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 :)