Fun in Fall

Friday night Dane went out to dinner with a visiting professor so I took the kids and myself to Sweet Tomatoes (our favorite restaurant- Aria and Zade for the ice cream and me for the salad) and to the Halloween festivities at the zoo.  Every year the zoo decorates the place and then kids can go trick-or-treating.  Zade isn't in these pictures because he was too scared to get close, and also too absorbed in his lollipop to barely look up.

On Saturday I met my friend Sara and her family at Agua Linda Farms.  They have a bunch of fun activities for kids including a movie out under the stars.

Pumpkin Painting

Butterfly Gardens

Disney on Ice in Tucson

 

On Saturday I took Aria and Zade to Disney on Ice.  The best part was definitely when Rapunzel and Flynn Ryder did aerial stunts with long, orange curtains.  The horse on ice skates was pretty impressive also.

 Aria dressed up in her princess costume, as did at least half the audience of young girls.

 Here's Aria with Daphne and Salem, peeking their heads out of a play tree stump at the zoo.

 Aria and Zade feeing the ducks at Reid Park Zoo.

On Saturday evening, we made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, and then had a tea party with milk and coca.  Zade seemed too tired to make it, so Dane took him upstairs to go to sleep. Then Aria and I danced around the kitchen. It was fun to spend one on one time with Aria, and she seemed to be in her own little heaven.

Oktoberfest 2012

OKTOBERFEST
On Saturday I took the kids up to Mount Lemmon (about an 80 minute drive) with my friend Sarah to enjoy Oktoberfest, and the fall leaves.  The leaves were just beginning to change, probably in a couple more weeks they'll be at their peak.  It was fun to be up in the mountains and feel the cool, crisp air, and be surrounded by green.

 

They had a lot of fun games for the kids including a hoola-hoop, jump rope, and balloon popping contest. The kids received prizes for every game in which they participated.

Aria took this photograph (and many others) of my friend Sarah and I.

Aria and Daphne had fun walking through the wild life and looking for wild flowers, leaves, rocks and other natural things to collect.  The red plants in this picture had a strong wild forest smell, so we brought some home with us.

During our nature walk, we came across a fuzzy, black caterpillar, that the kids couldn't resist touching.

Although that caterpilar was pretty cool, it doesn't compare with the one we found in our backyard, that was roughly 6 inches long and practically an inch thick!

PLAYGROUP

This Tuesday for playgroup, we met at Sarah's pool at her apartment.  Yes, you can still go swimming outdoors in October in Arizona, and I don't think they heat the pool.  The water was a little cold at first, but the afternoon temperatures have been in the upper 90's, sometimes peaking 100 this week.  Aria has become so confident with her floaties on, that her and her two best friends, Salem and Daphne, just take off and swim around the pool together.

QUEEN AZURE

Here's a whimsical thing that happened this week.  I had been using the computer and got up to get something.  Immediately Azure jumped up and took over the computer chair.  When I came back to the computer and tried to get her off the chair, she refused to back down and defiantly kept taking swipes at me, her tail swinging aggressively behind her.  So I was forced to sit on one of the tiny kid chairs. :)

GENERAL CONFERENCE
We were excited to hear the announcement that a temple is going to be built here in Tuscon! Unfortunately, we'll be gone by the time it's finally finished.  Regardless, it will be a great blessing for the people who live here.

I decided we needed to start some more family traditions, so we decided to make a fun breakfast Sunday morning with crepes, bacon, and muffins.

And like every morning, the kids personalities were easy to see.

Here's Dane enjoying the fruits of our labor. :)  Since it's Sunday, it's the one day a week he is available to spend with the family until he can get his dissertation done.  What a great day it is!