Friendship Pictures

As I mentioned in the previous post, the girls went for a photo shoot with one of the girl's parents in the desert one Saturday in the end of January.  The girls had talked about wanting to get some nice pictures together before Cassie moves away. I thought that was such a great idea, and if i hadn't had my hands full with the yard sale that day, I wouldn't have loved to come along and fire up my own camera aswell. I'm so grateful to H.'s parents that took the time to do this with/for the girls, and they took a lot of pictures. I looked through them again earlier and cropped some here and there, to pick out a few to print. Looking at some of my favorites from this shoot, I can only imagine how much fun they had!

 2015

Volleyball Camp & Winter Weather

I was just scrolling down my pictures in my phone, and of course there is a bunch of pictures that I still have to down load, but I wanted to post the ones from about 2 weeks ago, when Cassie was attending a volleyball camp all Saturday. I drove her there in the morning and it was cold and the car showed the outside temperature to be 36F!! And that was close to 9am, when normally the temperatures would be much higher, even during our "winter". I know, most people smile at these temperatures, but like our local meteorologist stated, it was almost 20 degrees below normal even during the day's high.

Anyway, back to the volleyball part. I had found this camp online, and Cassie was so happy that she was able to attend. Girls 10-16 I believe the age group was, perfect! That meant some beginners, and some High School girls that have lots of experience to play with. She loves to play, and has been wanting to play all fall. As there isn't a team here in town, she was attending practice of a traveling team, but that didn't work out for us in the long run. To travel to Phoenix, Flagstaff, Tuscon and even further away in AZ just to play every weekend, no, it wouldn't work for us.  So she attended their practice and some Saturday camps during the fall. Now, the school will have try outs for the school team in volleyball, but not until the beginning of March, and of course she is very upset and bummed about missing this. Three of her best friends will be trying out, and they have been practicing together and would have so much fun with it.Well, I just keep crossing my fingers that we will find a good team for her in Okinawa. She is so motivated, I just wish she doesn't loose her interest.

During this camp, her best friend A also got to go, and they had of course a lot of fun together. I only dropped her off at 9am and came to pick her up at 4pm. A long day, with lunch break. I wish i would have come a little earlier, then I would have seen Cassie play match, but now she was practicing her serve with her friend when I came 15 minutes earlier to pick up. I only had my phone, and it was some distance to the second net, so the quality is bad, but it's fun for her to have these pictures.

 Cassie & A.

 The other group that was finishing up their game.

A Good Morning After All..

This morning (or I should write, Wednesday morning as we now past midnight), we overslept. Cassie had switched off her alarm, too, and I had been up a lot with Isabella who now is in the order to have a lot of coughing going on at night, so I was very tired this morning too, and at 7.20am, I looked at the time and jumped out of bed! But, we were all dressed, and ready out of the door at 8am, and Cassie and the twins eat breakfast in school, so it worked out well. Cassie's school is luckily on the way to the kid's Preschool, so we could drop her off there first. She got there in time! While there, I noticed the light came on. Only a few more miles left of gas...really, on a stressful morning and all..!?

So, I knew I couldn't make it to Preschool, so I had to turn around, knowing that we would be late for their school that start at 8.30am. Being stressed I didn't really check the price on the pump, and while the gas was pumping, I was washing the windshield and didn't pay attention. Not until it "clicked" and it was done, I saw - what could it be right? I only looked at the $$ sign first and not at the gallon, and I thought it must have switched off too early somehow.

 Full tank for under $40!! Wohoo! 

Normally, just a few months ago, it would cost me around $70 for a full tank.

We broke the $2 mark!!

So, with this, my mood lightened up a lot and we put the radio on "louder" as the kids "demanded" from the backseat while we drove to Preschool, singing along to all the songs. We only got there 10 minutes late too, and the kids still had time to eat breakfast. It was a good morning after all!!

A Walk In The Desert

It's been a lot going on here as always, and there hasn't been much time to sit by the computer. We are hoping to hear more about the move this week, with hopefully some flight dates. When we got those, we can backtrack and get movers and book our three dates when they are coming to pack. So, crossing my fingers that I know more in the end of the week!

As not all my family are on Facebook and Instagram, I thought I'd share the pictures here aswell from our walk in "our backyard" from last Sunday. At the end of the street, this is the view we have. Normally we don't go out here as it's way too may scary animals here, that like the desert heat. Read, scorpions, lots of snakes with the rattle snake as the only one that i recognize of them! Lost of spiders and most of these animals are venomous!! So, not a place that I like to take the kids to poke around in the sand and play at normally, BUT, with the chilly temperatures that we have had in the end of last year and this week, it felt safe to go there.

It was cold, barely about 50F/10C, and yes, for some used to colder temperatures and lots of snow, this might seem like warm. BUT, keep in mind, we are used to temperatures where it's hotter than hot, over 115F/46C for many months over the year. We have actually had a cold spell for the last couple of weeks, nearly 20 degrees below normal, and not until this week it's starting to warm up and get back into the 70's. Still, we pulled out fleeces, hats and enjoyed our walk. Enjoy the pictures: