12 Bar Original

It really seems as if nothing of any consequence has happened in the last couple of weeks. I’ve been sick and have developed my famous “death cough” as Jeff likes to call it. It’s been a nuisance for everyone. I’ve had several people, some who don’t sit anywhere near me, come and offer drops and candy at work. I’ll get over it in a few weeks I bet. Jeff is enjoying his new classes. He has a computer science class this semester so he’s getting a taste for what he ultimately wants to do; he even coded a couple of applications this week.

(Helen loves Beau)

Felicity is continuing to do very well in pre-school. She can count to 30 and the other day in the car I gave her a word for each of the letters of the alphabet and she was able to tell me what letter they started with. She had trouble with U and Y, and N took her awhile, but otherwise she was quick to answer. We are very proud of her.

(Daddy and the girls making pudding)

Helen’s potty training is going slowly, but that’s what we expect at this early stage. She is very articulate and is such a talker. We’ve been much more restrictive with TV watching and the girls have really enjoyed playing together more often. Felicity and Helen play so nicely together. The girls have also been spending a lot more time playing outside on their swing set.

(I knew there was a reason we got a double sink!)

We are patiently waiting for our tax return documents so that we can file for our return and go buy a new van. We’ve narrowed it down to another Dodge Grand Caravan or a Honda Odyssey. I really wanted a suburban, but after research it was just not a wise choice for us. It would have been more initial cost, more in gas, insurance, etc. We can get a faily new, well equipt van in our budget and in the long run will be happier.

As it would happen, with our luck, Jeff got pulled over this week because we forgot to register the van. So even though we’re getting rid of it in a couple weeks we need to register it to avoid the $400 fine for the ticket. Unfortunately it did not pass emissions because the check engine light is on so we’re required to fix it. I didn’t want to spend another penny on the van, so this is an annoyance. I think we can get around it since we live in Sahuarita. If we don’t use it to commute to Tucson every day we don’t have to have it pass emissions to register it. So that’s what I’ll be doing tomorrow.

(The girls helping Nana at work)

Jeff worked Saturday and the girls and I spent time together at home. We went out for dinner when Jeff got home. The Denny’s in town has kids eat free on Saturday and Tuesday nights so for around $15 we can all eat out. It’s nice to not have to cook once in a while. It should be another mundane week coming up. Hope everyone has a great week.

(Helen and daddy enjoying a burger at Red Robin, Helen discovers Ranch)

(Helen's first french braid)

Sorry all my pictures are so graining, I really need to stop being so lazy and use my camera and not my phone to take pictures.

Act Naturally

There was little excitement this week. I got up early on Monday morning to get to work. I arrived at about 6am and got a really good parking place, the building was still pretty dark and it took me several minutes, after checking my email and getting settled in, to realize that Monday was still part of the holiday break! I felt pretty silly, but I enjoyed one more day home with the family.

The week went along pretty normally. Wednesday night Felicity spent over at Nana and Papa’s, so Helen and Jeff and I went out on the town. We had dinner out and then did some shopping, it was very nice. We took a trip into Tucson on Friday afternoon and enjoyed some walking at the Tucson mall.

Jeff worked on Saturday and had a pretty easy day. I spent most of the day glued to the computer trying to make sense of the shooting tragedy. Helen went to spend the night over at Nana and Papa’s on Saturday night. They love to be over there so much. We’re so blessed to have them close.

We’re enjoying our new church time, ten o’clock is a pretty convenient time. After church we spent several hours over at Mom and Dad’s.

A Beginning

The last week of 2010 and of the holiday vacation slipped by us this week; it was a spectacular year for the Davidson family. I’m looking forward to having a hardbound copy of our blog made from last year; of all the entries and pictures as a keepsake/family history heirloom. For those with less than stellar knowledge of the Beatles catalog, I will point out that each entry this year was titled with a Beatles song; some well known, some less so. That little challenge has been a lot of fun this year and I intend on titling the book I’m publishing with our blog entries, simply “Anthology”…I’m am quite pleased with my own cleverness.

Monday this week we decided to use some Christmas money that the girls received and take them on an outing. The received quite a lot of things for Christmas and weren’t in need of anything in particular so we thought this would be a fun way to use the gift. We decided on Old Tucson Studios. *Steps on Soapbox* What an incredible waste of money, time, and gas that was! Let’s see, the adventure began at the gate where we had to haggle with the customer service (term used with extreme liberality) over the coupons we brought with us. After reading them verbatim to her a couple times she conceded to allow us to use them and then proceeded to ask us how old Felicity was. I politely answered that she was four. This is a good time to point out that Felicity is in actuality four years old and even more significantly that four is the threshold age when you have to start paying for them…a good lie would have been to say she was three, hence getting her in for free. The somewhat slow and obviously rude lady then leaned forward, looking sharply down her nose and replied “really?” with the most snide and accusatory tone imaginable, at which point I asked if she would like a birth certificate, social security number, or blood sample to prove her age. Greater annoyance crossed her face and after paying our $33+ dollars were permitted into old west where a woman in jogging shoes and jeans took our tickets. We saw the movie memorabilia, which consisted of four or five costumes and movie posters. Then onto the mission set where we saw the most boring, lame, laborious comedy/stunt show ever. For those who enjoy writing/performing that kind of entertainment, firstly one cell phone/texting/computer reference in an old western scene is adequate for laughs, continuing the gag just leads the audience to believe that perhaps you really don’t know that they didn’t have mobile phones in the 1800s. Secondly, let’s keep the thinly veiled sexual jokes out, there are little kids present, this is a family park right? Thirdly, the audience’s attention span for something of this nature is 35 minutes tops, and that includes the 15 minutes of heckling that is done while the audience files in. The most exciting part of the show was the stampede of patrons shoving to get out before the performers regrouped and came back out for applause. We thought the girls would enjoy doing some of the kid attractions and rides next for being such good sports about the “comedy show”. Haunted mine ride first. Wait, strike that, the haunted mine walk-thorough, no more riding. The scariest part was the fear of feeling up the old lady in front us while groping around in the dark trying not to trip. Ok, so that wasn’t so much fun. Hey, let’s try the train! What used to be a train ride around the park talking about the studio’s history and films that had been shot there and funny antidotes about infamous actors, was now nothing more than a rickety train ride into the desert, in silence, to see whatever broken down, sun damaged crap they had thrown out there a decade before, oh and the air conditioners, dumpsters, generators, and duct work on the back of the buildings. Literally, five minutes later, as we are getting off with the other disenchanted passengers my four year old looks up at me and says, “That was stupid”. How about driving the cars? That’ll be fun, come on. We waited in line for the old fashioned cars, choking on the noxious fumes sputtering out of them while the attendants (definitely not in period costume) kept throwing more kitty litter over the pooling oil. I think the especially nice finishing touch was the literally, yes I counted them, 11 no smoking signs within the twenty square foot area. So, petrified we were going to go up in a blazing ball of flames, I reluctantly got on the cars. The kids were a little too light headed from the fumes to enjoy the unmaintained scenery, some of the fun, old fashioned road signs so faded and chipped as to render them completely ineligible. This is the part of the story where I feel extremely negative and feel that something positive must be said. The carousel went in a circle as expected, the horses when up and down and the kids enjoyed the minute long ride. It was the highlight of the trip. We thought for about two seconds about having lunch there and then promptly decided that the best option was to leave and head for McDonalds. Long story short, take your kids to the International Wildlife Museum, take them to the Desert Museum, take them to the Children’s Museum, don’t waste money and time at Old Tucson, where the west doesn’t come alive, it wears jeans and would be better off mugging you in the parking lot, taking your money and saving you the hassle of desperately trying something fun and educational for your kids to do inside. *Steps off Soapbox*. I tried to find a place to leave some scathing comments, but noticed on their website there were 15 comments from last year, all of which were positive, and the last being left in September, obviously I should just save my literary fireworks for my blog, where maybe at least two people will read it.

On Tuesday we took the Christmas tree and decorations down. I like to wait until the first week of December to decorate and then I like to get it all down before January. We finally got the house cleaned up and things back in order. On Wednesday we took Jeff to his follow up appointment and everything is looking great. We spent some time at the mall walking and browsing. We did a lot of picking up around the house and getting ready to go back to school and work. On New Year’s we drove the girls into Tucson and met Nana and Papa and Peter Piper Pizza. The girls had a blast eating and playing and turning in their tickets. Then we went home and had the Bryson’s over for game night. We ended up staying up until midnight and rang in the New Year.

Jeff and I came up with some great goals for the New Year and came up with a new budget. I hope there are some great things for us around the corner in 2011.

Here's Helen and Daddy singing "Yellow Submarine" while playing Beatle's Rock Band