CSA

We are members of the Tucson CSA, which stands for Community Supported Agriculture.  It's a pretty good deal.  You buy a share at the beginning of the season and then you  own a small portion of a local farms' output.  Each week they harvest whatever is ready and each member gets an equal share.  We've been getting a lot of squash, carrots, corn, kale, arugula, potatoes, cucumber, green beans, peppers, tomatoes, jalapenos, dried beans, okra, peaches, melons, apples, oranges, and whatever else happens to be in.  It's all organic, and even better it's all local, so we could safely eat tomatoes and jalapenos while the rest of the country was freaking out about salmonella. People often talk about how important it is to eat local, but very few people actually do it.  Seek out local farmer's markets and see if your area has a similar program.  It's totally worth it and it's fun to be surprised at what your getting each week so it gets you to try different foods.

This is about an average one-week portion:

For more information follow this link:

 www. tucsoncsa.org/

Better Late Then Never...

As many people reading these entries already know, in May my sister Denise got married to her boyfriend Andrew on the island of St John in the Virgin Islands.  Of course, I'm just getting around to submitting an entry about it now.   Everything was perfect and it was a small affair with just immediate family.  Here is a picture of our group on the wedding day:

Here are Denise & Andrew as they are exchanging their vows

Griffin on the beach not sitting still for a sunset photo

After a few days with the family on St John; Brie, Griffin, Matilda and I finished the week on St Thomas, the bigger and more touristy island.  They have this cool place called Coral World where we spent an afternoon.  Lots of underwater viewing of tropical fish and shark feeding and stingray touching and whatnot.  Griffin liked feeding these tropical birds best,which oddly enough aren't even native to the Carribbean, they come from Australia

Our hotel on St Thomas was up the hill from the downtown shopping and dining district.  They have the famous "99 Steps" that make coming and going easier.  Actually there are two big flights of steps and all together it's more like 150 steps.

It was a great trip and we thank Denise and Andrew for picking such a lovely spot to have their wedding, which also turned into a short family vacation.  I have tons more pictures, I may do more entries in the future.

Haircut

So Griffin had his first visit to the barber shop this morning.  Brie has given him a couple trims over the last year, but this was his first full-fledged haircut.  It had gotten pretty nappy and was in his eyes and his ears a lot.  Our barber was great, very good with kids and very patient.  Although he was perhaps a bit TOO meticulous.  He kept wanted to get every teeny little hair twice, even though Griffin was starting to get antsy, he kept saying "let me just clean this one spot..."

Later I asked Griffin what his favorite part was and he said getting the lollipop at the end. However he did great, was very patient and still. He liked knocking the errant hairs off the cape onto the floor, although he didn't like getting loose  hair in his face, but who does? 

This is how it looks at the end of the day when it's not all styled with a part on the side from the barber.  The "real-life" look.  They were cute at the barber shop, they gave him a little certificate that said "First Haircut...." and a little ribbon to go with it.  They offered to cut Matilda's hair too, and told us to bring her back in a couple years.

Tom Waits concert

We saw the best concert in the world a couple months ago up in Phoenix, this is a posting of the setlist, some reviews follow:

Set List: Tom Waits, Phoenix 2008

On a day that was 110 degrees, Tom Waits opened his world tour Tuesday in Phoenix at the 1,364-seat Orpheum Theater with an excellent two-hour set. It has been, apparently, 30 years since he played Arizona's largest city; it's his first full-scale tour in eight years.
Perhaps not surprising, the best represented album in the set was "Mule Variations," the 1999 album that was supported by something of a comeback tour. (He also toured in 2006). On June 17, the first of two nights in Phoenix, Waits and his band, which featured his son Casey and jazz saxophonist Vincent Henry, played:

Lucinda / Hoist That Rag / Come On Up to the House / Jesus Gonna Be Here / November / Black Market Baby / Rain Dogs / Trampled Rose / Goin Out West / Murder in the Red Barn / Anywhere I Lay My Head / Cemetery Polka / Get Behind the Mule / The Eyeball Kid / Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis / Picture in a Frame / Invitation to the Blues / Innocent When You Dream / Lie to Me / Chocolate Jesus / Down in the Hole / God's Away on Business / Time

Here's some more links:

http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2008/06/18/tom-waits-spins-yarns-sings-about-jesus-at-tour-opener-in-phoenix/

http://the3penguins.blogspot.com/2008_06_01_archive.html 

Tilda Smiles

Matilda has been smiling lately, of course Griffin does his patented goofy smile whenever a camera is pointed at him:

A New Sandbox

A few months back we built a sandbox for the kids, here are a couple of pictures, the first one is Griff helping shovel out all the sand.  The next picture is the sandbox all put together, although we still haven't painted it yet:

Carport

     Anybody who has ever been to the desert knows how important shade is.  A parking spot underneath a tree, or in the shadow of a building are the most coveted spaces in Tucson.  At our house we have a few trees that give sporadic shade to areas of our driveway.  One space has great early-morning shade, the opposite side only has shade very late in the day.  During the hottest part of the day the sun just beats down unrelentingly cooking our cars.  So we decided pretty quickly we need a carport. (a simple open-walled structure that provides shade.)  Brie's father Jim was in town for a week and he was happy to help us. 

     We spent the first few days looking at other carports, pricing materials, looking in books, and sketching out ideas.  On Wednesday we dug six big holes, put the 10foot 4x6 posts in and poured concrete around them:

The next day we bought all the rest of the lumber as well as the roofing materials and hardware and stained all the wood.  On Friday we built the frame:

On Saturday we put the roof on and then we were done:

Very quick and easy.  We wouldn't have been able to do it without Jim's help!

Garden Hose

Griffin loves to help us water the plants, although sometimes he gets a little overzealous with the hose, I had to keep my distance because I didn't want the water to fritz out the camera.  He's gotten really good at using his finger to redirect and spray the water

Truck Tent

     Back in February I bought a little Toyota truck that I found on Craigslist for a decent price.  I figured it would be worthwhile to have a second vehicle and there were too many times recently that I thought a pickup would be handy.  It came with a little aluminum camper shell that was kind of cheesy so I was keeping my eyes open for a better one.

     A couple months ago we were on our way to a birthday party at a pool and we were parked behind another pickup with a shell that caught my eye.  It had a "For Sale" sign and a picture showed the shell unfolded to a huge rooftop tent.  The owner of the truck was just getting there so I struck up a conversation with her and asked about the camper.  She'd had it for a bunch of years, didn't want it anymore, and said she'd sell it for a "good price" but she wasn't sure what it was worth.  I got her number and told her I would contact her.

    I got on the internet and researched the tent.  It was by a company that had been defunct since the mid-nineties, and it was the camping company Lowe Alpine that designed the tent.  They originally sold for about $3000 new, although these days a used one was in the $600-700 range.  Nobody was selling one locally although there was a database dedicated to this product and I read some of the posts and it seemed people were willing to drive many hundreds of miles to buy one.  It looked like the demand certainly exceeded the supply.  Since she said she would give me a good price I was hoping she would let it go for half of what I'd found.

     I called her up and found out that she would indeed sell it for $300, but then we started talking some more and she said if I didn't need my current shell she would take that as a partial trade, she wanted something on the back for security, just didn't need the monstrous camper.  We got the trucks together for size comparisons and then she floored me by saying she would just do an even swap for the two camper shells!  I couldn't believe it!  So I quickly agreed before she could change her mind.  The shell fit on my truck like it was meant to be there, the color even matched somewhat.  The only drawback is the thing is HEAVY, it took four of us to move it from one truck to the other.  My old shell I could just lift on and off whenever I needed without a second thought.  I remedied that pretty easily by buying a pair of camper jacks for $50 that lift the thing right off and allow you to drive away, and then back in once you want it back on.  So now I have this huge tent built in to the back of my truck.  It's real easy to set up, it has a couple of telescoping poles that pop up and a few legs that drop down for support.  Check out the pictures:

At the top of the page is a picture of it all folded up, it looks just like a regular camper shell.  I don't know how waterproof it is, (single walled, no rain-fly) but living in Arizona it probably won't come up very often.  I've only slept in it once (in the driveway) but it's a lot of fun and Griffin thinks it's really cool.  Since we have two kids "car-camping" is going to be where it's at for the next few years, this should make it fun.

Hot Sauce

A few weeks ago our friends Tokya and Dave were visiting from up in Flagstaff.  We went out to breakfast at the local diner and I was snapping pictures unaware of what Griffin was up to, however it does make for a funny series:

I don't think he realized it was hot sauce until he tried licking it off his fingers, very funny.

Welcome!

 

Hello, thanks for checking out this blog.  We find it really hard to keep all our friends and families updated with our lives, so this way we have a site that people can visit at their leisure.  We'll try to update it every week or so, so if we start slacking just send nasty emails.  Here are a few relatively (very relatively)recent pictures:




For those who don't know, Matilda was born on March 9th, so she's almost five months old, and Griffin will turn three next month.  Talk again soon.