Miscellaneous

Well, we've been here in Sahuarita for 8 weeks now and there are a lot of noticeable differences - for better or for worse - from where we used to live.

1) The nights are much cooler here.

2) 5 words: huge mustaches, camo, and bolo ties.

3) We don't have scorpions in the house - yipee! Instead we've been battling gigantic spiders (black widows among others). I can't decide which are worse.

4) The temple is far away.

5) They keep the city dark. In our neighborhood there are no streetlights, nothing. It's nearly pitch black and tricky driving at night.

6) We have no ceiling fans in the house and no automatic garage door opener, which REALLY stinks. We probably won't pay to have either installed since we're only here till February.

7) Our dishwasher is the loudest thing in the world. You have to almost shout to be heard. At least I have one, right?

8) We live right smack in the middle of the desert. It's complete desolation outside of our community till you get to any sort of civilization: Tucson to the north or Green Valley to the south. We're still trying to get used to it.

9) We've become avid lizard-watchers. At almost any time of the day we can look out of our side windows to the cinder-block walls four feet away and spot lizards hanging out. The kids really like it.

10) People here are quite active. We always see people running, biking, fishing, etc. And everyone has a dog it seems.

11) I see readheads all over the place here, like at the pool and in our ward. Maybe its making a comeback. :)

12) Prior to moving here, I'd never seen a border patrol car. They are EVERYWHERE.

Since moving we've posted a lot of highlights: visits from family, trips, birthdays, holidays, etc. Here are some other things - more day to day - that have kept us busy as well.

The kids and I spend a lot of time at the pool.

We played miniature golf with the kids a couple of times before it got too hot.

Danny and I dropped the kids off at the care center and played tennis one evening.

There are several parks in our community and this particular one has a "Safari Trail" that has tons of bronze animal statues like these. Emily's favorite were the big horned sheep. I can't wait for cooler weather so we can spend much more time at the parks.

For Father's Day I gave Danny a nice coffe table book of Sweden. It has all sorts of beautiful landscape and scenic pictures. It was a big hit with him.

Emily on her new tricycle she got for her birthday.

Donning her Cinderella dress-up outfit. She wears it all the time.

Dallin attempting to put on Emily's tiarra.

The kids started swimming lessons this week. Emily loves her teacher. Dallin doesn't care for his at all. Actually, he's going through a phase where he doesn't care for anyone at all these days, even Daddy. He's exclusively a Mamma's boy at this point.

Some professional photos we got taken in connection with Emily's birthday.