Major catch up

In March, we went several times to the creek behind our old house.  

Look at this wildlife oasis the city built behind where our house used to be!

In March, we also went to Tucson.

Nice thunderstorms in the city left Mount Lemmon with lots of snow!

It was fun watching Leo at his soccer games in April.  It was quite hot though!

Here, he and Fernando are kicking the ball around before the game starts.

Visiting the dinosaur tracks at the Cibolo Nature Center

Game time in May

At the beginning of May, I went to Leo's school to have lunch with him.  I brought tacos and we both had a good time.

On the steps of the porch at Fernando and Eva's house.

Big Mother's Day surprise from Guillermo.  I was at my mother's house on Mother's Day.  Guillermo was in Tucson.  When these flowers arrived, I assumed they were both for my mother.  What a shock it was to us to find out that one bouquet was for me also!  The delivery people were so tickled to see what a happy surprise this delivery was to all of us (my mother, me, and Linda).

Leo turned 7!

Having lunch again with this boy at his school on the day after his birthday!

We are on our way to Tucson!

Visiting Rose Canyon

Looking at the enormous tadpoles.

Our Airbnb had this perfect little yard where every single day there was a soccer game between the guys going on.  Rebeca and I played some too! The goal posts were white plastic chairs.  

What fun everyone had in the pool at Rebeca and Jason's house.

Visiting the zoo.  The next three pictures have always been "must take" pictures whenever we took Scotty to the zoo.  This time he had his cousin in the picture with him!

These boys were absolutely intent on finding in this aviary each and every bird that was listed on the sheet.  I think they found all but one.

Visiting the Desert Museum

Playing miniature golf.

Trip to Sabino Canyon.  We're having lunch before getting on the tram.

 

The boys helping Abuelito celebrate his birthday.

Driving back home we ran into an incredible dust storm after El Paso.  Visibility was never a problem, but the blowing dust was very strong.

It is now June.  Eva had to unexpectedly leave San Antonio while we were in Tucson because her father had a stroke.  It was a struggle trying to decide what was going to happen to the guinea pigs that Eva had stayed in San Antonio to take care of.  We finally found a good friend who agreed to take care of them till we returned from Tucson.

We had Leo over several nights in the two weeks before he and Fernando were to leave for Sweden themselves.  Leo and I enjoyed many trips to the neighborhood pool, playing pool soccer and also pretending the soccer ball was a chicken.

Now he and Fernando are in Newark waiting for their flight to Stockholm.  

 

Christmas 2021

On December 1st, we wanted to go to the zoo with Leo.  We got to the zoo right at 9, when it usually opens, but today it was closed.  We found out later that for the month of December, they aren't opening until 11am!  So, we tried to think of something else we could do and since the Sunken Gardens are right there by the zoo anyway, that's where we decided to go.  We hadn't walked around the Sunken Gardens in ages and today made us wonder why we don't come here more often.  It really is a beautiful place.

Walking around in the Sunken Gardens took about an hour.  I didn't know it yet, but all the going up and down on all those steps in the Sunken Gardens was going to really really affect my left knee later on.

After we left the Sunken Gardens, we decided to go to the Botanical Gardens.

Here's Leo learning to make the snowflakes that I always make.

Christmas Day

We were lucky to have Fernando and family in town.  Their original plan was to be in Sweden for Christmas but with the virus cases getting worse, they decided to postpone their trip until the summer.

 

Latest Happenings

November Happenings

Scotty loved this old skull that was close to our Airbnb.

The Airbnb had this piano in there.  What a great sound it had!  Way back when I was in college a kind friend taught me how to play Moonlight Sonata entirely by heart.  I knew how to play it for a couple of years but slowly I forgot most of it.  While staying at this Airbnb, I used Youtube to try to learn how to play a little more of what I had forgotten.  It sounded so good on this piano.

Scotty really does love to go Geo Caching.  Here he is at a cache called Zip Line.  He is bringing the container down.  While we were in Tucson, we did at LEAST 12 caches.

Scotty with his dog Spot.  

Eva and Leo with the guinea pigs, Zigz and YoYo.

How I loved picking this boy up from school everyday!

 October Happenings.

Fernando went with us to the creek that was behind our old house.  It was a good day to be out there.

Annual trek to a neighborhood - FAR from our house - to see their amazing Halloween decorations.

This is one of Leo's favorite places in the zoo.  Although he has to awkwardly hang over the railing, he loves feeding the turtles.

Up close with kangaroos

In the butterfly house.  A butterfly landed on me!

At a friend's birthday party.  Putting away the loot from a pinata that was just busted.

Up close with flamingos.  

Visiting a pumpkin patch

Too busy lately

 We've been going to the creek that was in the back of our old house.  Very interesting back there, as it was when we lived there.  It's nice to be going back there again, and nice that it's just a short drive from where we now live.

On this day, we went back to the creek after a very heavy rain.

We had found a snake the day before trapped in netting.  We took it home, Guillermo cut the netting off of it, and in the picture below, they are about to release the snake.  It was a Water Snake.  If we hadn't found that snake, it would have drowned because the entire creek bed was under water that night and the snake had no way to get itself out of the netting.

The more netting that came off, the wilder and more aggressive the snake became.  Several times it looked like that snake was about to escape that box, but Guillermo's talent kept that snake in that box somehow.

Guillermo managed to get that snake in this little insect carrier.  That was a feat in itself!  It's going home with us.

Trying to get as much netting off as he could.  Guillermo soon realized that to get it off entirely, we would need to take it home and use scissors.

Doing school work at the zoo.  Drawing and writing about his tortoise adventure.

Back in the creek by El Verde Road.

Walking to the creek.  Walking to the creek usually involves catching lots of grasshoppers.

Feeding the ducks at Denman Estate Park

In his favorite place at the zoo - the Amphibian House

Visiting the zoo