Packing, Moving, Fires, Hotels, Monsoons and more Parks than we've ever seen in one area, ever.

Hello!  Thank you so much to people who posted a comment, it gave me the encouragement I needed to continue posting (although I would have done it anyway for Kristen):)  We have a few pics this time, I think I went overboard, but I haven't put anything up for a while, so I am making up for lost memories.  Let's start with packing; Annie LOVED climbing on the boxes, so we had to put them in a room where she couldn't get into, so she wouldn't fall to her death.  I think she taught her big brother what to do, rather than him teaching her...

 Posing for a picture (they were a bit taken off guard, so don't mind their looks of confusion).

We love our climber girl. 

Archie 'packing' Annie in the dresser.

Just a good lookin' boy havin' a snack before we started packing for the morning.

Drinking water, her second favorite thing to do, besides climbing on things she shouldn't.

Okay, now on to our actual move.  We ran into a wildfire.  It was pretty close to the highway, so we had to stop for about 10 minutes, while we all watched it burn.  Crazy. 

Ben's face as we waited.  He doesn't like to wait for things.

Well, we've arrived in Sahuarita, and as it turned out, forgot to get our utilities turned on... and it was a Friday, and 100 degrees, and no one works over the weekend for utilities, so we got a hotel.  Arch and Ann went a little bit stir crazy...

Wrestling.

More wrestling, Annie looks like she is being choked to death, but she is not.  Don't worry. 

Dancing.

The result of too much dancing. 

Our house!  We are getting ready to go to the park.  There are parks just about everywhere you turn!  It is amazing, and they are all slightly different so it is fun to explore. 

Working on the stairs.

This flower/bush is everywhere and very beautiful.  It adds some nice color to the landscape.  However, this seems to be the only bush they don't trim back from the sidewalk, everything else is trimmed.  PS they have rosemary bushes here!  It smells so good everywhere we walk, at Christmas time I am going to put it in every room:)

Learned a new skill: picking her nose... while sucking on her fingers.

Sittin' on our newly purchased couch.  Lots of garage sales here!  Love it!

Borrowed a costume from a friend in the ward.  We now have a spider-man living in our house (he has even slept in it). This is the action shot.

This is the still.  And apparently Spider man is not allowed to smile.  (Yes that is a Captain America helmet)

Getting ready to go to the pool, kind of, we all got distracted and didn't actually make it to the van to get to the pool till about 20 minutes after this picture was taken.

The room where both kids slept (poorly) for about a week and a half.  They had fun sharing the room while it lasted. 

Living room. 

Kitchen table that Ben made, kitchen and through to the living room and out to the  backyard.  We just had breakfast.

The backyard!  Eventually we plan to have a sandbox, so far it is a favorite 'working' place for two of my children. 

The bed was moved to the separate bedroom where Archie will now be sleeping.  Too many wakeful children in the middle of the night = a change in sleeping arrangements.

One of our favorite places.  The closet where everyone (ben and kate) has multiple shelves for all of their clothes.  No more dressers in the kids' room! 

So far things are great here.  The days are full of early morning running with the jogging stroller that no longer pulls to the right (miracle of miracles!) so it is so wonderful to go for a run, then stop at a park all before 8am and before it gets too hot.  Going to the pool is usually our afternoon activity- there is a splash pool for the little ones and Archie and Annie adore it (I love alliteration!).  We've met a few friends, Arch likes his new sunbeams class at church, we've only seen one dead snake, a few yucky spiders, and many thunderstorms.  The monsoon that we experienced the other day was incredible.  We were running errands and happened to be in a Wal-mart when we heard thunder, which isn't such a big deal because there seems to be thunder all the time even when the storms are 10 miles away.  I didn't think much of it and we decided to treat ourselves to an ice-cream cone before leaving and stopped at the McDonald's in Wal-mart.  A few minutes later we saw people coming into the store with completely wet hair and shoulders.  I looked outside and the wind was blowing carts around the parking lot and causing the doors to the store to malfunction.  We finished our treat and pushed our cart to the exit to find it blocked, by all of the other customers attempting to leave, but mostly by hail/rain and intense wind.  Archie and I were fascinated.  We had never really seen anything like it.  When I was in India I missed monsoon season so being in Tucson is my first taste of it.  We were in the store with all of our new found friends for about 25 minutes, the parking lot filled up with water, there was a 8 to 10 inch lake down each aisle of cars.  I kept thinking we could make a run for it, and Archie was totally up to the challenge, but little Annie was going to get pelted with rain/hail and I wouldn't be able to protect her because I would have to steer us through the lake, while trying not to think about how wet we were all getting and the yuckies that were floating in the water...  I decided we better wait a few more minutes.  The wind calmed down a bit and I saw our window.  I happened to have 3 plastic bags full of our merchandise.  I emptied two of the bags into the third and made the kids hold the bags over their heads... yes, you read that right, I had my children put plastic bags over their heads.  Well, you'll be proud of Annie, she refused to do it.  Archie, once again was all in and up for an adventure.  He held the handles of the bag next to his ears and protected the top of his head from the pelting water.  Annie just fidgeted with the bag I gave her to 'play' with (I explained as I gave them bags that they are never to put bags on their heads ever again, unless they are trying to protect their newly permed hair).  Well we were off, and it wasn't that bad out, until I got to the lake. I had to slow down and the plan began to fall apart.  Archie immediately got cold, and colder, and colder, Annie didn't really like the pelty-ness of the rain and I couldn't help myself I was looking down and my feet and all the yuckies floating in the water!  Leaves, garbage, dirt, car drippings all swimming around my lower calves! We made it to the van, shoved both kids in one door, and dashed across the aisle to put my cart away in the cart corral (it is still important to be responsible even in a monsoon...).  The adventure was over, as soon as we got in the car everyone was calm, I drove about a mile south and the rain was gone, like it never happened. 

Other news:
Archie is signed up to play 3-4 year old soccer.  He is happy to have a place to wear his new soccer shoes ( I won't let him wear them to the store, or in the house, or to the pool).
Annie loves to wave 'good-bye' about 5 times before she leaves a room.  She will get your attention by yelling something in jibberish, wave her hand, and then do that about 5 times before she exits. 
Ben just passed an online fancy schmancy training certification T.A quiz by 1%- congrats Ben!
Kate is joining the book club down here (but I bet it won't be as great as the 3rd ward book club)! I have started practicing the piano more regularly, we are starting Joy School next week, AND there is a running club that I probably won't join because it is at 6:30 pm, but it is just cool that it exists!  This place is like a hyper resort, any kind of club or recreation activity you want seems to be here. My take on it is that Sahuarita is so secluded from Tucson or any other place for that matter, that they have to have a lot of activities and recreation so people don't go stir crazy, and to keep the kids happy in this little oasis community.  Awesome.  Love to you all.