It's free

Daniel also has his funny moments. The other day I was at the bank making a deposit. The bank always has suckers. Most of the time I let the kids have a sucker when I go to the bank. But this day it was so close to dinner that I told Daniel no when he asked if they could have a sucker. His reply to my no? "but they're free!"

It made me laugh because through the entire store previous to the bank, they had kept asking if they could have this or that or whatever it was and the answer to the why not, was because it cost money.

Probably a moment that you needed to be there to really grasp the humor in it, but it was cute to me.

It's about time!

Due to the recent economic recession, the government and many mortgage companies have been offering all kinds of money, restructured loans, and other uncommon solutions so that no companies have to sink because they were dumb.  Personally, I think the companies should have been left to sink or swim on their own, but that's for another day.

All these hand-outs have left many of us who were both judicious in the use of our buying power AND fortunate enough to avoid a catastrophic economic event (like serious medical issues, job loss, etc) wondering why we are not being rewarded or even complimented on the responsible discharge of our obligations.  Where's the justice?  Isn't America built to reward the hard worker?

Our mortgage owner, Chase Manhattan Bank, recently gave us a glimmer of hope that there is justice somewhere in this twisted world.  They sent us a letter offering (for a limited time only) a no-fee rate reduction on our loan.  No appraisal, no income verification.  Just reduce the interest rate by 7/8%.  I still count my lucky stars that I haven't suffered a job loss or other catastrophic economic event.  At the same time, I've had a bit of hope restored in the idea that hard work pays off.

The Bees

Last night we attended the Bees game.  Megan had not one ounce of interest through the entire game.  When I asked Daniel if he had fun, he told me "not really.  Because it was boring sitting."  It was a very long game.  We didn't get home until about 11:40. This was an exciting moment to Daniel because he's always wanting to stay up until mom and dad go to bed.

Daniel was finally able to beckon the mascot over.  It took him quite awhile, but he was so excited for that Bee. As you can tell from the pictures below, Megan was excited to go down to the bee and she was good to have her picture with him, but when it came time to actually take the picture, she didn't want anything to do with it.  That's our Megan.

Daniel was so excited to get the bee to sit with him for a few minutes.

The mascot was definitely the highlight of the night for Daniel.....next to the corn dog and fries that he got to eat.

The Grand Canyon- North Rim

This past weekend, we took a trip to the North Rim of The Grand Canyon.  WOW! What an amazing site.  The pictures don't quite do justice to the majesty of it.  The following pictures are the pictures taken from the Grand Canyon North Rim visitor center.

That same night we took a drive on one of the dirt roads not far from our campsite outside of the park.  This road had lots of lookouts according to the map, but they were quite a ways away and we were limited on daylight so we never made it to any of the actual lookouts.  But we did make it to the tower that we had heard about.  There were 151 stairs to the top of this tower.  The views were amazing and we happened to get up there in time for the sunset. On this trail we were also looking for a good place to shoot sometime over the weekend. 

The next day we took a drive to all the other lookouts along the north rim.  The lookouts included: Bright Angel Point Trail, Cape Royal Trail, Cliff Springs Trail, and Roosevelt Point Trail.

That afternoon we went back along the dirt road from the previous night to the area we found for shooting.  Daniel is the cause of this damaged milk bottle.

Later that night, we took a dirt road to the Marble Viewpoint not far from our campground outside the park.  We saw a number of animals that I've never seen before in the wild.  We saw lots of deer and lots of wild turkeys.  But we also saw a porcupine.  However, I must say that I think this is the largest bug that I've seen dead on my car before.  If you can't tell (I couldn't) it is a dragonfly.

Anyway....On to the views of Marble Point.

On our way back down we saw this deer just looking at us. 

The next day we went off roading along a trial that would take us to Point Sublime.  On this trail we saw two of the famous silver ghosts of the north rim, otherwise known as the Kaibab squirrel.

These two pictures are from a little overlook on the way to the point.

The rest of these pictures are at the point.

This last picture is of the kids making noise with their birds at the campsite.

Bear Lake

We had our annual Bear Lake trip this past weekend with my side of the family.  It's always nice to get away and enjoy some nice weather at the beach, wake up to the lake view, and not worry about any responsibilities that you would normally do back home.

The kids love going to the playground because of this particular item:

They love going in circles!

Daniel got his first taste of tennis.

Playing at the beach. (The water was very cold.)

The boys did some off roading and went shooting.

And there's always lots of food to eat the entire weekend.  This was Daniel's breakfast on Sunday morning.  He actually had a hard time finishing this off.  However, with time, he finally finished it.

We also found out on the way home that Megan gets carsick.  Of course, who wouldn't get sick going through Logan Canyon?  At the bottom of the canyon we had to stop so Megan could finish emptying her stomach outside of the car.  At least we had lots of clothes with us to make it easy for her to change out of the yucky ones.

We look forward to next year's trip to Bear Lake.

Snakes in the garden or Mice in the fridge......which do you prefer?

I prefer the mice!

I found this little critter while doing yard work. This would be the second snake I've seen in my backyard this week. Earlier this week, Bryan mowed the lawn and found a snake that looked much like the one in the picture. However, that one was dead. The kids thought it was so cool and they even got to touch it. I was hoping this was the only one......Not so. I was out weeding and this little guy in the picture caught my eye. Of course, Bryan wasn't home to take care of it.  But I was expecting him home any minute.  I was hoping that it would still be there when he got home so that he could take care of it for me.  But by the time he got out there it had disappeared.  We have not found it yet.  I am done weeding in the backyard.  I may not even step foot in my backyard again.

Daniel's School Field Trip

Daniel's first school field trip was at the zoo. Although Daniel has been to the zoo many times, you would have thought that he had never been by the excited screams of seeing the animals. He was also very excited to ride the school bus.