Joe and Maren: Before the semester began.....

Before the semester began......

I worked some full days with the boys.

I LOVE them.

This is an example of why :)

We took the boys camping. What an adventure. We went to Canyon lake and camped at Lost Dutchman state park. Joe's truck battery died (the boys watched "Bolt" on the portable DVD player while we set up camp..... we had to get jumped by camp maintance crew. Went fishing. Roasted marshmellows and hot dogs. Was really fun...... minus going to bed ~12:45AM and boys waking up at ~645ish. :) kids......

This pic is so cute.

Cole was the only one to catch a fish.

Did some yard work.

These started growing in our front planter. Apparently they are rain lillies that the little older lady who lived in this house (before our friends and then we rented it) planted them..... our friends who lived here before hardly watered so they just laid dormant, and then after I acidentally flooded the front planter they sprouted up. Who knew.

So pretty!!!!!

This is Cole eating oranges. What a weenie.

Joe says this is my rocker's mullet. (Just FYI: I had just put a head band on to go to the gym but didn't have my hair up in a pony tail yet, so no I don't really have a mullet :))

The Saturday before school started, we used out 2-for-1 tickets to the World Wildlife Zoo. We spent the day there, ate at the restraunt and then hit up the Lifetime in freakin Goodyear. (Yeah the Zoo is really far but so worth it.) Hehe, Joe and I tried to do jump rope as part of our cardiovascular for the night except----- I suck..... I haven't done it since grade school I swear :) I could go for like MAX 40 seconds before whipping myself in the shins :) Quite humorous.... for all of 10 minutes and then I was done. Treadmills only for now until my skills improve.

Pics from the zoo which now has a huge aquarium.

This fish had the most enormous teeth.

Look at those monsters.

So big. Ouch.

Puffer fish. It's eye's are weird.

Shark egg waiting to hatch.

Can you see the fish in this picture? It's eye is open. (Hint: it's not the purple rock.)

Octopus.

Joe getting "eaten" by an octopus.

I think birds are a little too smart for my comfort and peace of mind.

How cute is this? It's like 3 generations sitting there.

Water snakes. I always think of Lonesome dove.

This cute little deer :)

This aligator scares me so bad. It's freaking pitch black eyes and jagged teeth.....ehhhh. I never want to see this without a glass between us. Ew.

"Calling all my brothers" "Yodel-aaaay-heeee-whoooooo"

I put this up cause Joe asked me to. So gross.

My favorite animal. This one is a baby one (like 2 years old)

Freakin creepiest bird ever. Lookin at us like we're lunch. Geez, vulture.

This is a nursing baby mouse. How funny is that?

This is why you shouldn't have a monkey for a pet.

Us at the end of the day. Oh yeah, going to any zoo in arizona in the month of August is freakin hot. (Note our glistening faces.)

Hung out and worked on the house some more.

So it's very sad.... our first beta fish.... it got this huge tumor and then eventually died, so we went and got our second beta, and it started to get sick. We "hypothesized" that the paint on the gravel rocks was coming off and making the fish sick, so we exchanged them for some natural rocks we found in our yard. The rocks were kinda big and our fish swam under one and got stuck and died :( So yesterday we went and bought 2 new beta's. Joe's is the male (big one) and mine is the female (little) one. Joe says his looks like an old man and I'm excited that mine is kind of a rainbow color! Hopefully they live this time :(