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.

Maxie has joined our family!

Meet our new puppy, Maxie. We rescued her from a not so great first 9 months of her life. She is settling in wonderfully with Ruby and the boys. We love you Maxie, thank you for coming to our family!

I Love Lucy!

My brother and his wife had their first child yesterday, Lucy Valentine! Isn't she sweet, our little niece :)

Lollipops rock!

The boys on the fireplace in the front living room. We painted the fireplace the terra cotta color to bring out the beauty in the handpainted mexican tile. I think it looks really nice and will look better when we make a few more improvements in that space (not to mention add some furniture!)

Ostrich Farm

Kirsten and the boys came up to Phoenix to meet me at the EEBA conference. The hotel was wonderful and we had a great escape, even if a little too short. On the way home from Phoenix, they stopped at the local Ostrich Farm in Picacho Peak. Very unique tourist stop on Interstate 10.

Marketing with Papa

Emmett's school had a festival today that included a "marketplace" for families involved with the school. My dad hosted a pretty good table for his home inspection business and was proud to have his grandsons in company shirts. Pretty good marketing campaign, huh?

Agua Caliente park

Kirsten loves to take the boys to Agua Caliente (hot water) park just a few miles from our house. See, there is a little bit of water in Tucson ;) The boys love it!

Kirsten and I had our commitment ceremony on this very shore in April 2000. I think those are the same ducks our lab, Jasman, was chasing during the vows!

Colossal Cave

Kirsten took Emmett to Colossal Cave yesterday. A very cool place that he fully enjoyed exploring. They were lucky to be one of only two parties in their tour and got a lot of one on one attention form the tour guide. Emmett continues to say he wants to be a scientist when he grows up and he handled this tour in a very scientific manner. He even chose to wear his "desert" t-shirt with a snake and a lizard :)

In the new Tucson house

Here's a pic of the boys in the family room of our new house. This house is 1000 square feet larger than our Florida house, so this room is 100% empty for now. The boys are loving having such a free space inside!

Nature Photography and Highway Driving

Go hand in hand for Kirsten! I can't believe she took this picture while driving from Florida to Arizona. Pretty good, although perhaps a bit dangerous...

Bye Aunt Joo-Joo :(

Saying good-bye to friends and family was the hardest part of leaving Florida :( We hope to see you all again very soon!

We moved to Tucson!

Well after much discussion and agonizing over many things, we decided to pursue a new chapter of our lives in Tucson, AZ. Aside from the fact that we made a move to a DESERT in the most intense heat of the summer, the move went as smoothly as a cross-country move with two small children can go!

The house we moved to has a huge pool that the kids love, we are close to Grandma and Papa and are enjoying their frequent visits and general assistance.

Kirsten will continue to stay home with the boys and now has the unenviable task of interviewing and finding a pre-K program for Emmett and a speech therapist for Harrison, while helping the kids adjust to a new life in a new place. Vanessa starts her new job on Monday (no rest for the weary traveler!) and is excited and nervous. This job is in a new industry, energy efficiency. She is opening the State of Arizona for a non-profit based in Massachusetts, and will be the AZ Program Director. The website is www.csgrp.com if you want to learn more.

Pictures of the new house to be added when we find the camera ;)

Staying with Granny

For our last week in Florida, we stayed a few days with Granny Susan in Punta Gorda. Although it was an emotional visit, during a very stressful time, Granny found lots of fun moments with us. We are looking forward to visiting her wonderful Florida house next summer!

Birthdays are awesome!

Our last birthday party at Pump It Up! in Fort Myers, FL... totally fun! The poor birthday girl, Jenna, was sick and we felt bad for her but still managed to have a good time. Happy Birthday Jenna, I hope your next parties are illness free and lots of fun for you too :)

Our yard is so fun

For an escape from all of the packing. we took the boys outside for some good old fashioned fun. It was raining when we set up the tarp on the front yard hill, but the rain abated so we got the trusty hose out. Throw in a little dish soap and you have an instant slip and slide!

Emmett got a Hamster :)

He named her Alicia, like Go Diego's cousin on the cartoon show. He loves her very much, but she is quite the escape artist. We have already had three overnights where Alicia went missing. This morning Kirsten and Emmett picked out a new "facility" for her that she shouldn't be able to squeeze out of. We'll see.

Harrison's Eyes turned Green!

Check this out... we just noticed it last week. Almost the same exact shade as Mommy Vanessa's. Such a handsome fella!

Too much stuff!

Check out this great video about how/why we have too much stuff.

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Some things our family is doing to help include:

* Using cloth napkins and towels instead of paper products

* Using toilet paper made from recycled material

* Bringing canvas and re-usable bags with us when we food shop, so we don't use disposable bags
* Using http://www.freecycle.com/ and http://www.craigslist.org/ when we do want to obtain something

* We frequent our local farmer's markets and joined a CSA this year, very yummy local produce

* Recycle, recycle, recycle

* Eventhough the boys are young, we have started talking to them about these subjects and will continue as their capacity for understanding increases

* The boys are not permitted to watch commercial TV and the adults Tivo most shows, so actual commercials seen are limited (not sure if we are ready to give up the TV altogether!)

* We frequent our local library to avoid purchasing books and DVDs, without feeling like we are missing out on anything

I hope to see the list above grow in the coming months and years. Please enjoy the video and share it with lots of people. Little steps by lots of people will make a big difference.

Happy St. Patty's Day

Kirsten, being the totally fun mom that she is, made the boys GREEN breakfast this morning. They enjoyed green scrambled eggs with some sliced kiwi and thought they were hot stuff! So cute!

Easter picnic

We attended a very fun Easter picnic at Jaycee Park in Cape Coral yesterday. A group of families that met through an impromptu play group all came. The kids made, hid, and found easter eggs filled with treats ranging from chocolate candies to spring themed erasers and plastic bugs! Each family brought a picnic lunch and ate under the pine trees, while watching the Gulf of Mexico. What a lovely day, 82 degrees with a wonderful sea breeze. This is a rare photo of our entire family, taken by another mom in attendance (thanks Michelle, great pics!). And thanks to Brooke for organizing such a great event!

Other kids understood Harrison!

I took the boys to a neighborhood birthday party yesterday. The boys are friends with a 12 year old boy down the street, his little brother turned 9 last week. They invited us over for the party and we had a great time, even though Emmett and Harrison were by far the youngest kids there :)

Harrison is starting to gab a lot more, but we only understand parts of what he says. He gets his points across pretty well, but we have to pay close attention. I was so impresed yesterday with the other kids at the party. They understood Harrison say "thank you", pronounced "daint-dooooo", and "excuse me", pronounced "ah-doo-dee". So cute when other little kids understand him, besides Emmett. He'll be talking in no time!

Neighborhood Playground

It seems our house has been deemed the gathering place of choice for the neghborhood children. The boys LOVE playing with all the big kids and it keeps everyone having fun and busy outside! The other kids vary in age from 7 to 12, and all of them seem to really enjoy playing with the boys. It helps that we have a very cool playground and some electric riding toys!

Of course they soak up the grown-up attention too, and the snacks :) Not sure what we'll do when it's warm enough to swim, I don't think we want to be running the neighborhood pool party everyday after school! Maybe I should have the other parents sign liability waivers

We did our kitchen...

Here are some before and after pictures. We LOVE it, I only wish we had done it a few years ago. It makes a huge difference in how the house looks, feels and functions. Everyone loves it, the pictures don't even do it justice. :)

Harrison is cooking too!

Inspired by his brother's interest in cooking and a great little kitchen that Granny found at a garage sale, Harrison is pursuing his own interest in pretend cooking on our back porch. Such a cutie-pie. I'm sure the pretend food turned out very well :)

We joined the local CSA!

The farm is called Worden Farms, check it out at http://www.wordenfarm.com/

On Sunday, we attended a farm tour and member potluck. The food was great, the weather was beautiful, and the people were interesting and fun. If you are looking for a good book to read, try Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma". I really enjoyed it and that book is what led us to the CSA (community sponsored agriculture, if you were wondering).

Here are a couple of great pics from the day: