Staying Cool at the Museum

With the incredible summer heat that comes in our part of Arizona, we like to find fun places to stay cool. That is why we have a membership to the nearby science museum. It's fun, and it's air conditioned! This past week we enjoyed taking the wife and children of one of the new Ph.D. students that Robby is going to school with to the museum. They just moved in and we had a great time introducing them to the museum.

Here Jenna is practicing her balancing skills. This walkway has a bunch of rubber things sticking up, and when you walk on it you have to concentrate harder on your balance.

Okay, Jenna has reached the cheezy grin stage. If you say, smile for the camera this is quite often what you get!
Jenna made friends with this beach ball. She did not want to part with it when it was time to go. In fact she tried to throw a nice tantrum, but it didn't work since I just simply picked her up and went on my way. Once she found something just as cool in the next room, the ball was long forgotten.
Well, I only have one picture of Little Robby because after this he tried to play "keep away from the camera." Here he is trying to get me with the blowing hose.
Pull hard Jenna! This is one of those chairs that you can lift by pulling on the rope and pulley system. Jenna has a few years before she will be able to make it budge. Once more, cheezy grin that says, "I had fun at the museum, Mom!"

A Canning Adventure

Yesterday Little Robby and I embarked upon an adventure together. We had gotten to the point that we had more tomatoes and cucumbers from our garden than we could eat before they spoiled. As a family we decided that it would be good to make something that we could use for a long time, so we decided to make salsa and pickles. I bought a variety of peppers and an onion, and Little Robby and I learned all about canning.

When we got started, I read the recipes and thought that I would be able to make and jar the salsa and pickles in about 3 hours. 7 hours and three trips to Walmart later, I was the proud creator of 7 pints of salsa, 10 pints of refrigerator pickle, and one nightmare of a kitchen mess. The stuff I made turned out pretty good (although I don't expect any blue ribbons for my efforts).

Here is my diligent chopper boy. We were really glad to use our electric chopper (that collects dust most days in my cabinent). Robby did a great job preparing most of the veggies for the salsa.
Here is our simmering pot of salsa. I used a hot water bath canner to seal the jars of salsa. I had never done that before and I have to say I was grateful that I was able to chit chat with one sweet grandma while shopping on the canning isle at Wal-mart who gave me a couple tips that came in very handy. (One was not to use iodized salt because it will cause the pickles to change color - I was thankful she said that because we probably would have thought I had ruined them. Instead I went and bought a new container of non-iodized salt.) I was also equally grateful that I was able to get a hold of an experienced food storage person in our ward. She saved me from putting my jars directly in the boiling water (they might have busted.) I guess I never picked up on the fact that the jars go in the water first and then you set the pot to boil in the 3 the canning classes I have attended. Luckily for her advice I didn't loose all my hard work!

And here you see some of the results of our efforts.

An evening hike

Robby has been working hard on getting ready for his dissertation proposal, and he decided he needed a little break with the family. He thought it would be fun for us to go and hike a local mountain. He looked the area up online, and there were a few hikes to choose from. He liked the sound of the Summit Trail Hike. It was about 1.2 miles long which didn't sound to bad to him.

So all four of us set off at about 6:15p to hike half way on one of the trails and return by sundown 7:34p.

Jenna thought the first part of the hike was great, and wanted to "do-it herself."
Little Robby wanted to set a faster pace which left me in the middle.
Here we are stopping for a breather.

Here we all are together at the top of our hike. The trail ascended another 3/4 mile, but we decided that Dad and Little Robby could come back another time to hike to the summit. The rest of the trail was definitely not for a two year-old. Jenna will have to wait till she's a lot older!

Here's Jenna going back down the mountain with Mom. She would have climbed to the top of the mountain by herself if we had let her!

Karate Mama!

For the past year, I have been observering Little Robby's karate classes from time to time, and as I sat there I thought, "You know, I should do this too!" And so I did, I started karate. Little Robby loves the fact that I am in his class, and he is a higher belt than me, which means I have to show respect to him.

So now I have to share some pics and a video with you...

Here we have Little Robby showing us how to break the board with your foot.
Next, I try... You'll have to watch the video below to find out if I succeeded in breaking the board, too.
Here we are after my first class. Little Robby got his new purple belt, and Mom started as a white belt. I got my uniform at the next class.

Here I am White Belt Mama!
Now you can see how I did my first day!