over 10,000 riders! The boys were excited to see him at a corner stop in the race. We waited very early in the morning in some chilly weather. Can you tell they think their Uncle Marcus is very cool?

Our hawk!

This hawk lives in a tree somewhere near our front yard. He sits on this fence almost everyday. I think it's a Coopers Hawk, very impressive!

Emmett started soccer

This is a picture from his first practice. He's playing on a non-competitive team of under 6 year olds, called the "Wild Things". It is really cute and he is enjoying it so far. We do a lot of practicing in the back yard. One of his classmates is on the team and they are little buddies.

Dining in!

A few pics of the boys in the dining room. You can see the north side yard out the window. We plan to remove the charlie bars and update the window some day.

Gardening in the Desert

A few glimpses into Kirsten's successful efforts to garden in the harsh conditions of the Sonoran desert. We have lots of ambition to transform our yards, but the front porch is a great place to start.