Warm Fuzzies

My sister, Ashlee, came to my town to visit me for the day.  When she comes we like to run errands together and shop.  Our favorite thing is getting a good bargain whether it be a regular store or a thrift store.  We always love to go thrifting! This day Ashlee found a craft kit that she thought my kids would like to do.  It seemed simple enough so I agreed and I purchased it for a quarter.  When we got home the kids (Zaynzley and McCoy) were very excited to do it. They began on it right away.

McCoy helping Zaynzley with her tiger 

Before long McCoy's turtle was completed as so was Zany's tiger

After our thrift stores visit, Ashlee and I went to a store I love to go to  but I sadly never have a reason to go there--Tractor Supply Store.  I once bought my much longed for wood stove there. Luckily, Ashlee had to buy some dog food so I got to go with her.   What did we discover while we where browsing? A picture of Ashlee, herself, for all to see

Ashlee points out her own photo!

I was with an nearly, famous person shopping in my favorite store--it kinda gives you the warm fuzzies!

Insert Carlton Family Here

Duncan, AZ grows the best sunflowers and I have always loved that.  I have wanted to get my family pictures taken in front of a field of sunflowers for a five or six years now.  I don't want to pay 300 or 400 for some fancy photographer to take a bunch of family photos.  I just wanted my sister to take the photos with her camera. That would be great. Last year we had lots of rain and the sunflowers were amazing.  Ashlee hiked out to a place she knew that had a lot of sunflowers to see if it would work for what I wanted.  It was perfect.  One problem our football schedule was so insane we could never get out of town to Duncan to take the photo. Then all the sunflowers died.  I was determined this year come heck or high water that my sunflower family photo was going to happen.  Well we went to scout it out and found that there were no sunflowers at all.  None.  We didn't enough of the right kind of rain to grow them. So disappointing!  Below is the photo of the spot we were going to use.

Insert Carlton family here

Maybe next year?!

Boys come to visit

What to do when you get a crew of boys together? Why put them to work! Dec, Archy, and Coy came for a couple days. Nona offered them paying work to weed the drive up to her house.  As it was starting to scrap the bottom of cars. 

Very Excitedly picking out gloves. 

The Offending weeds

Dec and Coy shovel while Archy puts the weeds into the trashbox

Dec showing us fine technique

Mccoy Helps Arch with a particularly stubborn weed. 

Success! Is there anything funner than a hard days work? (or maybe 45 mins of work?)

They were very helpful, and made thier beds! 

After that we went to the Gila. It looks deeper than it is in this pick, but they had fun!
Next time we will have to try and get the weeds on the side of the road too.

Deer Me!

About forty-five minutes of highway lie between my sister and I.  In order to get to stores or visit me she must traverse those miles.  It is quite a pretty drive, as about 30 minutes of it is just hills and desert with no homes to mar the view.  You will see various wildlife as you drive especially in the morning or evening hours.  Coyotes, desert long tailed mice, rattlesnakes, rabbits, jackrabbits, and roadrunners are most often seen.  

I have a friend from Pennsylvania who married an AZ boy and when they moved here she was so excited to see a roadrunner in real life.  When she finally got to see one she was quite disappointed as she had been misled by the Looney Tune cartoon, Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner.  She thought that roadrunners were six feet tall much like an ostrich.  Sadly for her they are only about a foot tall.  Despite their small size, they do take on rattlesnakes from time to time which is pretty impressive.

Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote

Roadrunner enjoying a mid-morning snack

   One fine morning, Ashlee was on her way to see me as we were headed to Tucson, AZ for some thrifting fun.  She was admiring the scenery when she noticed a few deer on the side of the road.  Then she noticed a deer or two on the other side of the road.  Suddenly the deer on the left side decided he wanted to join his brothers on the right and didn't want to wait for the pesky car going 60mph to get out of the way.  Ashlee saw him coming and slammed on the brakes.  Despite her best efforts she was hit by a deer.

Desert deer watching the mayhem

After the collision, Ashlee was very shaken up but the deer continued on his way to his friends.  She believes that despite the damage to her car the deer was fine.

What do you see? A few scratches? 

Nope.  Those there are deer hairs.  Poor thing probably has a bald patch.

Poor car did get some scratches though.

Ashlee could talk of nothing else all day; of course, it's not every day you get hit by a deer!

New House for Ashlee

Ashlee has become a homeowner!  She has purchased a darling 1930's Adobe home.  It has two bedrooms and one bathroom.  She has been consumed in recent days with moving in and getting all settled.  Her kitchen is to die for so very cute and vintage.  She has lots of plans for it. I can't wait to see it all decorated.

Congratulations dear sister!  

 All these are before views from when previous people lived there.

Ashlee will have to post some new photos of it soon.

American Girl Doll Fans

When I was in high school, I can clearly remember my sister Ashlee and her best friend Camilee companionably pouring through the American Girl Catalog.  This was back in the Golden Age of American Girl in the 1990's when it was Pleasant Company.  They both desperately wanted an AG doll but the problem was neither set of parents was supportive of it as they were wildly expensive.  Well Ashlee and her friend both scrimped and saved and finally when they were 13-14 years old they each had enough money to buy a doll.  Ashlee bought Felicity and Camilee bought Samantha.

Despite their advanced age they both loved their dolls and they continued to pour over the AG catalog together (if you have a AG catalog from the 1990's it is worth some money!).

Fast forward some twenty years and Ashlee has embraced her love for all things AG.  She is a collector and now has lots of dolls, five of them all historical (Felicity, Addy, Caroline, Samantha, Rebecca, Kristen).  Ashlee only likes the historical ones.  She did inherit some from a neighbor and she was kind enough to give me a Felicity.   I was never into AG as a kid I was too old by the time Ashlee got into it but Ashlee has encouraged my adult interest.  When AG had sale on dolls for $65.00 with a bonus pajama outfit for those early birds who ordered early Ashlee asked if I wanted to get one I said, "Yes, Kit please."  I love the fabrics from the 1930's and the dresses are so cute so it was an easy choice for me.

Ashlee ordered Caroline and I got Kit.   We took our new dolls over to Grandma Parke's house to show them off to her and Aunt Rebecca.  They too are AG doll people.  Grandma Parke owns Addy, Molly and Emily (Molly's friend) while Aunt Rebecca recently got Rebecca.

Ashlee (far left), Aunt Rebecca, and Grandma Parke holding Caroline

Grandma holding Kit while Aunt Rebecca admires some clothes

With American Girl dolls you are never to old to start collecting!  

Thrifty Collecting

It had been some time since I had been to the thrift store.  Ashlee came to town and our favorite thing to do is "go for a look" at the thrift store.  We both collect several (read: lots of) things.  Sometimes you start a new collection just because you find something that catches your eye and then decide you must have more.  Ashlee and I both agree that you only need three to make a collection.  

Two teacups not a collection, three teacups a collection.

This day I found two new collections and decided to get rid of one of my collections.  I now collect Book of Mormons in foreign languages!  Ashlee found them and I bought them. I later learned one is in Polish and the other in Danish.  I already have a Book of Mormon in Spanish from Eddy's mission and one in French from my college days when I minored in French.  I will have to keep my eye out for more.  Since I have more than three it is a collection.  My other new collection is vintage cards and a few new ones too.  I got rid (gave to Ashlee) my yarn animal collection as I had nowhere to display it anymore.  Now I can pressure her to buy the funky homemade yarn creatures we come across.

The popcorn maker you see below is the best popcorn maker ever!  Once you try its delicious and fresh popcorn you can never happily eat microwave popcorn again.  We have been using this popcorn maker for eleven years and ours is a bit worse for wear so when I saw this brand new one, never opened I thought I had better buy it for when my current one dies.

Needlepoint butterfly for Zany's room $1.50

ASU cross stitch for Eddy's Valentine present $5.00

Vintage Tins so handy to store things in $1.00 each

Popcorn Maker brand new $10.00

Vintage Little People Chauffer FREE

Imaginext Horse FREE

Stack of books $0.25 each 

(found #4 of the Anne of Green Gable series I needed)

Eddy's present after spray painting and cleaning

 I gave it to him and he thought I had cross stitched it, I claimed that I had for a minute and then turned it over so he could read: 

I added my own post script in Calligraphy as Eddy gave me a Calligraphy set for Christmas. 

Eddy thought I should have included Carol & Jack with my name-funny guy.

I had decided to mail a few Valentines and so I picked out some cards at Walmart. I hardly ever buy cards so it was fun to read through the various cards.  That got me thinking about cards and when I saw that cards were only 10 cents I thought I might see if any caught my eye.  Well, I found some lovely glitter cards from the 1950's and 1960's.  Then I really started looking through the cards to find more.  I just love the sweet graphics and vintage thick paper.  I realized that people don't send cards like they used to and that is why you can find so many at the thrift store. I think it is fun to send cards and I am eagerly awaiting some of my kin to fall slightly ill so I can send them a get better card (I now have lots of get better soon cards).

Some of my favorites

All cards including two stacks you see in the background $4.00

Look at that sweet baby and there is micro glitter on it too

Lovely cards

A couple of my most favorite

You just never know what you will start collecting next, if you are like Ashlee and I!

Roper Lake: Hike and Hot Tub

It all started with an article in the newspaper.  I read our local paper every week and  I noticed a small article mentioning that for Martin Luther King Day they would be having free admission to all National Parks.  I decided that we should take advantage of the government's generosity and so I began looking for a close National Park we could go too.  I actually settled on a state park so it wasn't free but it was so fun.  Roper Lake is really close and it is way to hot in the summer to camp at but it is perfect for winter camping.  There are several attractions there and we took advantage of them all.  After setting up camp, everyone put on their swimsuits and we set off for a hike.  The hike took you up and down a mesa and it was nicely lined with rocks and timbers for steps.

Ashlee, professional hiker, studies the route

Eddy with Zany on his shoulders and 

Quinton with Archy on his shoulders 

while Declan and McCoy walk nearby

Energy of the young, the kids run ahead

McCoy near the top of the mesa

Quinton on Mesa overlooking the lake

Eddy and Zany with Mt. Graham in the background

After the hike, it was hot tub time.  There are natural hot springs that heat the water to a warm temperature that felt so good after the hike. Archer loves hot tubs and he enjoyed jumping in despite the smallness of the pool.  We had to drag Archer out of the hot tub. 

Archer prepares to jump

He likes to plug his nose just like his mama!

Tiny House Hoarders

 [Note:  the following blog post may not be for all readers, if you are a minimalist you may find this post shocking and disturbing, read at your own risk.]

Ashlee and I are both taken with the tiny house movement.  I would love a tiny (400-600 square feet) vacation cabin in the woods with no neighbors in view.  I am not sure what Ashlee's dream tiny house is but we like to watch several different tv shows focused on tiny houses and then discuss them.  There is one wee problem with it, we love stuff!  We are descended from clothes horses (people who have crammed closets full of clothes).  We also love hobbies of all kinds!  You need lots of stuff for most hobbies.  We tend to buy all the stuff for projects and then make them in our mind instead of actually making  them and then we move on to a new hobby.  I know it's a sickness of sorts.  If Ashlee and I were on a tiny house show it would be called Tiny House Hoarders.

Once a month our local thrift store does a bag sale.  Fill a trash size bag full of stuff (shoes, clothes, toys, linens) and it is only $10.00 dollars.  Our love of stuff combined with our love of a good bargain is detrimental to our tiny house dreams.  We each bought two trash bags full of clothes.  I was focused on buying clothes for Zany who is about to move up into the next size and church clothes for Quinton who is also about to grown into a larger size of clothes.  There is a fine frenzy in the atmosphere at the thrift store like unto black friday at Walmart.  It kinda freaks Ashlee out a bit and sometimes she wants to leave but I made her stick it out and before you know she happily spent two hours there.  We had to drag her out of the thrift store.

As you can see below our bags our packed pretty tightly.  Zany was thrilled with the new clothes and happily got out each of the items that were hers and faux tried them on.  She was quite sad when her pile came to an end (clothes horse in the making).  It is so trendy right now to be a minimalist but it is just not in our blood and whenever Ashlee and I dabbled in minimalism we always regret it.

"How does this look?" asks Zany

I think pink is my color!

One rare find was a mint in the package swim cap.  Nona felt like Zany would need it in the summer since we go swimming so much. Zany tried it on but she didn't like it at all and it squished her eyebrows and made her look a prizefighter which made all of us laugh so hard.

Swim capped gal

Another prize was this nice blazer I found for Eddy who decided to try out the swim cap too.

Eddy looks like he is ready for a date!

Black Friday Fun

Intrepid Shoppers

Ashlee and I spent solid eight hours shopping at stores to celebrate Black Friday!  Black Friday around here is a very competitive venture. There are not a lot of stores in our town just Wal-mart, Home Depot, Big 5, Bealls, and some other small stores. People, not us, lined up hours in advance to get stuff.  We were way more laid back and decided to get what we could and what we couldn't get oh well.  Except maybe that bath mat Ashlee wanted for $3.50.  She didn't get that bathmat I had to heard about it several times. Mainly Wal-mart took most of our time as about six hours were spent there looking and shopping.  Things you do to save money and make a great Christmas!  We actually enjoy shopping quite a bit.  The only thing that holds us back is, of course, money or the lack thereof.  We do know how to stretch a dollar thanks to some fine bargain shopping training in our childhood.
The crazy. intensity that is Black Friday at Wal-mart s the kickoff to the Christmas season for us.
Season's Greetings!

Kindlers

The two best kindlers (handheld devices) in our clan are hands down Ashlee and Quinton.  Thier kindles are extensions of their hands, as in they are attached nearly all the time (poor Quinton only has a finite amount of time though pesky homework and chores).  Quinton's main pastimes on devices are: playing Clash of Clans, watching Once Upon a Time, and listening to music like Maroon 5, Passenger, Mumford & Sons.  Ashlee likes to research things she may or maynot be buying, reading book, reading hobbying forums (which probably falls in the category of researching things she may or maynot be buying), listening to audible books, and of course music (Americana Folk).

What was life like before a kindles?  I can't even remember those days. 

 I am sure though the best thing they do with their kindle is read this blog!

Ashlee with her kindle whose name is Toby

Quinton with his kindle whose name is Alfonso's Joy

Here are the names of other people devices:

Eddy:  Ipadimus Edimus (Ipad)

Rhiannon:  Swindler's Reward

Declan:  Batman's Sidekick

McCoy:  Commodore's Command

Archer:  Archer's Awesome

Nona:  Nona the Naughty

Pa:  Carol's 10th Kindle or Q.L. Rat killer

Family that kindles together, stays together!

Arrangements

Watching the Arizona Cardinals football game 

Ashlee was suppose to blog (as we arranged to switch so I could blog for Halloween day) but due to an illness will be unable to do so. Hopefully, her illness will pass quickly and she will be back to full strength before we know it.  I know she was really sick as she didn't even want to look through boxes at the thrift store we went to, she always loves a good browse at the thrift store.  At least she will have lots of football to keep her company while she is under the weather.  I like to watch football when I am sick. 

Besides picking up a million candy wrappers around here, I have been folding laundry trying to catch up, don't ya know.  I actually like folding laundry but I despise putting it away.  Eddy and I have a deal that if I fold it, say while watching football, he will put it away for me (this deal only works when he is home and I fold laundry). We are both happy with this arrangement I guess that is the what makes a good marriage finding arrangements that makes both parties happy.  Now to find an arrangement that will keep clothes and socks off the floor.  

 I am really, really hoping we can be done with these ninety degree days, blah, where is my lovely fall weather?  Let's hope I can find it in November!

Happy November to you!

Sisters Birding Hike to the Gila River

Ashlee has allied herself with a Duncan birding group and wanted me to take a birding hike with her to show me where they are going to put in a bird watching site.  Before we went on the hike I made Pa and his progeny take a few photos with some lovely wild flowers. Pa is always willing to take a photo or two and he can make the best expressions.  Ashlee often spray paints this metal chicken different colors.  

Pa and his progeny

Pa and his grandkids in front of the old Granny Hawkins Building

It was nearing dusk when Ashlee and I started our hike and we had to sometimes wade our way through waist high weeds. Being an Arizonian, whenever you step where you can't see out in nature you always worry about stepping on a rattlesnake but thankfully we didn't encounter any poisonous reptiles.  We made it to the Gila River  and to the future site of the bird watching bench.  We saw maybe a Sandhill Crane but as it was flying away into the trees it was hard to be sure.  We patiently waited all of five minutes before we decided to move on, Ashlee says we have to quietly wait a lot longer to properly bird watch that may be hard for us as we tend to laugh and cackle when we are together. Ashlee and I are rank but enthusiastic amateurs when it comes to bird watching and actually probably a handful of other things too. On the way back home we did see several Turkey Buzzards which are common around here especially in the summer with all the dead rabbits and snakes on the roads.

Ashlee hikes into the sunset

Turkey Buzzards on a fence

Ashlee by an abandoned building

The weather is perfect here now for hikes; during the day it is in the 80s but it cools down to the 50s at night.  We may have to go on some more birding hikes and take advantage of this lovely time of year.  Wish us happy bird sightings!