Long Overdue Update

Hello everyone!

I have been putting this off too long and thought I'd get it taken care of today.

Due to our tight financial situation, Tony and I decided that it was best if I didn't go to the Women's Retreat next weekend in Boise. I'm feeling sad about not seeing you all, but relieved too because I need to stay home and continue the process of settling in to our new digs. We are still planning on bringing the boys to Awana camp in McCall next July. Tony has assured me that that will definitely happen. In the meantime I've been feeling guilty about not updating my blog but I know that you all don't care about perfection. So here it is! I'll jump right in where I am and we can fill in the blanks later.

I'm really starting to enjoy the house. The "old" side is 50% livable. We have a very lovely new carpet, new paint library where we do some school, a dining/eating area where we eat and do the rest of school, a living room that is home to some of Sarah's kitchen toys and the old icky refrigerator, and the kitchen. I have mixed feelings about the kitchen. Thank you Kathy for the idea of putting clear vinyl from Walmart over the majority of the needs-to-be-steam-cleaned 4" tile countertop. We have a large breakfast bar that looks into the dining area and it is my favorite thing of all time. There's something about the layout and the breakfast bar that just invites you to create in the kitchen. I've made Italian bread twice and yesterday the boys and I made Lamingtons which are Australian yellow angel food cake squares dipped in chocolate icing and shredded coconut. Yummy! The boys are studying Eastern Hemisphere in school and just finished Australia. I've always wanted to tie cooking with homeschool and this was the first time we actually did! The boys really balked the first time in Boise when I suggested we make a traditional Incan meal. (We have guinea pigs. LOL!)

Tomorrow we are going to Scottsdale for a big family birthday bash. Tony's grandpa, Tony and Alex all have birthdays this month that haven't been celebrated properly. Grandpa has a nephew flying in from Cleveland. There should be 15-20 of us there. My job is to make Kathy Blank's delicious Italian Creme Cake for the party. I had to buy new cake pans because mine are hopelessly buried in a box in our "rec" room formerly known as the school room. It never was a school room - more like a storage facility. Anyways, I hope the family finds my cake as wonderful as we have all found Kathy's cake to be over the last few years.

We celebrated Brian (Tony's cousin and Papa Murphy business partner) and Ryan's birthdays earlier this month with a pool party at our place. Here are the birthday boys with their Chocolate Chip Cookie M&M cake:

Notice the candles. After packing and transporting them carefully to AZ in the middle of August, the tote they were in got left outside the side door for two days in the direct afternoon sun. Now they are a great conversation piece!

I'm rather impressed with my celebratory spirit. In fact let me share some shocking news with you... This year we celebrated my husband's birthday! For those of you who don't know, it's been a twisted family joke about how I never remember, let alone celebrate Tony's birthday. But this year, on his actual birth day I invited over his uncle and aunt, cooked dinner, baked homemade bread, provided green mint choc chip ice cream (Tony's request instead of cake) and the kids and I bought not one, not two, but 5 presents! To say Tony was surprised and pleased would be an understatement. I was pretty happy about the day too. (This was not an official party as there were less than 12 people in attendance!)

Sarah's present to Dad - new jeans:

Ryan's present to Dad - Wii rechargable batteries:

My present to Tony:
Yes, that is Becoming Jane. Tony is the one who got me hooked on the A&E version of Pride and Prejudice and on Jane Austin.

Alex's gift to Dad. IronMan!

The family gift. Drumroll please....

WiiFit!!!!! No pressure there Honey!
The WiiFit has been quite a hit in our house. I highly recommend it. It's a little pricey but I figure it is paid for in three months by not signing up for homeschool PE and I have never found anything to get my couch potato kids and husband (even my couch potato self) up and moving like this thing can.

And last but not least -

My baby lost her first tooth:
Since this blog is already long, here's one more story. That tooth that Sarah lost was not pushed out by the adult tooth. It was pushed out by her extra tooth. Yes, Sarah has an extra tooth positioned right in the middle of her baby and adult front teeth. We found out after we dropped our dental insurance of course. However Ryan's orthodontist was guardedly optimistic that the extra tooth would erupt and we would not have to see the oral surgeon to the tune of $1500! Sarah has been praying every night for her front teeth to fall out for the last 5 months and here it is. God's answered prayer! God is so very good!

And God has been very, very good to us in Tucson! The only thing I lack is seeing all of you. But I am loving the emails that everyone has been sending, the online chats we have and seeing the blogsites some of you have. They have been real pick-me-ups. I'm attempting to get better about staying in touch and I'm sure that's one of the lessons I'm supposed to learn here. Thanks for hanging in there with me and especially for all your prayers. I covey those the most. May God bless you all!!!

Arizona Wildlife in my own backyard

Well, we made it safely to Tucson and have started working on the house...I've spent two days cleaning the kitchen and need to spend one more before we can begin unpacking and setting up our kitchen. Whew! The word of the week is EEEEEWWWWW!!!!! But that's going to be a different post. For today's post I figured out how to upload pictures. Here are the first four critters I saw just this morning. First Tony found a moth on our front porch, apparently half a day from death. It has/had a 4 inch wingspan!


Next we went out to the pool. The one we hope to swim in someday! Right now it's a pretty blue-green color and you can see the bottom at the shallow end. And there walking on the cool deck was the biggest black beetle I've ever seen. I thought of Tyler and Jonathan immediately but refrained from catching it. EEEEWWWW!

Moving on the pool I spotted something riding on the floaty-thing that you put chlorine tablets in. Floaty-thing is of course an industry term but I digress. The floaty-thing was by the far side of the pool and the critter on it was black and cream colored striped. It was a snake! I studied its head a bit because my back neighbor had already warned me about rattlesnakes. Its head appeared to be of the nonvenomness type, like a garden snake. The colors and patten were unfamiliar but it was chilly in the pool so I figured I was quicker that a 12in snake, so....


Now I have to admit to feeling some trepidation when I picked it up and it immediately started coiling up and shaking its tail like a rattler. It didn't appear to have rattles but then again maybe it was a baby.?.? Then it pooed on me. EEEEEWWWWW!!!!! Tony asked if I wanted to save it for the kids but they don't like stuff like that and my hand was all icky (another industry term) so we let it go beyond our gate. There on the ground it still coiled up and shook its tail. I poked it with my finger (couldn't find a stick without stickers) and it finally slithered away. Now I really thought it could be a baby rattler and wanted it back. Fortunately for it, I couldn't find it. I looked it up on the internet and in reality it was a common kingsnake. I still should have kept it. Maybe next time.

Later in the morning I went out to check on our family of bats. They live in the tiny little crack between where the carport attaches to the house. I was thrilled to get several great shots and counted six noses today. That's a three inch brick the bat is resting on. I figure they are two inches long and smaller than a deer mouse. They eat insects and they all start squeaking everyday around 2pm. Very cute!


There is plenty is see around here. Just tonight (camera at the other end of the house) I saw a covey of quail in our driveway in front of the house. Then a cactus wren (I think) was at the end of the walk 8 feet from the door when a small (4in) lizard came tearing towards the house. Bam! The bird was on it and before I realized what had happened it was flying away with the little wiggly lizard in its beak. Good news is there are LOTS of other lizards to take his place. And I'll probably take their pictures too!

Moving to Arizona

It's been official for some time, but now it's starting to feel real. One more week and we'll be loading the moving truck with the last of our possessions (that would be the second 26ft truck) and cleaning the house for the last time (the 12th time in 6 years I think) and getting ready to hit the road for Arizona (4 adults - thanks Dad and Uncle Mike for helping - 3 squirrely kids and 1 very mature guinea pig traveling in a 26ft moving truck, a 21ft RV, my Honda Odyssey and Uncle Mike's pickup truck). Note to self: make sure AAA is paid up and I have the cards handy; bring a shoebox and shovel in case Cocoa the guinea pig should, well you know.

People keep asking me what I think about it all. What do I think... Well I'm very excited about the new adventures we'll be having - new house, new business, new places to explore. I'm excited to be closer to family and all the family activities like Grandma taking the kids for the weekend, Thanksgiving at my house with a ba-zillion people, Auntie taking the kids for the weekend, visiting Grandma's cabin in Strawberry, Grandma and Auntie taking the kids for the weekend. Did I mention Grandma and/or Auntie taking the kids for the weekend? Those sorts of things.

But I'm sad too. We've been in Boise 16 years now and this house 6 years and it's the longest I've been in any town and house. And in that time I have found the MOST AMAZING FRIENDS anyone could ever ask for. With them I can be my self and not be anxious about saying or doing the "wrong" thing. They get my sense of humor. Why they're even throwing me a Go Away Party! going away, go away? hhhmmm...... Well they even are having it at my house so that I don't have to spend all that extra money on gas driving somewhere - I just have to clean an extra time before the party.... hhhmmm..... I know I'll not find friends in Arizona as great as my friends are here!!! Why I'll bet they've never planned a homeschool homebirth field trip ever!!! Too bad Kyle was breach - that field trip would have been soooo cool. LOL!

Unfortunately for me I'm super-bad at keeping in touch. I'm an out-of-sight out-of-mind kind of gal. But I've been inspired by several of my friends' blog sites and encouraged by others to create a blog site. I've been told it's very easy and not so time consuming and truth be told if I just stopped playing Spider Solitaire I'd have more than enough time to publish a blog site, clean my house, homeschool my kids, manage the books for the business etc. etc. So here is the inaugural keep-in-touch blog site for all the well-loved people in my life!!! And you know who you are!!! Here's to having Moore Fun in Arizona!!!