Odds and Ends

We have had a pretty quiet week/weekend here.  It seems the rain has finally stopped- yeah!  But the heat is here.  It was 97 degrees here today and while it isn't the 110 we are used to to, it is still pretty warm.

I started back to swim lessons on Tuesday and Thursday and am in a better class for me.  I'm still the strongest swimmer (and still the oldest) but at least it is moving at a faster pace.  I'm working on my backstroke now and it's going well.  I just can't make my legs float without a lot of work.

We forgot a few things from our blog last week, so here are some more updates.  Most importantly, BIRTHDAYS!!  My fairy godmother, Mary Kay's birthday was last Sunday.  She got to spend it in Las Vegas getting pampered.  Mr. Walker's birthday was last Monday and he got to spend his birthday in airports!  Flying is Mr. Walker's favorite thing to do so we know he had a great time.  He did get a card signed by Moi, so I think that made for the best part of his day.

Here is a picture of some modern day milking that I got to see in Ohio.  It is quite the production and I kind of couldn't believe the whole thing.  The barn cats were pretty interesting too.

This is a video of me chasing lightning bugs back in Ohio.  I'm not sure if it will play or not, but here's hoping!  I really, really liked the lightning bugs and kind of liked catching them but they did make me a little squeemish because I don't like bugs all that much.  These were just to cool to leave alone though!

Fast forward to this weekend.  Mom had a few patients to see on Saturday, so dad and I had a daddy/daughter day and it was fabulous as usual.  We went to Wings over Denver which is a plane museum.  I had so much fun there with all the different planes to look at and there was even a flight simulator, that I rocked.  I only crashed once and landed in the lake but other than that, I have natural skills!
Sunday was our family day and we drove to Tiny Town.  It is a miniature village built up in the mountains with a train ride, picnic area and playground.  It was beautiful day for  drive and so nice and cool up in the mountains.
I'll have pictures to post of those next week.  My photographer is a little tired tonight- allergy season you know.
We came home from Tiny Town and mom tried to make Grandma Walker's butterscotch pie.  Grandma's is better but she has been making it for 60 years and when the recipe calls for "butter the size of an egg", well, you get what you get.  It turned out OK but we'll make another crack at it later.

Dad took the whole week off work, so he and I will get some quality bonding time.  He has big plans for us!  This will be a great way to wrap up summer since I'm starting kindergarten in one week!  Holy ding dang dong- real school is here!

Have a great week!

Family Reunion McConnell Style!

We are a little behind in blogging- we've been busy but are  back on schedule.  For now.  Last Friday, mom and I headed back to Ohio for a family reunion.  It is a little different than flying out of a big airport compared to our little, convenient Tucson airport.  We have to drive for 45 minutes, park, take a 15 minute bus ride to the airport, check in, take a 10 minute subway ride to our gate, wait in a super long security line, ride 4 escalators and 2 moving side walks to make it to our gate.  Then you get to do it all again backwards when you come back all tired and cranky.  Good times!  Our flight left at 7 AM and even leaving our house at 4:30, we barely made it.  We got to our gate just as they were boarding so it was actually pretty good timing.  No down time for me!

We got to Cleveland and met up with Mr. Walker and Nana and drove to Grandma's farm.  We did our traditional walk about, burning off energy, checking on the crops and even picking some wild black raspberries.

We headed into Wellington to Fort's for the Friday night Lake Erie perch fish fry.  It is kind of like a religion in this area to eat Lake Eric fish on Fridays so it can't be missed.  After, we came home and all had big slices of Grandma's homemade butterscotch pie- almost the most fabulous pie ever.


On Saturday, we got an early start and headed up to Lake Erie to eat lunch at a great place right on the water, then we headed down to the water and got some ice cream and enjoyed the cool breeze.

We then drove to cousin Jim McConnell's farm to look at goats, tractors, barn cats and tree houses.  I even got to sit on my great, great grandpa McConnell's tractor.  Mom swears that someday, I'll appreciate it.

I hung for a little bit with Grandma and Aunt Jean and then we headed to another farm to watch cows being milked.  It was quite the process and Jim was great at explaining everything to us.  Things are just a little bit more automated from when Mr. Walker had to do the milking!

Sunday was the reunion and we had 75 McConnells all in one room.  We had such a great time meeting new family and catching up with old.  Out of 6 McConnells, Hazel, Elsie, Dorothy and Ida are carrying on the family.  It was fun to look around the room and see what these ladies started over 90 years ago.

We had some amazingly good (but not good for you!) food with homemade ice cream and Aunt Jean's famous homemade raspberry ice, made from the raspberry bushes in her yard.  Soooo delicious!
After stuffing ourselves beyond the ability to move, we played the game that is sweeping the midwest like a storm- CORN HOLE!!  Nana D and Mr. Walker were quite formidable considering they had never even heard of the game.  The boys beat the girls by only one point with a come from behind, last minute ringer of a shot.

Mom and I arrived home on Monday after only a few delays and got home around 8:15 PM.  Unfortunately, dad had left that morning for a business trip to LA, so I didn't actually lay eyes on him until Wednesday morning.  Mom and I had such great time in Ohio and are really looking forward to 2013 for more raspberry ice!

After a pretty quiet week of recovery, we had a fun weekend.  On Saturday, we took a stadium tour of Coors field and learned all kinds of interesting facts about baseball and the Rockies.  Did you know that their mascot is the triceratops because when the stadium was being built, they found triceratops bones.  How cool is that!

After a good tour, we headed over to our friend Margy and Evan's house for dinner.  It was delicious because they made me hot dogs and bread and chocolate cake for desert.  I played water tag with their kids Jacob and Luke and the grown ups enjoyed an really pleasant evening out on the deck.  What a good night.
Sunday was nice and quiet with a wholesome family trip to Target and the liquor store.  Good times for all.  We are now staying in out of the heat and playing Wii.  Hope everyone has a great week!

The Very Expensive Goldfish

We have had a restful week full of early bedtimes mainly because the thunderstorms we've had this week have been so big and so loud and so long that people are afraid to come out of their house!  We've had some doozies this week.  The storm on Tuesday that passed by our house had over 6000 lightning strikes in an hour and on Wednesday, dad got stuck at work because the tornado sirens were going off and no one was allowed to leave.  Whew!  And we thought Tucson monsoons were big.  This is crazy.  But on with our week.  It was pretty quiet as far as Goedel weeks/weekends go.

Friday was out to dinner night, saturday was running, biking, swim lessons day.  It was shaping up to be a pretty boring night when we decided to check out the carnival at the high school on the next hill from our house.  We can see the ferris wheel from our house, so we couldn't pass it up and it's a good thing we didn't because I had a blast!  Dad bought us wrist bands so I had unlimited rides all night long which was fabulous for me but not so fabulous for mom and dad.  Neither of them do the spin-y rides any more so they were playing "rock, paper, scissors" trying to figure out who would go with me on the rides.  Mom won which is how she ended up going down the super-duper fast and fun slide and dad ended up on the twirly, flying thing. Twice.  I think he is still spinning today.

As much as I loved the rides (and I LOVE my rides) I think the best part of the night was all the prizes I won.  I played a balloon dart game and won a stuffed butterfly and stuffed tiger.  And then I played a ping pong ball toss game.  You win a goldfish every time one of your balls lands in a container and lucky me!  I got three balls in and so I won 3 goldfish!!  Woo-hoo!  Which meant dad was driving to the grocery store at 9 o'clock at night to buy fish food and declorinator.  I love my dad.
After our crazy carnival night, we slept in on Sunday and had a relaxing morning.  When dad got back from his bike ride, we packed up a picnic lunch and drove to the Children's Museum for a fun afternoon.  They had an assembly plant where dad and I got to make a train out of old plastic bottles and cardboard boxes.  It was supposed to be my project but mom and dad kind of stepped in when it came time to saw the wood and put in the screws.  This ain't no pansy children's museum.  We gotta work here and put our fingers on the line.

After the train making, we found the huge bubble exhibit and had a great time there.  And finally, we got to make a solar oven and if the sun ever comes out, we'll be able to cook something in it.

After our museum trip, we headed to mom's least favorite store on the planet (Walmart) to buy a fish tank, fish rocks, tank decorations and anything else you can imagine for a fish tank.  These are very pampered goldfish.  To make matters a little worse, we got trapped in Walmart waiting out yet another huge thunderstorm.  We finally got out, made it home and set up my tank for my fish, Biggie, Whitie and Apricot.  I sure hope they like it!
Mom and I are off to Ohio for a family reunion next weekend in Wellington- it just so happens to be at the same time as the Wellington Cheese Festival so I know we will be having some good times there!
Have a great week!

Aaaaaahhhh.......relaxing.....

Another week down and it was beautiful!  We have been keeping tabs on Tucson since we left- thankfully for them, the monsoon's have started but not before they hit a record of 113 degrees last week.  We were blissfully comfortable at about 90 degrees.  Perfect!

My week was full of new stuff.  The day camp I usually go to was closed for the week, so mom signed me up for a new one at one of the rec centers here in Highlands Ranch.  At first, I was sad because we didn't go on any field trips but it turned out OK because we got to go swimming every day and the playground had a whole bunch of new, cool equipment.  We got to see a magic show, do some cooking and learn to play volley ball.  I also learned a whole bunch of new games that I am trying to teach to mom and dad.  They are kind of slow learners but they are old, so I'll cut them some slack.

We had  good weekend with more fun adventures.  On Friday, mom and I headed to the hills for some hiking.  We found the Lair O' the Bear.  It was a great hike for me because there was lots of water, wide trails and not much uphill.

It was enough to completely exhaust me and I fell asleep in the car on the way home.  Mom carried me in and I usually wake up and am ready to go but I fell back asleep in her lap for another hour and half!  That is a two hour nap for me- unheard of!  Mom was trapped in her chair for most of it but thankfully, the remote was in arms reach, so she got caught up on her trashy TV viewing.  Good use of time!
It was actually a very good thing I got in a nice loooong nap because as soon as dad got home, we headed downtown for a Rockies baseball game.  We had a great time- eating from the first inning to the 9th.  Oh yeah- the Rockies won too which made it even better!

After the game, the Rockies had a huge fireworks display which I just LOVED.  It was the most amazing thing ever and I want more!

Saturday was a quiet day since we were all a little pooped from our late night out.  We hung at home most of the morning and I had swim lessons.  In the afternoon, dad and I headed out on my new bike to practice riding without training wheels.  Miracle of miracles, I pretty much have it down!  I still need to work on stopping and starting but I can change directions fairly well and can ride in a straight line forever!  I only ran into one parked car while I was learning.  I don't think it matters that it was the neighbors new Lexus, does it?  I'm so very excited about this because everyone else on my block can ride bikes and I was feeling really left out.  A little more practice and I'll be good to go!

We went to see Cars 2 on Sunday and spent Monday camped out at one of the rec center pools.  It was a great day for pool sitting and we had a really fun time.

Dad is currently slow cooking ribs on the grill, mom's got the potato salad and brownies made, so we are set for a yummy 4th of July afternoon.
Enjoy your short week!