Beautiful Sedona

We took advantage of our 3-day weekend and headed up to Sedona on Sunday for a little getaway. What a beautiful place! We kept saying that it reminded us of Keystone. It was in the upper 50's and sunny which made for beautiful hiking weather. Bryce was in boy heaven being able to climb on all the rocks. We stopped and hiked at Bell & Cathedral Rock and then walked through town enjoying all the tourist stores.

Fire Truck Parade

Last weekend we took Bryce to his first parade. Since it was fire prevention week, Glendale had a fire truck parade. Bryce had a good time seeing all the different fire trucks and would wave at them as they passed by. They had a lot of neat antique fire trucks in the parade. Afterwards, we got to look at the fire trucks up close and he even got a hat from one of the firemen.

Update: I finally got a job. I will be working for the Glendale Elementary School District in their Human Resources Department. It's very similar to the job that I was doing in Okinawa so it hopefully shouldn't be too hard to get back into the swing of things.

Soccer Practice

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted pictures. We've been so busy around here lately. I believe last I posted, Bryce was getting ready to start daycare & soccer practice. Both are going well. The first couple of weeks at daycare were pretty emotional but, he loves his teacher now and has fun playing there. He's doing good at soccer but has the attention span of a typical 2 year old and is usually doing his own thing by the end of practice. His class is supposed to have a soccer game in 2 weeks and the coach said he's just going to let them do their own thing and see what happens. It will be interesting to watch a group of 2-3 year olds try to play a soccer game.

Dust Storm!

Bryce, Cody & I set out on our walk yesterday afternoon trying to beat what we thought was a rainstorm heading our direction. As I was looking at the sky, I was thinking to myself that it was looking a little too brown to be a rain cloud and just as we made it to the end of our street, Wayne came flying around the corner on his motorcycle to tell us that he had just raced a huge dust storm home. So we all headed back to the house and just as we shut the garage door, the cloud of dust hit. Here are some pics of the dust cloud from the local news channel. They say it was a 90-mile long wall of dust which was one of the biggest dust storms in years...

Now you can see the Superbowl Stadium...

Now you can't...

Ahhhh.....Kansas!

Bryce and I had a great time during our visit in Kansas. We definitely enjoyed the much cooler weather and seeing all the green grass and trees. We stayed busy the whole time going to Chicago to our cousin David's wedding, going to the K-State stockyards & gardens, visiting with friends, picking pumpkins in grandma & grandpa's backyard, hiking on the Konza and most importantly, going to the K-State Football game. Go Cats! When we left Kansas Wednesday morning, it was raining and 59 degrees. When we arrived in Arizona, it was a sunny & warm 105 degrees. Bah!

We're getting back into the swing of things at home now and Wayne is certainly happy to have us back. Bryce starts soccer practice on Saturday and starts school part-time on Monday so, we'll have to let everyone know how that goes.

At the wedding...

Hanging out with grandpa in his tent...

Helping grandma make cookies...

His favorite animal at the stockyard...

Picking pumpkins from the pumpkin patch (note: if you ever want to grow pumpkins in your backyard, just throw your old pumpkins out back and let nature take it's course...)

Go Cats!

K-State Gardens...

Hiking on the Konza (Actually, Bryce did very little hiking and more shoulder riding)

Random pics...

Feeding the ducks & art class

Okay, I'm slacking in the picture taking department again but, I have a good excuse this time. We FINALLY got our furniture from Okinawa last week so, we've been busy emptying boxes and putting things away. We've pretty much got everything where we want it with the exception of hanging a few pictures and figuring out how in the heck we're going to organize Bryce's disaster of a room.

Bryce's swim lessons ended last week and he's ready to move onto the preschool class next summer. Today was our last art class and when we get back from Kansas, we start our soccer lessons.

Here are a few of the pictures that I have taken lately of feeding the ducks and art class...

Update from Arizona

Well, we've almost been here for 2 months now and we're still anxiously awaiting the arrival of our furniture. I think it must have been put on the slow boat from Japan. So, we're still hanging in here with our empty house.

Bryce has been keeping us busy with his weekly swim lessons and his art class on the weekend. He's a real fish in the water and his favorite thing to do is jump in and get everyone around him wet. He's enjoying his art class so our fridge is covered with artwork.

I've been slacking in the picture taking department lately so, don't have any of my own pictures to post. Thanks to Aunt Lori emailing pics she took while she was here, I do have some pictures to share...

Riding his bike...
Coolin' off in the sprinklers...
Decorating cookies for the 4th of July...
Rewarding himself for his hard work...
Trying to get the ball past the nose hairs at the AZ Science Museum...
Showing Aunt Lori where the organs go...
What kid doesn't love a box?