An answer to the challenge

Day 1. OSTRICH FESTIVAL -Chandler, AZ
We were pretty excited for this event. I wanted to go last year, but it was rained out. Who can resist the lure of watching ostriches race? Well it wasn't all that great. As you can see from the background a large fair accompanied the event, and although the races were pretty fun (racing ostrichs as well as camels, and chickens), the highlight for the boys was the $4 pony ride, and for clint it was watching the slingshot ride you see at these sorts of things and figuring out how it worked. These places draw an interesting crowd. We held off on the deep fried, below health code made food available at the fair, and ate at Cafe Rio... the highlight of my day.

Day 2 ... I skipped Sunday.. we were up to no good this day.


Day 3-HIKING THE 'TABLETOP' (or at least the attempt)
We were off to a rough start with this one, taking the wrong way to get there, which added 30 min. to the drive, Getting to the start of the trail at high noon, in March... in Arizona...(I think you get the picture, and then the complete contents of one kitchen cupboard that Clint put in a backpack for us to carry.. Holy smokes! But we didn't make it to the top. The hike round trip would have been 8 miles, and because we didn't want our kids to hate us and the word hiking for the rest of their lives, we opted for the 2-3 miler. We were in awe of the many ways a saguaro cactus arms tend to be... some had none, some up to 8. Many looked like things we had the octopus cactus, the dancing cactus, the giver cactus. Isaiah had a hay day with this one. So I posted a picture of a cactus revealing its inner infrastructure. I thought it was neat and didn't use the thumbnail on purpose so you can zoom in on it and take a look around. We also saw some cool military airplanes out training in the desert. They were very low and so easy to watch.


Day 4- LAUNDRY DAY
Not much excitement in this one, but that is what the challenge is about I guess, the day to day. Very true to form Ruby was intent on undoing all the good I was attempting. Why does it seem laundry takes all day!


Day 5- CHILDREN'S ART MUSEUM
I belong to a play-group that does some real fun things. This week we were at the children's art museum, with the theme of under the sea. I tried to take some better pictures of the boys here, but got BUSTED for taking pictures in an art museum... DUH!, the experience left me a little gun shy to take pictures even in the kid areas, but I mustered up the courage for this one of the boys water-coloring.


Day 6- WATER PLAY
I pulled out the hose and put it on the tramp for the boys. They were in heaven. Mason was a whole different boy than a year ago when he wouldn't even get near the water at splash pads .. too unpredictable I guess.

Day 7- FAREWELL TRIP
We wanted to go on a trip with Clint before he left, and do so in a way that would break up his trip a bit. We wanted to go to the Grand Canyon, but opted for a place called Sedona instead. On the way there we stopped at this place called 'Montazumas Castle'. It was an unplanned stop. I have wanted to have those every time we travel to Utah, but we usually just want to get there and so we don't stop. This place was just off the road and worth the stop. Sedona was pretty, kind of a mix between Moab and Park City. Utah has much more to offer. And the bad news of the trip was the lack of camping spaces. Most campgrounds were closed the rest full. So after about 4 hours of trying we gave up on the hunt for a site, and headed into Flagstaff, got a motel, and microwaved the hot dogs. Still a great trip. The next morning we said good bye to Clint, for x amount of time,and headed home. No pictures here.

So that is it. A challenge complete. After about a week of sitting on it, its posted. I am not sure how I feel about it but I did it. Maybe I will try this for a month... or maybe something else. Who knows.