once there was a snowman

We live in Southern Arizona where it is usually sunny and hot. Toward the end of February, we got a little different weather: snow!

I grabbed Corban (notice the shorts) and let him run around in the snow and catch snowflakes. We both got cold and went back inside. 

About 5 minutes later, the snow stopped, melted, and the sun came out again.

trees for tucson

I've been clearing rock in our backyard for a deck, garden, and a tree. I used to work for a conservation district in Utah where we held an annual tree sale where you could get A LOT of trees for not a lot of money.

I did some research for my local conservation district and they led me to the website for Trees for Tucson. They work with Tucson Electric Power customers to provide shade trees for your house in hopes of lowering your heating and cooling bills.

We chose the Desert Willow for our tree (our house and yard isn't the biggest so we opted for just one tree). Like most trees in the desert, they aren't very pretty, but they have the cutest flowers that are supposed to bloom all year long. This is what they look like:

We ordered our tree for $8. The Desert Willow, at our local hardware store, cost over $25!

I'm excited for our tree to get here!

AZ wants me dead: Part II

Before I get into Arizona's death wish for me, I want to toot my own horn and show off what I accomplished before I ran into a ginormous spider.

It all started a long time ago ... just kidding. My grandma would try and entice me, my sister, and our friends into picking up rocks from her yard by calling it a rock party! Sigh. It didn't work, but because she was my grandma, of course we helped out. Even my friends. You guys rock! 

Our current back yard is a disaster! The previous owners foreclosed on the house so we got a killer deal, but the contractors and such came and ransacked the place for things they wanted like a patch of fake grass in the back, hence the big, bald, rockless area comprising most of the back. 

I love to garden now, not when I was younger. I love being outside and growing something that wasn't there before and connecting with my maker in different and profound ways. A little nerdy, but it helps me reconnect and be more at peace ... anyhoo. 

My plans for our backyard consist of 2-3'x6' raised vegetable gardens and a pallet deck that you can check out yourself here. So, it's basically spring/summer here (I don't know that AZ has a spring. It's either hot hot or cold) so I took the kids and went outside to weed and move A LOT of rock. 

This is where I started. I had help from both Corban and Jovi but the quickly lost interest and moved on. After a stop for lunch and a stop to put Jovi down for her nap, I made it this far:

This is where the deck and gardens are going. Notice the little pile of rocks in the second picture. Do you see them? I was moving rock when I noticed some weird webbing, like a spider web. Gross. I couldn't handle how much was there, so I moved on, saving that patch for Joe to clear. I'm such a good wife.

The rock party pile, and, of course, Corban conquering the pile! He called it his cave for most of the day--SIDE NOTE: After lunch Corban didn't want to help any more, but play video games. I guess he noticed I wasn't putting the rock on the pile any more, but spreading it across the bald spot. He paused his game, told me to finish his cave, and closed the door. Well. There you go.

I moved on to the other side of the yard where we are going to plant a tree we're getting from Trees for Tucson. I was progressing quickly when I noticed a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye.

Do you remember the scorpion and that flash of movement? I quickly looked down and saw the BIGGEST, the HAIREST, the FASTEST spider I have ever seen. It ran right past my leg and almost up my shorts!!! I was looking right at it when it stopped and I couldn't find it!

Done. I was done.

I dropped my shovel. I took off my gloves. And I haven't gone back outside since.

The rocks are mostly picked up and the weeds mostly gone. I'll head back out eventually. Maybe after a day of swimming.

sonoran hot dogs

Imagine a plain old hot dog. Wrap that hot dog in bacon (does this seem wrong to any one else) and add beans, tomatoes, onions (if you want), fried onions (again, if you want), and a variety of sauces. Put all this into a yummy bun and you've got yourself a Sonoran Hot Dog; put 2 of everything in a bun and you've got yourself a Sammy Hot Dog. And, apparently, they're famous in Tucson.

Joe and I had to try one so we headed over to El Guero Canelo's on Oracle RD, where they are THE BEST. It was a little weird, I'm not gonna lie. All the different textures and tastes. The bacon was a little too flimsy for me, but overall, it was a good hot dog.

Hands down, the best part was the bun! I think I could have eaten three of them! The kids shared a Sammy. This was Jovi's first hot dog ever and she loved it! Corban finished his in record time and asked for another one. Oops. I had a momentary memory lapse and forgot he loves hot dogs and eats 2 at a time. He had a little melt down but Joe and I finished our dogs and we left.

AZ wants to kill me

I found my very first (and hopefully last) scorpion in my house the other day. I don't know what kind it was but it looked like this:

This is a bark scorpion that is the only scorpion considered to be life threatening. I found this little bad boy in my kitchen, in close proximity to my 4 year-old's chair.

I had just put my baby to bed and decided that my kitchen needed to be cleaned in a bad way. I had the weird thought that I should put shoes on. So I did and started cleaning.

I had seen this scorpion without seeing it; I thought it was just a big crumb on the floor. After all, it was by my son's chair at the dinner table and he's not the cleanest person in the world (what boy is?). I brushed it with the broom and it came alive! It uncurled and started walking!! Before it registered in my brain what it was, I thought, "How weird. That crumb is walking."

THAT CRUMB IS WALKING?!

I crouched down so I could get a good look at it and stared at it for a good minute, willing it to just disappear. I couldn't muster squishing it with my shoe (I had heard stories from a sister in Texas about how crunchy scorpions are) so I grabbed a fly swatter and obliterated that scorpion.

Have you seen this ecard yet?

Exactly how I felt.

I swept it up into my pile and had a sinking feeling that this scorpion was a bionic scorpion and would soon pop open like most cockroaches and come after me. shiver

I'm happy to report that the scorpion did not come back alive, I haven't seen another one for the past couple of days, and that we had a pest control guy over that very day to spray our entire house, inside and out.