February included two trips: to Utah and to Arizona.
Drew had been invited to participate in BYU's Public Health Career Networking Event, so we decided to make a trip of it and accompany him. We wanted to take the van, but it was making a noise that made one pull this face whenever one turned:
Something was up with the power steering. So we took the truck! It definitely felt like a safer option, driving to a place where snow was a distinct possibility, but only the people in back can watch movies, so when we switched halfway through we had to re-listen to all the movies the 1st front-person hadn't gotten to watch. Drew was not pleased.
But look at the beautiful sunset!
We were greeted by this doll on our arrival.
The next morning was bright and beautiful as an amaryllis.
Drew went to BYU and dropped us off at Kaitlyn's house for the morning. She was booted, braced, and blighted again, so we sat. And I made her a veggie wrap that she gagged down. When Drew got back we met Papa Mark for a treat.
Then we stopped by Nana and Papi's to say hello.
Nana is working hard on her Spanish.
We had dinner with Forbes and admired Baby Ava that evening.
I do love Lone Peak in the sunrise.
Drew went somewhere that morning. Can you guess where, based on his outfit?
Skiing, of course! They had a grand time.
Vivien busied herself with Grandma Paula's dolls while he was gone.
She still has the doll on her shoulders here and I think it kind of looks like it's her hair.
Rafe and Annie played outside most of the day.
In the afternoon we went to Kangaroo Zoo. Or was it Coconut Grove? Some play-place. It is hard to keep track of 4 kids in a big place like that, so I just stuck with the littlest and left the rest to fend for themselves.
Sometimes they intersected.
Then Merrick got sucked into the arcade and "played" the game demos for a good long while.
When all the kids were "playing" arcade games we knew it was time to go. They were irate that I wouldn't let them finish their game.
We hit up the Friends of the Public Library sale on the way back and beefed up our library that was already spilling off our shelves.
We had "Second Saturday" with my family.
Then Sunday was another gorgeous Utah winter day for our drive home.
Here is a sweet Vivi hand for holding on a long drive.
The next week was Drew's Spartan race in Phoenix. The van was still suspect, so we took the truck again. A heavily cushioned Annie enjoyed some Disney movies in the back.
We drove down Thursday after work, then Friday we got up early and dropped Drew off for a day at the Intel in Chandler. I took the kids to the South Mountain Preserve for a hike. Annie found a cactus of hearts, especially fitting as it was Valentine's Day.
Here we are at the visitor's center scoping out the hiking options.
We decided to drive up to the top of the mountain and take the National Trail to Fat Man's Pass. There were beautiful views of the valley on the winding drive up.
Somehow about half a mile in we turned onto a trail that wasn't marked in the park map (I really hate it when maps are incomplete). I knew our destination was a Hidden Valley, and the trail we were on seemed to be more interested in summits than valleys.
I pulled out my phone and blessedly had enough service for Google Maps. We had turned onto "Old Man's Trail" that intersected with "Midlife Crisis." I used my elf eyes to guess where the trail we should have been on ought to be, then we "cactus whacked" our way back to the trail.
Phoenix in winter is most pleasant for hiking!
It was maybe even a little hot, especially for little girls that insist on wearing their sweatpants everywhere we go.
I had planned to do the whole Hidden Valley Loop, but little people were tired, so we decided to call it good at Fat Man's Pass, or as Merrick calls it, "Bat Man Past!" which was about 2.5 miles downhill from where we'd begun. I was distinctly relieved to be able to squeeze myself through the pass. I am not a Fat Man! I am not!
We had a little snack and drank some water and let the creatures crawl around on the boulders for awhile. At one point Rafe came darting by with wild eyes, looking most uncomfortable, and gasped that he needed a bathroom. I had eaten some bad dip in the car on the way there and had diarrhea all night, so I assumed he had the same. We went a couple hundred yards from the trail and I helped him get set up, then lo and behold, quite the opposite of diarrhea, he laid the biggest poop egg I have ever beheld in the wild. We left it to dry in the hot Arizona sun.
I am so grateful we live close enough that I can show my children these magnificent saguaro cactuses. They are SO COOL!
Here's some little desert flowers.
Rafe biffed it and had to hike back to the car with a bloody knee. There were many tears.
But I was so proud of them all. I carried the littlests only a small percentage of the entire 5 mile hike. They did wonderfully.
On the way back we visited Grandma Brunsdale, then we went by Scott's house and let the kids play in the backyard for awhile. They have a lot of orange trees.
This little girl is a firecracker! They all had a good time playing together.
My crazies even tried to swim for a bit, but it really wasn't quite warm enough for it. They were happy to do bubbles instead.
For our Valentine's Day dinner we went to Organ Stop Pizza! The children were cold.
And I cried.
On our way home we stopped by Grandma and Grandpa Woods' to visit. Grandpa talked to Drew. Grandma talked to me about how terrible getting old is. The kids admired the coffee table...
...and played with all the toys from my childhood.
In the morning we woke up and got a slow start to Fort McDowell, so Drew had to start his race in a bit of a rush.
This year he competed in the age-group race instead of the open. It was a much different group of contenders.
Like this guy that looked like Ross Poldark. He was a hoot to watch. He was focused, but in a way that demanded your focus, with the flipping of the silky locks! And the choreographed stretching! Too funny.
Here was this year's course.
There were rolling mud hills...
...and the dunk wall...
..the bucket carry..
...the rope climb (I did not have a good angle for this shot because I was doing my own Spartan race hurrying over from the bleachers hauling a Merrick who had decided his legs didn't work, but Drew is on the left in the back)...
...rings...
...atlas pulls...
...and tire flips. Drew flipped it the first time, but could not get purchase for his second flip.
So to the burpee box he went!
It was a humbling race for Drew. He missed quite a few more obstacles this year and ended up doing 120 penalty burpees. This wall was the very last hard obstacle and it took him 3 tries to get up.
But he sure pulled it together enough to sparkle on the fire jump!
Awww, doesn't it look like fun?
This is the glorious rest that awaits you at the end of your Spartan race. A nice refreshing "cold wash." It was hard to tell if Drew was shaking from fatigue or exposure.
Rafe was inspired.
As was The Vivs. We went back to Mesa for Drew to get a real shower, then hit up Firehouse Subs and made our trek home.
Other February happenings! Annie celebrated Valentine's Day at school.
We did homemade Valentines for her class. We didn't even put any candy with them, because if I can't eat candy, no one else should be able to either.
Annie watercolored the background hearts, then wrote her special letter and her classmates' special letters on the white hearts, then she glued them together. She has the cutest class of 7 little girls. She loves it.
We had a snow day!
Then the next day was a regular day.
Snow goes away fast in Albuquerque.
We took all the kids to Puesta's Star Wars Math and Science Night. It was a fun event. There were free hot dogs for all.
There was a station for making Jabba Slime that turned out surprisingly well. There was origami, some addition/subtraction games, geometry, a craft to make a baby Yoda. The teacher at the craft table was drilling her name into the kids so we would try to get into her class next year and her team-teacher said forlornly, "They're in the bilingual program, so you won't be able to have them. I'd take any one of them in my class!" I was terribly proud. So I smiled and cried a little.
Drew's coworker Emily has a cool house in the bosque and she got some baby chicks, so we went to check them out. She was happy to say they are all still alive despite their best efforts--they kept doing stupid things like falling asleep in the water bowl.
Little baby dinozar.
They also have a snake and it had just shed its whole skin in one long piece. The kids love to visit Emily!
Our Art and Music concert was at the end of February/beginning of March. I decided to be a real adult and get my bow rehaired for the first time in 12 years. Oh my gosh it is so much easier to play with a fresh bow! I took it to Robertsons. They have this display of little baby cello cases in their atrium.
I also took my violin to the bishop of our neighboring ward who happens to be a luthier to get the cracked seams in my instrument re-glued. He showed me the Guarneri violin top he's restoring.
It is so crazy to see something so old and fragile and precious! And I love the story told on the back of the top--all those patches and cleats to repair it over the years. I can't imagine having one in my house, much less taking tools to it. So much pressure!
Here is the most troublesome passage of the concert from the Great Gate of Kiev in Pictures. We changed the bowings of this passage so many times there is almost a hole in the music from all the erasing.
My challenge is going well. I was leading the points category until our AZ trip, but I will probably still win the weight loss percentage. I have been working very hard on my butterfly so I can swim a 200 IM without dying. I keep scraping my hand over the top of the lane line when I swing my arms over the water though, so I have a permanent bruise on my hand here.
Also, I did something to my hip after a practice with a lot of kicking. I went to practice, came home and had a very normal morning/afternoon, then when I got back from picking up the kids from school I could not straighten my leg at the hip or bring it past 90 degrees towards my chest without excruciating pain. It is not easy to find a comfortable position to sleep in when you can neither bend nor straighten your hip. It took about a week before I could walk normally again. Still not sure what that was...
I ordered a lamp for our family room. It was supposed to arrive the day before we left for one of our trips, but I got a note in the mailbox saying it was not delivered because the mailbox was too full. I had to go pick it up at the post office. This is how big it was:
I don't think there's a scenario where my little mailbox would ever be empty enough to fit that box. Oh well. It is here now! It's nice to have a light in that corner in the evening, especially after I took down the Christmas lights for spring.
Spring! So much work to be done. I got brave and pruned back my peach and nectarine tree.
The peach turned out pretty well.
The nectarine was wildly overgrown and had probably not ever been shaped, so I am less proud of how it turned out. I think it was about 15 feet tall before.
Here is what it looked like last spring. I got rid of all that stuff in the middle.
I bought myself a spring wreath!
And a bathmat for the downstairs bathroom that ties in the gray of the counter with the warm color of the tile!
Also I finally bought nyjer seed for the goldfinches. The guy at Lowe's had to climb up that ladder to get it for me. The finches have not flocked to it like they have in days gone by. I think it might have something to do with a certain zip line....also a neighbor's cat who likes to hunt in our yard....
The doves are ok with it, but still suspicious.
Drew finished up the leaf vacuuming I never finished last fall.
He was very dirty afterwards.
KID UPDATE!
Squishy Merrick...
...who hides under the rocking horse...
...and stays up late until he crashes on the couch...
..and has the best pouty face there is.
Guess what? He fell off the wall, again! This time he fell straight onto the cinderblock barrier between the rocks and the garden. Smashed his glutes.
I couldn't get him to put weight on it initially, so I used chocolate chips to trick him into walking around so I could assess the damage. He walked around the rest of the day clutching his sore little heinie. He was all better the next day.
Here are Merrick and Annie in their boat.
This Annie!
She loves to draw. I took this picture just a little too early. She added eyebrows next!
Here is a video of Rafe emptying the dishwasher, wearing a mermaid skirt, and singing to himself in his special singing-to-myself voice. He's a loony. Also, he and Vivien both say bacteria, "Bac-a-te-ri-a."
Here is Vivien with a tissue full of blood spots from dabbing her dry lips throughout the day.
Vivien told me the other day that I was a "great noter." I think we were practicing guitar.
Another Vivien gem: "I love cuddling more than running."
Here is a bed full of babies.
All the kids at the park.
And another park day. A couple days in February we picked kids up from school and went straight to a park until dinner. They were happy kids.
And here are three random pictures. Post ward choir at our house:
Baby Brock learning to crawl
And these apples I bought at Costco solely because they reminded me of Mr. Bean's apples from Fantastic Mr. Fox.
