4th of July and Misc.

We were told that the 4th of July parade here is pretty sad...and that you for sure did NOT need to arrive early. Andy was on call the night before, and actually got called in twice (which is super rare!) so he opted to stay home to sleep while I took the kids. The parade was supposed to start at 9am, so we got there at 8:50. I found a spot to park about 1/4 mile from where the parade began, and we sat in the shade of a tree. If you zoom in on this picture you'll see that there is NOBODY across the street, and if I had taken a better one, you'd see that there was also NOBODY beyond the shade on our side, either. I think in the first 1/2 mile of the parade there might have been 20 people watching. However, it was actually an okay parade, in my book. 1) It was only 20 minutes long so it didn't get boring. 2) There were a MILLION fire trucks, which is what my kids love to see. 3) There were a bunch of "fancy" cars (many of which we saw at the car show a couple of weeks ago), and Skyler's favorite one from the car show was there. It was one with hydraulics that was balanced up on three tires when we saw it at the car show. In the parade it actually DROVE BY on three tires, and then went up and down and bounced all around as it went down the street. My kids were in heaven. They thought it was the most awesome and crazy thing they had ever seen. Also, we got otter pops from someone in the parade, so that was fun.

Later that day we threw "poppers". We'd had a few boxes of them in our desk for...YEARS. Like, I'm pretty sure they moved with us from Utah to Florida, and then from Florida to here. Not sure why. Anyway, the kids had a blast popping them all over the driveway. Then, we were trying to decide if we were up for going to the city fireworks show (apparently it is awesome), and our neighbors told us that we'd be able to see them from our driveway. Score! So we (and all the neighbors) just dragged our camping chairs out to our driveway, and sure enough, we could see the whole show from right there. Then when it was done we just went back inside. No need to fight the traffic or crowds at all!

We've still been going to the library every Wednesday for game day, and the kids love it!

Kylee missed this week because she was at "zoo camp". It was Monday-Friday up at the zoo, and she loved it! They made crafts, learned about animals, played games, etc. She's super excited to go back next year, and Skyler can go too, since he'll be 7.

On the last day of zoo camp the parents were invited for their "last day" program, so after we dropped Kylee off, while we were waiting for the program, we walked around the zoo. It was actually cool. The bear was out (which is rare because it's so hot - she's usually in her cave), and we saw the wolves as well. Our favorite was this turtle cage. Their were 27 turtle babies in here, and they were crawling all over the place. It was so cute!

Inside they have a "Please Touch" table where the kids can look at and play with a variety of animal and rock things. Skyler and Ally thought it was funny to turn themselves into cows.

Colby continues to eat like a maniac. This kid puts away twice as much food as anyone else! The other night we put all the kids to bed, and then Andy got himself a bowl of cherries to eat. Next thing we knew, Colby came running out, climbed up on the couch, and started eating Andy's cherries. It's like he could SMELL the food from clear down the hallway. Or hear the chewing. Or something. This kid has food on his radar all. the. time.

Backyard Completion...Almost...

Pretty much every spare minute we've had in the 6 weeks since we moved in has been spent on our backyard project. We finally decided that we needed to just order the sod to arrive on July 14th because having a scheduled sod date would motivate us to finish everything else! We started building our wall, and got across one 1/2 of the back and down one side. Then we realized the back side was about 6-7 inches lower, and needed to be built up to make it level.

While Andy was at work, my job was to haul a bunch of dirt from the high side of the yard to the back, and at least build a mound that we could place the wall on, and then we'd fill in the rest when we ordered more dirt. I was making super good progress...and then the wheelbarrow tipped and I threw my leg out to catch it...and the screw on the bottom of the handle ripped open my calf. OUCH.

One tetanus shot and some Dermabond later, it was looking sort of better.

I finally finished building up the back, and Andy got the wall down across that end.

When we got to the final side, it was where we knew the dirt was high, so we used a pickax to hack away the cement dirt so that the wall could be level on that side, too. It was soooo hard. I did half of it (like 25 feet) and it took me forever. 

Eventually my blisters had blisters, so Andy took over. He is a LOT faster than I am. He did the last 25 feet in a fraction of the time it took me to do the first part.

After the wall was done (except we still needed to cut bricks to fit the corners), we ordered another 1/2 dump truck full of dirt (about 18,000 pounds) to fill in our low spots and make everything level. Andy hauled it all back to the back yard, and I raked it all over to make sure everything was level and smooth, and to get the rocks out. It took us like 8 hours, but eventually we got it done! Then we dug holes to bury our sprinkler heads, and waited for our grass to arrive!

Our grass arrived on Friday. I had to order it all the way from Albuquerque (about 4 hours away) because the only place that had any nearby was freakishly expensive. It was actually cheaper to pay the Albuquerque people their expensive delivery fee. I guess the mark-up locally is just HUGE because they know the options are extremely limited.

Our friend from Florida has been doing his yard at the same time (because Andy assured him we'd save a lot of money doing it ourselves), so his grass was delivered at the same time. We started with his yard because we had a sprinkler mishap at ours and it was super muddy. We got his sod all down, and then came to our house. Luckily a few other friends joined the party and we got all the sod down at both houses that day. Granted, it took until about 11:30pm to finish ours because we had to pause to go out for a company dinner...but still...it got done!

This is the following morning. I'm so happy that we have grass! Can't wait until we get back from Utah and can actually walk on it! Now all we have to do is get more dirt to fill in our planter box, and then plant some plants. The planting part probably won't happen until Spring, but we're getting there!

Exploring New Mexico

We've been in Carlsbad for a little bit over a month, and we've found that there are quite a few fun things to do to keep us entertained, even if it is 100+ degrees almost every day!

This is a park that was across the street from Max and Andy's rental house.

This is a bridge we found where you can walk across the river (and their are parks on both sides).

The river is an amazing color. I've never seen a river which such clear and clean water!

We signed up for the free summer reading program at the library, and every Wednesday from 10am-Noon you can go pick up your prizes and they set out a bunch of games for everyone to play. We go every week!

A bunch of people from two of the wards here spent one Saturday at a lake that's about an hour away. Kylee kayaked with some friends...

...Ally floated around in her tube and shot people with a water squirter...

...then dug a hole.

Colby played in the edge of the water with Andy...

...and Skyler worked on building a water city. Basically it was a bunch of trenches, and when you poured a bucket of water at the top it ran back down into the lake.

The park in our neighborhood has terrible grass, but it does have a basketball court and a fun play area. We go there on Sundays after dinner with all the neighbors.

We've been to Lowes about 5,000 times since we moved here, and the kids like to sit on the riding mowers.

The theater near our house does free summer movies on Tuesdays, and the kids always love movies!

One Saturday we went to the zoo, and though it was hot and Ally felt like the walk was too long, Skyler keeps asking when we can go back.

Two Saturdays ago we met Lightning McQueen and Mater. Skyler's pretty sure that Radiator Springs must be close to here.

This past Saturday we went to a BBQ at our bishop's house with a couple of other families. They have a pool with a waterslide and FIVE trampolines, so the kids had a blast. Kylee recently had some warts removed from her feet so she was really sad that she couldn't play, but they said we'll just have to come back another time soon!

There are two splash pads here, and we've been to one of them twice (haven't been to the other one yet). As it turns out, Colby LOVES splash pads. He thinks it is super funny to get soaking wet.

Overall, we like it here. The people we've met seem really friendly, and nothing is very far away, which is nice. Next week Kylee gets to go to "zoo camp" and she's excited about that. Skyler is bummed because you have to be 7 to go, but I told him he can go next year. They also just started offering free public preschool for the first time this year, so last week I went and got Ally registered for that. She is soooo excited that she gets to go to school this Fall!