Shy and Talented Little Weaver

For the last couple of weeks I have been spending my mornings looking to see what a mysterious little artist has made for me in the backyard. I am never disappointed. Each morning I find a large and intricate spider web gleaming in the sun. And each morning it's a little bit different. This hard-working spider spins a web each dawn and then throughout the day it gets blown in the wind or damaged by insects. And so the next day it begins again to create a new web. I have seen the spider only twice. It is very shy and very lovely. So for the last week and a half I have had the camera ready in case it decided to sit in it's web. One day I thought I saw it through the window so I went outside with the zoom lens ready. Unfortunately it was just a feather that the web had caught. So I got a picture of this little guy instead:

A couple of days later I saw it in it's web and went out again to finally capture an image. I approached the web too quickly, however, and it ran quickly into the protective branches of the Italian cypress tree. So I sat on the patio for awhile hoping it would come out once again for it's photo shoot. It never did, but in the meantime Jade and I got to see several beautiful butterflies. I caught images of a couple of them.

I had started to give up hope that I'd ever get a picture of this 8-legged friend. But finally today I peered out the window and saw something. I figured it was just some grass or a feather so I didn't take action. Then I opened the screen door to water the sissoo tree. Can you imagine my surprise when I saw that the spider was sitting there right in the middle of it's web!? I ran back in the house and rigged up the camera with the zoom. And finally today I got some pictures of our backyard artisan. I believe it is an orb weaver spider.

I'm so glad that we have the pleasure of giving residence to this shy and talented little weaver.

Museum

Today was a great Saturday. I started off the morning at my mom and dad's house selling stuff that we've accumulated since moving into this house about a year and a half ago. I am convinced that whatever amount of space we have in our home, we end up filling it. It was nice to unload some things that were no longer of use to our family. When I got home, I didn't have much going on and Spencer got invited to go play frisbee in the irrigation. I was poking around on Slickdeals and saw that it was free museum day sponsored by the Smithsonian magazine. I found the closest museum that was being included and printed a ticket. Then the kids and I headed to North Mesa to check out the Mesa Historical Museum. Since the ticket only allowed for two people to get in free, I paid $3 for Jade and we started our exploration. They had 5 rooms set up each focusing on a different aspect of Mesa's history. They all started looking about the same, and although the kids were interested in the old fashioned gadgets and machines, they were getting antsy to go outside and check out the old farming equipment. We finished up in a room dedicated to the Wallace and Ladmo show. They didn't really get a lot of the humor in there, but they did like the giant guitar on the wall that played music from the show. After they played the theme song several times (driving many museum goers out of the room), we headed behind the building. The farm equipment was pretty cool, but very randomly placed and a bit overgrown with grass and weeds. There were a few pieces with signs explaining their use, but many of them we just used our imagination. Braden and Jade came up with very amazing and fantastic possible uses for those machines. There was also an old school house outside, but it was locked and the museum attendant said they hadn't been able to get the key to work for a week or so. Weird. Next to the school house was an old outhouse. When I explained to the kids what that was for they looked grossed out and then started to giggle. They thought it would be annoying to have to go outside and were also concerned about the prospect of getting splinters in tender spots. Overall, the museum was interesting and I was glad it was nearly free. I don't think it would have been worth $12. I really like having the ability to take the kids for some educational entertainment. I can't wait to explore another museum.

Perfect Activity

Ever since Braden started going to school, life for Jade has been boring... er um... more grown-up-ish. I try to be cool, but I have nowhere near the imagination of those two kids and I'm not very good at playing. So she is forced to make her own fun which is challenging for her. So, as you can imagine, when my mother suggested a get together at the Gilbert splash pad we were both excited for some entertainment. We met up with her and Chelsea and Shea and it was so much fun. It was great to see the pure jubilation of the kids as the water sprayed up and surprised them. Shea was hilarious when she got sprayed in the face because it got her all disoriented and she started staggering around until she found her bearings. Jade enjoyed playing with the plastic toys Grandma brought and filling them up with water. I loved her face when she got sprayed with water. Spencer calls it the "drowned rat" look. He says I look like that when I come up from swimming. Anyway, with the weather at only about 90*, the splash pad ended up being quite a perfect activity.

Drowned Rat

Sidebar Ads

This is for anyone who uses Gmail (and I think Facebook and other sites do this too). Do you ever read the sponsored links that come up on the sidebar when you're reading an email? I think they are highly entertaining and also a little creepy. Some of them are very common and show up all the time. Some are generated based on what you write about in emails or in your status updates, profiles and such.
So I'm often getting stuff for photography and children... my life, right? But the funniest ones are when they mix stuff up. I like to try and figure out how they came up with it. For instance today I looked over and it said "More about..." and in the list was Thai Love Poems.  What am I gonna do with Thai love poems? Maybe Thai recipes, perhaps. Seriously. Where do they come up with this stuff? I sign nearly every personal email with "Love, Crystal". So, I write "love" a lot in my emails. Cameron just came back from Thailand and I emailed him while he was there, so maybe I wrote Thai or Thailand a lot? I'm not exactly where the "poems" came from. Anyway, glance at it sometime. It's weird. I wonder if anyone has ever found those ads useful in any way? Does anyone actually click on those? Perhaps I should start writing a lot of emails about free money samples. Do you think that would work? Ok, maybe not. I'll just keep finding simple entertainment in my sidebar ads.

Hard-working, Neglected Car

Oh Dear. I always thought I'd avoid being the stereotyped neglectful female car owner. My dad made sure I learned basic car maintenance when I was a young teenager. You know, replacing a tire, checking fluids, adding oil etc. This was good since I drove older cars as a teen and young adult and needed that knowledge. I'm happy that I know my way around the engine a little and I don't feel completely lost when I open the hood. But lately, I've come to a realization that despite this early training, I'm not very good to my car. Spencer lovingly complains that every time he drives my car it's fuel light is on. He doesn't mind filling it up for me, but it concerns him that I drive it until it is so low. He's right. I shouldn't do that. Then there are the tires; once in awhile I'll start feeling a tug or a rumble when I'm driving and I think, "Something is going on with my tires." So then, you know... 2 or 3 weeks later I take it in to Discount Tire Co.  This is not only rough on the car, it's hazardous! And I KNOW this! As far as general car care is concerned, I wash the outside of my car about twice a year and it is nasty. It usually rains within a week after I wash it. I don't feel good about taking it to a car wash when I could just do it myself, but I never seem to find time to do it! I can say the inside gets cleaned regularly. However, this is only because I have a hyper-active nose that does not want to smell dirty socks and mysterious moldy snacks. All of these habits need improvement, but today my eyes were opened to the severity of my car-neglecting ways. For the last few weeks (before traveling to Flagstaff and back) my oil light has flickered on a tiny bit when I would drive Braden to school. I knew I needed oil. I intended to add some before Flagstaff, but my car took the back burner like it aways does and it never happened. So today I noticed the light again and knew that if I didn't want to destroy my engine that I needed to take care of this issue. My gas was also completely empty (as is customary), so I decided to hit up QT and then go to Walmart for the oil. I was just going to just add it myself, but I actually found a Walmart that was having an oil change special that cost as much as a jug of oil. I figured I'd let them change it for me. After waiting for a while, I hear this guy come in and say, "The Honda CRV needs to have a waiver signed." I poked my head out and they asked if I drove the CRV. "Yes, that's me." They then explained that the car didn't have a single drop of oil and that they needed me to sign a waiver exempting them from responsibility if my engine exploded after driving away. Wow. Awkward and embarrassing. It was then and there that I vowed to be better to my hard-working, neglected car.

Weekend

Part 1 - A Reuniting
This weekend was quite eventful for us. It started with the arrival of our long-awaited guests, Aaron and Diana from Colorado. They came in the morning of the 3rd. We were lucky enough to spend some time with them going out to eat and doing a little shopping. After that, the four of us went and picked up Braden from school and then met at the in-laws home (where Jade was) to wait. We waited. Finally the welcomed sound of the garage door was heard and we gathered excitedly in the kitchen. It seemed to take forever, but finally the front door was opened and Elder Lilly walked through. He looked sharp in his Thailand-made, custom tailored, 3-piece suit. On his pocket he wore the tag that for the last 2 years has identified him as a representative of Jesus Christ, a full-time missionary. We each gave him a hug and handed him a welcome home gift. The evening went quickly. It was fascinating to hear of some of the Thai customs and of their language. We ate dinner together as a big family and then our little family went home to prepare for part 2 of our weekend.

Part 2 - A Time to Relax
We quickly threw together the last of our packing needs and headed out. We were traveling North to enjoy some time with the Beach family in Flagstaff. We made good time and arrived at the resort shortly after 10PM. I'll admit that I was tired from a day of excitement and travel. Our family and the Osborns shared a 2-bedroom condo that also included a loft. Our kids slept in the loft and the other two rooms housed Spencer and I and Chelsea, Darin and Shea. We went to bed and awoke refreshed. It was Saturday and we went on a beautiful little hike in Walnut Canyon. It was quite magnificent to see the little ancient houses built into the sides of this wide open canyon. It was neat to imagine life as it was when these homes were being used. I enjoyed taking many pictures. After we were done hiking, we swam at the resorts kid-friendly pool and played pool. We dined later that afternoon at Cracker Barrel which is somewhat of a family tradition for me. It's a favorite when we are on vacation. That evening we tried to go to Lowell Observatory but unfortunately they had decided to cancel the tour for that night. Spencer and I went with the kids to Target to pick up a few things we had forgotten and then went home and put the kids to bed. They talked and giggled upstairs for at least an hour before finally going to sleep. They can be so silly together. Sunday was a day of rest. We went to church, had and enjoyable family home evening and enjoyed nature. Monday was our last day at the resort. After breakfast, Spencer showed a slide show of the pictures that had been taken on the trip. It was especially fun to see the ones from his underwater fish-eye camera. We packed up our belongings after that and then took the kids to the miniature golf course offered by the resort. It was pretty fun for the kids. I tried to be a good journalist and take a lot of pictures, but found that the camera around my neck was seriously and negatively affecting my game. After golfing we headed home through the nasty holiday traffic, but not without first stopping for Blizzards at Dairy Queen. We made it home with no backseat puking. This was good.

Part 3 - One Last Hurrah
We walked in through our garage door and our noses were greeted warmly by the smell of freshly baked cinnamon rolls. Diana and Kara had made them for us. They sat on the counter next to a sweet note from Diana and Aaron.  Outside, we noticed that our unruly bush had been trimmed back from the driveway (a gift from Aaron). And our bedding had been laundered and returned to the bed in perfect order. All this confirmed my previous feeling that the Mortensen's may be the best house-guests ever. That afternoon was spent with time together one last time before the giant bird in the sky would again return them to their home and more friendly temperatures.

Part 4 - The Day After
Today I have felt so relaxed and a little lazy too. I did a little laundry, went grocery shopping, ground a little flour at the in-laws and played guitar with Kara. I even took a brief nap on the couch. Tomorrow I plan to hit the ground running and accomplish some things. This has been a wonderful weekend.