First Day of School

It seems like such a long time ago that school started but I'm posting this anyway.  It was already hot and sunny on the day we took these pictures even though it was 7:30 in the morning so I couldn't get a single picture of Taylor not squinting at the sun.  We decided to put the kids in a charter school here in Yuma and so far it has been great for both of them. It's a small school so everyone knows everyone and the teachers seem good.  The kids have made lots of friends and seem to be fitting in great.  

I have to brag about Taylor for a minute.  She was so prepared for kindergarten, thanks for an amazing preschool teacher, that we were worried she would be bored in kindergarten.  We were happy that this charter school was willing to test her at the beginning of kindergarten and she aced the test.  The principal warned us that it might be hard for her to skip a grade since she won't be at the top of the class any more but Taylor couldn't wait to get out of kindergarten so we put her into first grade.  Although she was pretty nervous about a new class and new friends and new rules she has done great.  She still sees her kindergarten friends in the morning and at recess so she came home the first week and said that all her kindergarten friends missed her reading to them during center time.  She is an amazing reader so she was sorely missed.  Her first grade teacher said she is already being an example of good behavior to her new classmates and is rocking first grade as well!  She came home very excited a few weeks ago that her new classmates were starting to ask her for help in class and she LOVES being a helper.  After enthusiastically telling me about helping her classmates she said quietly "But I learned that you shouldn't help them on a test...yep I learned that one the hard way." It didn't occur to me that she didn't have any test in kindergarten so it was a little bit of a new concept.

I am so proud of these cute kids.  They are just amazing!

And we have a new member of the Fish family

I am so far behind on the blog because of the craziness of life.  But here goes on some catching up...

Abe has been wanted a dog for a long time so we decided it was a good time to get one (it wasn't a good time but its too late now.)  So now we have Zoey, an adorable German Shepherd puppy.  It has been a big adjustment adding her into our normal craziness but she is doing pretty good for being a puppy.

Both the kids thought it would be fun to sleep with the little puppy.  Boy she has grown.



She has figured out how to ring a bell on the outside door to let us know when she needs to go outside and lately she has done it consistently.  She still thinks the kids are playmates and likes to nip more than they would like but she is good at being gentle with Brooklyn, even though Brooklyn doesn't always repay the favor.

She is now about 5 months old and isn't nearly as little as she used to be. She is a handful but hopefully the obedience classes she just started will help her to be a little less crazy.  But according to everyone at the class she is just a typical puppy that has more excitement than we would like and gets a little jealous of the attention the other puppies (i.e. children) in the house get.  She will be chilling and the minute I get on the floor to play with Brooklyn she wants my full attention and isn't happy until she has it.

All the kids love playing in her kennel, even if Ethan pretends not to.

Brooklyn wants to be best friends with Zoey.  But Zoey is getting a lot bigger and is right at eye level with Brooklyn.  It makes me have to run interference often.

Reading is always more fun with a friend.

Enjoying the cool floor on a hot day.

They both love the astroturf and the rocks.

Neither one is good at sharing the big rocks with each other.

Someone is getting so much bigger!

Yuma Fun

For our first few weeks in Yuma I felt like all we did was unpack boxes.  Finally I felt like I had done as much as I could and we started looking for things to do around town.  Of course when it is 110 degrees in a small town the options are some what limited.  We have spent many days at the local library and Brooklyn loves to unload all the stuffed animals and take lots of books off the shelves.

What's a trip to the grocery store without trying on hats and posing for pictures?

Brooklyn loves to be in charge of the milk when we go to the store.  I don't know if it's just because it is the only cold thing in town but she takes her job very seriously.  She cries as we have to give it to the cashier until she gets it back.

After being cooped up inside the house for too many days straight we decided to head out early one morning and find a park.  After the GPS took us to a mobile home park we finally found this gem.  We had such a fun time even with the heat.  We have been back a time or two but can't wait to enjoy it during the winter.

Ethan is always trying to strike a pose when I try to take his picture.

Brooklyn liked the breeze on the top floor in the shade.

I sure do love these 3 cuties.

The kids loved taking Brooklyn down the slide.  There was always a mix of joy and fear as she would come out of the tunnel but then she would smile so big.  Taylor looks way too old in this picture!  She is such a great helper.

It quickly got too hot for the swings in the sun.

We built Brooklyn cages, I mean forts, in the house.

Forgetting that I was in Arizona I suggested we go for a bike ride after dinner.  I didn't think about the fact that it was still 107 degrees and I thought we were going to die.  But it kept our sanity.

Holy cow it gets hot here!  Yes it is a dry heat but anything over 105 is still pretty hot and over 110 your skin feels like its melting off.

Taylor decided that she wanted to cut her hair off and donate it for wigs for cancer patients.  She was so excited.  She looks adorable with it short and has made it so much easier to do in the mornings.

Another early morning sanity adventure took us to the Colorado River.  The kids were ready to go with sunscreen, sunglasses and Camel backs but it is still so hot that we didn't last long.

Brooklyn loves to sit in the backpack and pull my hair.  Where is Abe when you need him?

The train tracks go over the Colorado here and there was an old engine to walk into that the kids enjoyed.

And we even found a little bit of shade for a walk.  It might be the only shaded walking area in Yuma.

The kids have been great about being patient with me as they have to watch Brooklyn a lot so I can get things done.  It has been a long 6 weeks without Abe but I think we have all survived pretty well.  It has been great to have him home this week and start the real fun in our new place.

Are we there yet?

We are finally somewhat settled in Yuma and I had a few minutes (that I should be using to unpack boxes) to download some pictures from our trip from San Antonio to Yuma.  Moving is such a painful process.  After 3 years I had forgotten how much I actually hate it.  Last time my mom watched the kids at her house while I packed up and moved and that made all the difference.  It was a long couple of days waiting for everything to be packed up and living in a sea of boxes.  Oh I hope we don't have to do this again in two years.

I will have to say that the kids were pretty amazing for such a long drive, especially Brooklyn.  She was a trooper who got back in her carseat without a fuss every time we stopped.  We spent the first night in San Antonio in a hotel with a plan to leave at 3am so we could get 4 hours down the road before the kids woke up.  My mom came with me since Abe still had to work for a few more days and then outprocess.  Of course I had forgotten how hard it is to sleep in a hotel room with the kids and how hard it is to fall asleep with the stress of moving on your mind.  I think I was awake most of the night and felt like a zombie the next day. But it did work out perfectly that we could make it until about 7am without stopping and then eat breakfast when everyone woke up.  So by 1pm we had done our 8 hours of driving for the day and we stopped in El Paso at our hotel.  The kids loved the huge slide at the hotel and had a blast until tragedy struck and Ethan ripped off his toenail.  Poor kid just managed to hit a paver by the pool at just the wrong angle.  Because of all the blood I couldn't tell if he had just cut it or what and the wonderful (completely helpless) lifeguard assured me that the toenail was still there and just put a bandaid on it without washing it off or anything.  It looked like it hurt like crazy and continued to hurt for a long time.

So the next night we once again woke up before 3am and got an early start on the drive and my super travelers were just as good in the car.  I can be a little bit of a slave driver when it comes to wanting to get somewhere but we all managed to survive and make it to our house in Yuma.  I had only seen pictures of the house so it was so nice to know that we had a house and that it was just as nice as the pictures showed.  Once I was confident that we had a place to live we headed out and went to spend the week in Phoenix while waiting for our stuff to arrive.

We had a great condo up in Scottsdale for the week so we could find more things to do rather than hanging out in Yuma.  The kids loved playing chess and checkers on this huge board but it was so hot that we could only play early in the morning or after the sun went behind the hotel. We spent many hours in the pool, playing mini golf and enjoying the last few days of shopping before we get to Yuma where there isn't much.  

Brooklyn had a blast crawling and walking around the condo.  But we had a lot of bonks as she tries to learn how to cruise and walk through the place.  She always manages to fall on the hardest surfaces.

One day we spent driving to the Mesa Temple.  I can't believe that Phoenix will have 3 temples operating soon.  We walked around the grounds and spent some time in the visitor center.  San Antonio has a small temple so there is no visitor center so the kids had not been to one in a long time.

Poor Brooklyn is always hot and sweaty in this weather.  It will be nice when we can turn her carseat around and she can get cooler in the car.

On our way back from the temple we ran across a Bass Pro Shop and once they found out that my mom had never been to one they knew we had to stop and show her around.  The kids got lucky that they were having some kind of "summer camp" activities and had all sorts of games to play.  They loved shooting a real gun (A bb gun), riding the carousel, and all sorts of other games.  I don't know if we convinced mom that Bass Pro Shop was awesome but the kids had a blast. 

It seems like it has been a couple of years since we have seen fireworks for some reason so the big kids and I went to try and find some place to see them in the Valley.  Lucky for us and the flat terrain it wasn't too hard to find them.  From where we were standing we could see 3 shows going on at the same time.  Taylor was so enthusiastic and would reach up to them each time a big one lit up the sky.  I love fireworks and it was fun to share them with the kids.  It would have been better if Abe had been with us but maybe next year.

We spent one afternoon at the children's museum in Phoenix and the kids had a blast.  I think they spent the most time in the grocery store where they gave themselves very important jobs.  They are both so bossy sometimes but they both were working very hard to make sure things were sorted and put back on the shelves.  They were so serious as they discussed the chaos that would happen if they didn't do there jobs and there was no food for people to eat.

Brooklyn found some huge spoons in the restaurant that she loved carrying around.  She can be exhausting as she wants you to hold her hand while she walks around all the time.  

Taylor is a true salesperson.  She stood "selling" ice cream cones even when she didn't have any customers. She was so persistent. She and Ethan are always asking to start a lemonade stand in the neighborhood so this was right up their alley. 

We had really thought, based on conversations with the moving company, that our stuff would probably arrive during the week while we were in Phoenix but I was happy that it didn't turn out that way so I didn't have to make an extra trip from Phoenix to Yuma but by Saturday we were all ready to get our stuff and be settled.  Abe was scheduled to fly into Phoenix on Saturday and we would pick him up and head to Yuma and our stuff was supposed to get there on Sunday or Monday.  So we camped out in the house with the few supplies we had and patiently waited for a call that our stuff was coming.  By "few supplies" I mean that all three adults were taking turns in the 1 camping chair that we had.  But we were sure it would only be for a day since the last day they could deliver it was Monday, or so I thought.  On Monday morning I called the moving company representative and she casually said that no they would not be making the deadline with our stuff and gave no explanation.  I couldn't believe that was all the information we got.  So with no furniture and nothing to do we hung out a lot.  Here are the kids at the hotel watching tv.

Brooklyn loved the beach chairs that someone from church let us borrow so we didn't have to share the one chair.  She thought she was such a big girl!

We had plenty of room to play with the boxes that the patio furniture came in.

And the most fun we all had was in the pool.  We have gotten spoiled by quick nighttime swims after Brooklyn is in bed and Ethan and Taylor are getting to be even better swimmers than they were.  Brooklyn isn't a huge fan of the water because "Miss Independence" can't do it all herself but she still joins in.

Over the next several days there were stories about the truck breaking down, and the driver having no cell phone reception but no one would say where the stuff actually was or when we would get it.  All this time my perfect plan of having my mom and Abe there to help me as we unloaded and unpacked the house were dwindling.  Both my mom and Abe had flights out of Yuma on Friday and it was starting to look like the stuff wouldn't come before then.  The company told me once that they were in El Paso but then started saying it would take 3 days to get to us from El Paso.  My blood pressure was through the roof as I tried to find out when I would get my stuff and get some straight answers from someone.  Finally on Friday the stuff arrived and thankfully my mom was willing to buy a new ticket to stay a few extra days.  I don't know what I would have done if I had 3 kids by myself for the unloading and unpacking of the house.  

I came in to take a shower at the end of the move in day and this was my bathroom.  This is how to whole house looked.  The movers were supposed to do the unpacking but they won't put stuff away so if you tell them to unpack it then it will be put on the floor until you put it away.  So knowing that I was on my own to put stuff away I only had them unpack the kitchen.  And I really think the packers were trying to be awful with how they labeled boxes because it was impossible to determine what was in a box to decide if you wanted it unpacked.  Like my sheets that I looked for for a week were in a box in the garage labeled "garage tools".  I was going to wait and have Abe deal with those boxes when he gets here in September but I couldn't since there was important stuff potentially in those boxes.  

 It was a happy day when I could finally clear enough space to park the car back in the garage.  Brooklyn cries a lot less when she gets in the car when it isn't 120 degrees in her seat.

Finally the house is starting to feel like home and we are starting to feel settled.  I think we are really going to like it here once we get Abe here and life settles down.  We are loving the gorgeous sunsets and all the new places to explore.  But we just can't wait for it to cool down some so we can spend more time outside.  San Antonio was hot but it would at least give you a couple of hours in the morning when we could go to the park but here the minute the sun comes over the mountains at 6am it is hot.  And by midday it truly feels like you opened the oven door when you walk outside.  It is funny how upper 90's seems cool now and we go for walks at 105 degrees.  I wasn't thinking when I suggested an after dinner bike ride on a rough day only to realize after the fact that it was 111 degrees still.  We can't wait for fall and winter so we can enjoy all the fun things that Yuma has to offer.