Arizona

       When we moved to Arizona, back in March of 1994, almost 18 years ago now, we were so hungry to see every inch of this state...so, we made a committment to taking advantage of any days off that we had to explore...it seems that our early journeys focused on the southwest part of the state...
       Organ Pipe National Park - now closed, due to drug and people trafficing, this is a most amazing natural setting in our state...about as far west on Ajo as you can go without leaving the country, we drove and drove and drove until we got there.  Our 'first born', Cajun, rode along, as she always did.  We had a jeep wrangler, it was a beautiful day and we had the top off.  To get there, you travel through some pretty desolate, but gorgeous, areas.
        The park itself consists of winding roads and picnic areas.  We spent the day driving on each and every road, including a little off roading down some washes.  The park was so filled with organ pipe cacti - similiar to the amount of saguaros you encounter on the drive out to the Desert Museum.  Every where you looked were green, tall and proud organ pipe cacti, framed out by mountains.
         We had a nice picnic lunch together, Cajun used to like to stand right on top of the picnic table and eat her lunch with us.  As it got later, monsoon clouds began to come in, like a high tide gently arriving on a beach.  Tall storm clouds, filled with purples and blacks and brilliant strikes of lightning were coming our way...quickly, and, oh yeh, we had the top down on the jeep.  Working together, Kim and I could put that top on pretty quickly!  We put Cajun in the driver's seat and scrambled to beat the downpour, the wall of water, that we could literally see coming right at us....we made it, got inside and just sat there enjoying the pounding rain, the sweet smell of the wet creosote bushes and the instant cooling of the air...then, we headed back to Tucson...

           Today was the 100th day of school for the bambini's!  Where did this year go??  Mrs. Rudzena asked me to help out with some fun games in Autumn's class today, to help celebrate.  I offered to take care of the game planning and made some suggestions, like bobbing for poison apples, razor blade toss, knife throwing, etc, but Mrs. Rudzena said she had the game planning under control and just needed me to run one of them...well, it was still fun.  My game involved the kids putting a stocking on their head.  The stocking has a baseball in the foot and the kids had to pretend they were an elephant and use the weighted stocking to swing like a trunk, trying to knock over a couple rows of water bottles I had set up, within a minute.  The kids had a blast.  Tonio even got to try as his class passed by for lunch and Mrs. Schrantz sent him over to play.
          The teachers kept the kids after school, Autumn even got to go for ice cream!  While I cooked, and cooked and cooked some more.  I made albondigas (meatball soup) and salsa for dinner tonight and a fresh batch of marinara for the weekend!  The kids friends, Lexy and Breanna and Andrea joined us for dinner and the kids set up elaborate forts throughout the living room and had Nerf gun wars...good times...Cody got to play ping pong and do a little BMX jumping with his buddy Alex and then it was time for Guitar Hero...The kids are looking forward to having a three day weekend - we have a lot of stuff lined up!
          I think that is everything...we'll go outside soon, and search the night sky for signs of Mama, wishing her a good night and asking her to watch over us...and let her know how much we miss her.  Thanks for listening,
                Love,
                        Dave