Desert Life

Here in the desert we eat cactus for breakfast. I'm actually not kidding and it's YUMMY!!   Our friends just gave us a jar of prickly pear jam made from a cactus such as this!

It is a little poky going down---but other then that-it is the best jam you ever will have!!

All summer we lived in a subdivision called the Legends. We spent almost every evening in this pool. During the day the heat was too intense to go out much, but once we had dinner and the sun set--we spent hours here.

This is Halloween Day.  Our lease ended then.  The kids wanted to spend a last few minutes at the pool.

 Jace is trying to catch a few raindrops on his tongue.  Not sure if he had any luck.  I will miss the hot tub!

This is our little rental house--it was mostly a garage!  But we had good memories there.

Monday, October 13th found us in Phoenix attending the LDS temple open house.

It was such a beautiful and uplifting experience.  The artwork of Christ inside this temple was breath taking.  It created such a spirit of reverence and beauty that Ryan and I have decided that the rest of the artwork we buy for our future home will be religious work.

LDS temples are known for their beautiful grounds.  This one left nothing to be desired. It was October and it seemed like August.  It was 92 degrees and sunny and gorgeous!

The fountains= baby magnet. 

Here's my princess enjoying the cold water.

She kept bringing me these purple blossoms to put in her hair.

Darling!

Kjersti thought the rocks were fabulous.

At the Visitors Center they had this famous statue of Christ.  They wanted all the children who visited to touch Him.

Here you see a bad picture but a wonderful memory!

October 31st brought with it Halloween!  Here is my fairy princess

and my soldier!

He's keeping his sister in line!

Our ward Halloween party was nothing short of AMAZING!!

How many Shetland ponies do you find giving rides on the lawn of your church building?

Or barrel train rides in the parking lot?  Not to brag, but we also had TWO haunted houses and

a gymnasium full of games and prizes.

And awesome prizes at that!

Here the kids are at our new house all ready to go trick-or -treating.

Here is our cute little rabbit!  She was sweating up a storm in this outfit!

We are used to freezing cold Halloween's but this one...

found me wearing flip-flops and shorts.  It was 82 degrees!  Oh, yeah!

This is just a random picture of a cool block tower Ryan and Jace made last week.  They

knocked it down with our soccer ball.

While I was packing us up to go to St. George for a few days for Thanksgiving, the kids were outside doing this.

Building a dam in the rocks.

Kjersti LOVED it!

But it was chilly!

But it didn't stop her!

Here is the view from my back door!!!!!!!!!!!  GORGEOUS!!!!!!!!!

We have been known to climb over this fence and go hiking on the trails behind our house.  We really want a dune buggy.

One day, not too long ago, Jace came and found me as I was getting ready to put Kjersti down for a nap and told me there were weird animals on the hill behind our house. The kids of course were investigating on their ladder. 

They weren't weird animals but the wild burros!  Gracie grabbed her oatmeal and set out to catch one for a pet.

Aren't they cute?!  We found out from our neighbors that you can actually adopt one from the BLM.  But no, we won't be getting one anytime soon.

For now we will just enjoy them from afar.  I'm a mean Mom--I know!!

Well, this is it for a glimpse of our life here.  We are healthy and happy and just plugging away at things.  Ryan is hard at work building a practice and I spend all my time teaching home-school and doing laundry--lots of laundry. 

The End.