Vacation Day 3

So far today I have planted my Provence lavender, got Brent to put up the flagpole ready for next week and attach my weather beaten wooden US flag to the wall next to the front door. We worked on and off in the garage today reorganizing cabinets and stuff, but it was way to hot and so I went inside, read a book and took a nice long nap. Just what I needed. I don't really feel like doing anything more and so I won't!

The Ride from Show Low

Brent and I have always loved looking at the countryside and Arizona is no different. I remember the first time I went through the mountains here and saw the rugged beauty of it, I was overwhelmed. I still am. It's very beautiful, but very harsh.
On the ride back from Show Low today, I took a few photos. The first three just show the trees that live in the cooler climes here in the north.

Rocks covered by trees.

Can you see the old rusted car at the bottom of the photo? I zoomed in pretty good to get this shot as the car was a few hundred feet down this ravine. Who knows whether it was pushed down there or was as a result of an accident. Scary stuff.

I love the way you can see the vertical layers on this rock.

Brent has a thing about caves. He's always looking to see if he can spot them, and here are some beauties.

Lovely view here. You could actually get down among these rocks here and Brent did, but I promised I wouldn't post the pictures! Wink, wink!

I believe this is the Salt River which will eventually end up running through Mesa and into Tempe.

And a zoom in of the above shot.

The Arizona Lavender Festival

The weather forecast today for Phoenix was 119F and so Brent and I decided to skip the heat and travel about 187 miles north east to go to the Arizona Lavender Festival. That's a very long drive, I hear you say. Well, it is, but we have been otherwise occupied for a few years now and haven't really been out of town, so we enjoyed the ride.

We arrived at the Red Rock Ranch at about 10am and the weather was notably cooler.

We went to the gift shop first which can be seen to the far left of this house and we scooped up some 

lavender plants (complete with Yum Yum fertilizer), some essential oil, a cooking with lavender cookbook and a very pretty lavender mug with built in infuser. There were tons of people crammed in there as a cooking demonstration was about to begin, but we decided we already had our book, so we headed on outside.

Love this closeup of the door, it looks so pretty.

This picture is of the side of the house and it just looks so neat with those trees in front of it, rather like a bit of Provence.

Here's some close ups of the lavender bushes.

This is a field where you could go and pick your own lavender. I chose to buy my own plants and hopefully I'll be picking my own next year! 

A lavender field with fantastic shaped red rocks in the background.

This is one of the experimental sections where they grow different types of lavender and see how they come on. The plants were quite tiny. The owner, Mike Teeple, came out and gave a talk about how he bought the land 22 years ago and really, accidentally stumbled on how well lavender grew here at this high altitude. They have some of the best and purest lavender in the world here and I bought nine plants in all, a mixture of Provence and Grosso, so lets hope I don't kill them off!

For more information, go to http://redrockfarms.com/

What happened in May?

Christopher turned 5 and got a brand new bike and scary shark bike helmet!

Joshua kept on growing. He developed a nasty rash on his face. The doctor didn't know what it was, but it's gone now.

Katelynn continued to love to eat donuts and Sophie loved  to wait for any leftovers! We also continued to paint the house. This is the kitchen in its before state!

Katelynn got lazy on a trip to Target. Poor Granddad!

Joshua enjoyed snuggles with Granddad.

Cousin Danielle came to visit and loved holding baby Joshua.

Joshua

Monday, April 15th 2013
Anyone who's ever been pregnant knows how those last few weeks are really hard. You're big and fat, it's hard to walk properly, you can't get comfortable no matter what, you cry all the time...YOU JUST WANT TO GET THAT KID OUT!!!
Me...I went waaaay past my due date with all of my kids, but Olivia has always been the lucky one. The longest she ever went was 38 weeks...until this one. Last Saturday when she was 40 weeks and 1 day, she was contracting every 3 minutes and looked like she was in quite a bit of pain. When I came home from work I thought she should go along to the hospital to get checked out but they still sent her home.
She managed to get an earlier appointment on Monday morning instead of Tuesday and when the doctor checked her, she was amazed that the baby was so low down and said that she could definitely go in to get induced. We volunteered for Banner Ironwood (easier to get in to), and an hour later, this was Olivia waiting for it all to start.

Things weren't always so easy peasy and Olivia had a few moments where she definitely wasn't smiling, but eventually, this little man came into the world.

A  very proud Grandma!

Tuesday, April 16 2013
Granddad and I took Katelynn and Christopher to see their new brother, but despite the smiles, I don't think they could have cared less about him really. We practically had to force Joshua onto their knees. Granddad loved it though!

Don't you just love baby feet?

You forget how small they are, even against a little soon to be 5 year olds!

Tuesday, April 23 2013
Aunt Britney came over and gave him a bath. He looks so snuggly!

Wednesday, April 24 2013
Nine days old and he is just so cute! I think he reminds me of my eldest when he was a baby!

Friday, April 26 2013

There's nothing like a snuggle with Mommy!

Joshua Thomas, our little man, aged eleven days!