First Freshman Football Game

How fast Time goes, Quinton Carlton is now in high school. Though it still feels too hot to be watching Football  games nonetheless we are. How often Rhi has longed for the football of back east where you are chilly and can bring blankets and a thermos of hot chocolate to watch a game, Instead of what we brought, an umbrella for shade and a 44 oz polar pop one for each of us, including the little ones. We were actually lucky, it ended up not being to hot.

Here is our #12 Qunit. He plays on defense, maybe a Line backer? I should have asked. 

See those people watching thru the fence? that's because they charge $5 a person, even a kindergartner. 

Here is a picture of Quinton, Mack that is. Quint's best friend has the same name and is #90. I think those are Quint's  eyes on the far right...

His adoring fan base. Poor archer kept yelling "Quinton" and had to be told Players were to busy to interact with their fans.

On Offense a lineman? 

They called the game due to lightning but maybe it was a mercy... as they were winning by quite a bit. 

Seeing the Sites of Las Vegas

I was a little worried about taking the kids to Las Vegas.  You hear all kinds about how horrible it is in Vegas with rampant pornagraphy and other unsavoriness.  I was expecting to see people handing out flyers for things you would rather not see and those fliers would be on the ground everywhere for unsuspecting innocents to see.  Actually, I found Las Vegas very clean for the most part.  There were billboards on the back of trucks that drove around at night that had scantily clad women on it but the kids would just close their eyes whenever I spotted one of those and yelled, "Close your eyes."  Besides those billboards everything was very clean and kid friendly.  We just did all the free shows and things around Vegas.

This was on the ground floor of our hotel, beautiful skies it looked so real. 

Zany was not happy as she wasn't able to ride on the gondolas like she wanted 

McCoy with his favorite turtle

Zany was quite taken with the Mermaids behind her

Pirate Dec with his booty

The fountain show was quite amazing, they were able to get the water to go so high and it was perfectly timed to go with the music.

Zany watches the fountains

Lovely view

Eddy and Archer

Our hotel had a mall on the ground floors that had really high end stores.  The best shop besides the Godiva chocolate shop was the rare book store.  I found on of my all time favorite books there, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

Boys with rare books

a $16,000 dollar copy of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Flaming Volcano

              Vegas wouldn't be Vegas without a little gambling or a least a little gambler.

Las Vegas-vacation fun

With Eddy's new job as a principal he had to attend a conference in Las Vegas.  We decided to take the whole family and call it a vacation.  While Eddy spent his day in the conference meetings the kids and I had a different agenda. We stayed in the Palazzo and had a large suite with room for all of us to sleep in a bed.  With the lovely room darkening drapes we all slept in until 9 or 10am.  Then using the toaster I brought from home we would make breakfast.  Then we would swim in the pool for three hours until lunch time.  After lunch we would nap/read books until Eddy got done with his meetings and then we painted the town red.

Sleepyheads-Zany and Arch

Dec and Quint check out the view

We were on the 46th floor so it was a fascinating view

Archer swiming

Zany with who?? 

Eddy took his lunch break to swim with us for a while

Since we don't gamble and aren't in the city to often we took advantage of some of our favorite things.  We were trying to keep things cheap so we went to a discount movie night and saw Jurassic World.  It wasn't out first movie choice but the kids movie we were going to see was sold out.  We saw Jurassic Word and all the kids liked it even Zany.

Dec rides a motorcycle like the main character

The kids also got to eat at PF Changs for the first time ever

What's better for dessert than a Krispy Kreme donut?

The days blended together and the four days we were in Vegas seem like one long lazy day.  

A Sunset Walk

So we have been suffering through a mini heat wave  in the last couple of days, so i haven't been out and about as much as I would like. I decided to go on a twilight walk along the river, to see what I could see.  I saw lots of animals, and I like to think I saw a the hind quarters of a mountain lion running but I didn't get a good look, most likely it was a coyote or dog.

A Killdeer

A butterfly enjoying a sunflower

Finally a fairly good picture of the Grosnbeak

Steeplerock and a square of Rainbow

The vain Vermillion flycatcher is always ready for his closeup

The sun is starting to go down now

I belive this is a cooper's hawk enjoying the view as well

So are the cottontails. 

Our old Alma mater Duncan High School

Some Quail

  I was most happy to see a Herd of Javelinas. Unfortunately it was getting pretty dark by this time, So I had been using the nighttime setting for my shots of the animals. Which works best if they stay still and I don't move, (where is tripod when you need one?)as it takes many shots then complies them together. Which is my long-winded excuse for the blurriness. I like Javelinas and don't see them together too often.  I counted 10 maybe 12 different ones.

This horrible blurry shot, is my first live Rattlesnake I have seen this summer the past ones have been roadkill. By this point it was fairly dark and maybe I wasn't very close, which makes it even harder to hold still.  Super creepy and my first thought why am I walking in river sandals instead of my high hiking boots? 

Declan's Championship Winning Baseball Team

Baseball is summer!  If you are a Carlton you also play in the spring too.  We seem to do two leagues every year.  With several kids playing three games a week on average that is a lot of baseball games to watch!  By the time summer league rolls around we have already been playing baseball for three months.  As Declan's team headed into the playoffs I was more than ready for it to be over, but they just kept winning and so baseball continued.  

It finally concluded with Declan's team winning the championship!  He was so excited that his team won and even better he got a trophy!  Declan wanted to be the catcher but the coach's kid wanted to play that position so he only had a few games where he was the catcher.  He had the most success hitting this year and usually got on base (his hit by pitch count was pretty high but luckily that gets you on base too).  Declan took his base running very seriously but once you got that train rolling it was hard to stop.  His coach would send him home and then want to call him back but it was too late.  Declan would plow into the catcher sometimes but he was always game to try to make it home.  

Declan fourth from right

Dec's coaches give him his trophy

2015 Town of Thatcher Baseball Team

(Declan back row far left)

I have about eight months before baseball rolls back around, just enough time to get excited for it!

Bloggin is for the birds! Literally its another bird post!

So the other day when it was weirdly cool I took the oppurtunity to go on a long walk and to see what I could see. I was happy to get a couple new birds photo and see that the sunflowers are making their presence felt.  I told Rhi that we would go the way of all blogs and slowly start to taper off the posting and she was vehemently agianst it.  

A pair of Cardinals. I like them so always take photos of them when I see them, which is fairly often. And it is a reminder that Football is about to start. 

A Rofuos Humming bird, apparently they are the most vicious of the hummingbirds. I wonder who is the most vicious of the Carltons? 

I think this is a female Merlin falcon, there was another but I wasn't fast enough to get a picture of it before it flew off. 

I love Sunflowers, what can I say I grew up in the 90's when they were all the rage.

Blue Grosbeak a little bit better than my last try. I don't see these too often so have a hard time getting a good pic of them.

Or are they Lazuli buntings? Hard to tell.... 

Here is he hatching his evil plan. Though really I am thankful for these birds otherwise the roads would be paved with dead rabbits.