The Family That Paintball's Together...

We've all heard the saying, "The family that plays together, stays together". This also applies to the game of Paintball. While I'm not one for the actual sport of Paintball, I have heard quite a few stories about the games my son and husband have played against others in their group. Here's a shot of my son and husband after a game. I bet you couldn't tell that huh?











Some of the group have included cousins, uncles, and brothers in which they have a great time shooting at each other. Here's a picture of one of the cousin's.











When the "group" gets together, it is usually up in a wooded area. Easier to hide I'm guessing. So here's a picture of a beautiful wooded area in northern Arizona. I would go just to take in the beauty of the forest, but a Paintball game is usually when the guys get together.





It's a wonderful time for family to get together doing an activity that they enjoy. Next time they go, I'm supposed to be taking the pictures. I hope there will be a tree or two wide enough to hide behind so I won't get hit!

A Partnership With Nature

When a man plants a seed, nature proceeds to complete the work. So as a seed is dropped into the soil, if often lies for a long time. But with a dose of water, sunshine, and soil, the seed sprouts and pushes forward into the maturity it was meant to be. So it is with our children. When we raise them to hopefully become respectable, mature adults, with love and respect, in essence we've planted that seed.

And so it is with nature ...

These are my small bell peppers that are just now maturing after about 4 months. They've been through a lot with the Arizona summer, the monsoon season, and not to mention getting hit with a ball. They've seamed to be pulling through unscathed.

Boyce Thompson State Park

While looking at pictures this morning, I had forgotten about this little spur-of-the-moment activity my husband and I did. About three years ago this week, we took our son up to his first year of college at Eastern Arizona College. My time flies! Anyway, on the way back down to the valley, my husband had this hair-brained idea to suddenly stop off at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum State Park which is located near the historic copper mining town of Superior, roughly about 55 miles east of Phoenix. I wasn't happy about going there after helping move my son into his dorm(I was tired)and mainly 'cause it was really hot and humid out. Oh well, he won out. While we've never been there it actually was a nice experience to take our own personal tour without tour guides despite almost dying of thirst and killing over! The area was peaceful and quiet with beautiful plants, flowers and trees. So here's some pictures that we took while we were there.

Above is a picture of me on a bridge crossing a dry creek (how I wish there was water in it, I would have jumped in). Above on my main page there is a picture of some of the trees in the Arboretum. They were absolutely beautiful! To the right is a picture of my husband in the Cactus Garden. With a living collection of over 800 kinds of cacti, the Arboretum has become a center for the study of this family of desert plants. Most of the 800 species are displayed in the Cactus Garden. No, we didn't tour all of the 800 species thank goodness. Cacti are inseparably linked with the Sonoran Desert landscape; their many sizes and bizarre shapes may go far beyond our mental image of a typical cactus. There are skyscraper saguaros; paddle-shaped prickly pears; twisted, tree-like chollas; diminutive pincushions; globular barrels; and squat, branched hedgehogs. The Boyce Thompson hedgehog cactus was first identified at the Arboretum.

Now that I look back on these pictures, I'm glad that we did go to the Arboretum because in reality, we probably wouldn't have come here otherwise. If you want more information on this beautiful state park click here: arboretum.ag.arizona.edu

A Summer Night's Dream

There's nothing like an Arizona summer storm to listen to just before going to bed. I usually listen to a soothing massage CD to put me to sleep but not tonite! I will just go to bed with the natural sounds of Mother Nature presenting her rumble of thunder and rain rocking me to sleep. Ahhh...

Caging Vegetable Plants

I found some tomato cages just laying around the backyard. I almost threw them away thinking that there was no use for them. Then I thought I could use them another way other than how they were intended for. Although they are hard to see in this picture, I just simply turned them upside down and covered my cucumber plants, bell peppers, and my tomato plants with them, so that the heavier end is at the bottom. One of my tomato plants' has the cage the normal way, due to my husband's "help". Then my plants can crawl up their cage and wrap themselves around it so that the cucumbers and tomatoes can nicely hang from it. In another one of my posts, Tomato Plant Support, there are some other ideas I've found on the internet if you don't like the caged ideas using wire. I've also found the last month and a half or so since I've started my container garden, that the amount of sunlight that my container garden spot receives has been perfect. It receives about 6 hours of direct sunlight per day. According to a master gardener at the Arizona Cooperative Extension office, root crops and leaf crops can tolerate partial shade, but vegetables grown for their fruits generally need at least 5 hours of full, direct sunlight each day, and perform better with 8 to 10 hours. Container gardening lends itself to attractive plantscaping. A dull patio area can be brightened by the addition of baskets of cascading tomatoes or a colorful herb mix. With my little garden on the back patio, I now have a nice little salad display.

So I didn't post anything yesterday 'cause my grandson and daughter came over early Saturday morning. My grandson, Jameson, ended up staying overnite, which means I didn't get much done. He's 2 1/2 years old, full of fun, mischief and wonder. So I'm making up for it tonight by posting at least something. We went to a multi-level indoor playground on Saturday called Makutu's Island for something fun to do. When living in Arizona in the summertime, all the activities should be indoors. I have to say that the place was very crowded, loud, and tons of kids running around. We were mostly running after my grandson Jameson so he wouldn't get lost in the crowd. He had fun, I had a headache! After spending about 2 hours there, we went to lunch and then headed home. Because he didn't have a nap, he fell asleep in the car. The rest of the day was devoted to Jameson. Water activities in the backyard and watching "Clifford the Big Red Dog's Really Big Movie" and "Peter Pan" for the 3,000th time (although "Chicken Little" peaked his interest for 1/2 of the movie). He finally went to bed or I should say I put him to bed (he still wanted to do the "Panda Dance" to "Kung Fu Panda") at 10:00 p.m. I was wiped out to say the least but knowing he had a fun day at Grandma's means all the world to me.

A House for Sale

We have a house for sale and I went to check on it and tidy it up today. I did this because I thought that the open house was today, or at least I thought that. Well, I either didn't hear my realtor say that it would be next weekend, or I just didn't listen. In any case, it's spit spot once again and ready for the open house on Saturday, July 12th.