1st of 3rd

WOW! My baby is in 3rd grade now. It seems like somtime over the summer Athena had that overnight transformation from little kid to little adult. She doesn't need help pouring the milk anymore (unless it's brand new) She can get pretty much any snack she wants herself, she showers all on her own. And boy does she have an awesome sense of humor! She had Hailey rolling the other day just by making an appropriate Big Lebowski reference. While I am a little sad to see the little girl go I love watching her blossom.

The school combined meet the teacher with curriculum night this year so Athena was with us for the curriculum part for the first time. She was a little overwhelmed getting all that information at once until I realized she isn't usually there for that part. 3rd grade is going to be a challenge but she is so excited! Cursive writing, division, algebra and writing a 5 paragraph essay by the end of the year are just a few things that were thrown at them. We love the teacher, she has a great philosophy about teaching and learning. And it was a great sign when Athena left the class on the first day with a hug for her teacher! One of the things she is most excited for is the Thursday spelling pre-test. If you get 100% on Thursday, you get to play a game on Friday while the rest of the class takes the test again. Since Kindergarten Athena has only missed 3 spelling words! She is never going to test on Fridays!

I have to mention though that it was more than slightly odd to not be taking Hailey's first day of school picture yesterday as well. Man I'm feeling old these days!

I hate Walmart

So anyone that knows me well has probably ended up in a political conversation or two with me about the many reasons I hate Walmart at some point. The fact that they don't pay their employees enough or give them any health benefits whatsoever. Or the fact that the poor women and children making all those "cheap" clothes in far away lands only get paid pennies a day so that they can pass the savings on to you. There is even the fact that every Walmart, even a brand new one, smells like BO. Do they pipe this scent in or what? But I do admit that on a rare occasion I do find myself in the pits of Hell. Like this weekend. Athena has been wanting a chemistry set for a while, but we decided we could do a bunch of stuff with regular household items. Shawn looked up some experiments online and made a list of items we needed. Borax, a glass jar, pipe cleaners, plus there were a couple of other things we needed. Athena needed new PJ's, I wanted a new pan with a pour spout for my sucker making. So we looked at each other and decided that the only place we could get all these things in one stop was Walmart. Well I haven't been tortured in a while so what the hell let's go! We wander around the whole store, dodge the crazies and find 1 or 2 things on our list. Well if you want to buy a glass jar at Walmart you have to buy 16. If your child wants pj's they better like nightgowns, that's all they have. And don't even think about finding a pipe cleaner in all those acres of stuff! After we left, the list unfinished, I decided we could have gone to Target and Joann's in less amount of time and gotten everything on the list! I guess I just have to be reminded once in a while that I hate Walmart!

Tattoo

Why did I get a tattoo? I really should have my mom send me the picture of me at about 7 with my serious, tough face holding up my shirt to show off my temporary tattoo on my belly. I have always been fascinated by them. I have wanted one for years and came close to getting it quite a few times, but I always had a hard time with the idea I had being on my body forever! Recently I decided I wanted the tattoo to have some sort of connection to my kids. I thought about getting a bug to represent Hailey and an owl to represent Athena. But then Hailey got the desire for one too.

Skip to Hailey's childhood. Anyone that knew Hailey as a child and has read To Kill a Mockingbird should notice the similarities between her and Scout. I have video of her reading at 4 years old! All the moms in Kindergarten would ask me how I taught her to read. Well I didn't, she was just born reading. There were even instances in her life when like Atticus I was basically asked by teachers not to teach her things! What?! That is just crazy in my opinion, you never discourage a child from learning. I don't care if cursive isn't in the curriculum until 3rd grade, if my 1st grader has a desire to learn it I'm going to teach it to her!

So last year during one of my many re-reads of To Kill a Mockingbird I had the idea to incorporate that too, since it is my favorite book and Hailey has fallen in love with it now too. So we thought of the tree. At first we were both going to get the whole tree and we were going to have all kinds of things going on with the tree. Then Shawn came accross a site of literary tattoos. Most of them were quotes and the idea of adding our favorite quote came. Sometimes matching tattoos can seem cheesy to me so I thought it would be kind of cool to each get half of the tree. Then we would match but each still have our own tattoo.

We almost got them last year, but I guess I chickened out. There was always something else to spend the money on, Hailey was a minor and lots of places have a problem with that, I didn't know where to go to have it done. We thought about auditioning for L.A. Ink but they don't do minors either and have a really long waiting list. So this year rolls around and Hailey says she is going with or without me!

So you see this wasn't a whim. I have really given it a lot of thought. Maybe too much!? Now that it's done, I love it and the bonding experience of doing it with Hailey was wonderful. I'm glad I waited. I told Athena when she is 18 we can go and get one together too, she said "NO WAY! she does not want a tattoo" especially after seeing Hailey's face during hers, they hurt too much!

Craters and Canyons

We had a very nice little vacation this week. We left Monday morning and headed towards Flagstaff. Since the room wasn't available until 3:30 we did some sightseeing on the way.

Our first stop (after some confusion over which crater we were going to) was Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument. The wonderful smell of pine hit us right when we opened our doors at the visitor center. We took the lava flow trail hike that meandered around the base of the volcano through lava rocks. Then a short drive to the Wupatki Pueblo trail. This was a quick walk to some of the best preserved pueblos I have ever seen. I even learned something!
Then to the hotel to check in. We stayed at the Ski-lift Lodge at the base of the SanFrancisco Peaks. The room was a cute little cabin under the pine trees. It was so quiet here. Our only complaint was the room was so tiny there was no room for a table and chairs so the only place to sit was on a bed. But since we didn't spend much time in the room this wasn't a big problem.
After dinner in historic Flagstaff we headed up to the Lowell Observatory. (Pluto was discovered here) We watched an interesting film, checked out the on hands exhibits. Athena weighs over 200 pounds on some planets! We got to look through some of the big telescopes. We even saw a star before it got dark! This was a really fun place to visit.
The next day we were up bright and early and headed for the Grand Canyon. The weather was wonderful! We started hiking along the rim trail at Bright Angel Lodge. The views were amazing and since most of the visitors chose to ride the shuttle from point to point we had the canyon all to ourselves most of the time! I think we went an hour once without seeing another person. Poor Athena was really a trooper though hiking over 7 miles that day!
Before we headed home we had to use our free tickets for the skyride! Snowbowl has one lift open to ride to the top of Arizona. The views were amazing, we could even see the Grand Canyon from up top. And the ride down was actually chilly. I am trying to remember that feeling now back in the valley and 110 degrees!
One last stop at Meteor Crater. Yes it is the best preserved meteorite impact site on the planet. Yes it is amazing to think how big and how fast the meteor was moving when it hit. But was it worth the $32 (that's with a discount coupon!) admission price? Not really. Especially when the big hole in the ground we saw the day before was much more impressive!

It was a fun vacation and it was very nice to get out of the heat for a few days. We did really miss Hailey though. Hopefully she won't have work conflicts the next time we go out of town.

Summer Camp

I believe we have another actor in the house! Athena went to summer camp at the Arizona Broadway Theater this year. She loved every second of it! She was there from 10-4:30 everyday but still came home and danced and sang until bedtime. They did a short little show today to celebrate the end of the camp. She was adorable (well as adorable as a 4 eyed pirate can be) We could really tell she was very into it and seemed to be having a great time. After the show she wanted her picture with one of the teachers Miss Morgan, she mentioned to us that they could always count on Athena to know all the words and what step came next! Just like her big sister :)

Last Closing Night.....again

Little Shop of Horrors closed last night. And although we already went through the "this is the last night of High School shows" with Into the Woods, there was once again another show. Hailey wasn't going to do summer theater this year, she had said good-bye and come to terms with that chapter in life being over. Then she found out they were doing Little Shop! It is one of her favorites, one of my favorites and even one that Shawn actually likes! So she had to do it. It was a cute show, they did a good job. Hailey was adorable of course! Here is a little clip of her solo song, she's the blond ;) I didn't get too worked up but did get a little tiny tear in the corner of my eye at the very end. And I finally got my curtain call that I was supposed to get with Anne! Hailey was front and center and last to bow. It's the little things when you are the mom of a theater kid!

Recital

One night of recital down, one to go! After all of the gluing of sequins and rhinestones, months of extra practice on the weekends, recital time is finally here! Everything went great last night. I even survived my initiation of a one song costume change. She barely made it in line but we did it with a little help from one of the other moms. She had a great time and did a wonderful job! I can't wait to watch the video since I only saw everything from the side of the stage, no time to run out front this year with 5 costume changes! I'm very proud of my little dancing queen and look forward to the many years of dancing to come.