Pima County Fair

So last night was our annual family trip to the fair. Sadly Evan was sick, and Shawn stayed home with him, so they didn't join us, but everyone else was there, and it was a great time. :)

The D family joined us as well, and we met up early to take the big kids on as many rides as they could squeeze in.

D was not a fan of this ride at all, as you can see. ;)

Greg and Terry played games while we waited for the kids. 

 

I let Terry take a picture of us. This is what I get for handing over my camera. I look like a goober, but oh well. I made it into a picture, I guess that's what counts right? 

 

Terry had to go with Kira on a couple of rides because D wasn't up for it and Collin was too short still. 

(She kind of likes her uncle I think. :) )

Some one else was too short too, and none to pleased about it. Poor Della! She was too short for almost every single thing at the carnival.

 

Olivia is also too short, but not old enough to know that this is a concern. She was just happy to be out of her stroller. 

Here are some random shots of the kids for fun. 

 Olivia walking with Kira, apparently she refused to walk for her therapist earlier.

Olivia with all the prizes won by the big kids. 

 Miss Kira, looking pretty darn grown up for my tastes. Love this kid though!

Ok, more to come, but I have to study. I will try and get the rest of the pictures up by the end of the week. Feel free to nag. :) 

Slacklining at the park and a couple other random pics from the past couple of weeks.

Today Katie and I met with the kids at the park and we had a picnic and went slack lining. We attracted random kids as well, and lots of interest from people walking by. It's a lot of fun.


Kira showing Della her skills.

 Della wanted to sit and bounce so Kira would so it with her.

She walked on it like a balance beam, and then made Katie hold her and bounce. But I had already put my camera away. Poor Katie. That takes some talent! She deserved evidence!

 Collin getting ready to bounce.

 Katie noted that the directions said to not put the slack line over dirt, or packed grass. We wondered if they were just illegal to use in Tucson then, since that's all we have *anywhere*. We just will take our chances I guess.

We were near the pond as well, so the kids were throwing leaves into the stream that feeds into the pond and then catching them as they floated under the bridge. This entertained them for a long time too, and also attracted other random children. We were just full of fun ideas today. :)


Collin in the green, random other child, Liam in the red.

 Della had a hard time getting the leaves in the water, they kept going to the side and landing next to her.

Kira played on the slack line alone for a bit before joining the kids, but she eventually got into it. She also managed to lose a shoe in the pond and we had to wait for a while until the ducks made enough "waves" to push the shoe to the shore line. We had a picnic lunch, Katie brought cookies and was the mom of the day for it. We are going to try and go another time with more adults to help watch kids so we can play on the slack line more. We both did it a couple of times, but kids and water require too much attention. 

Mariachi Inspriacion de Tucson Benefit Dinner

The kids play in a mariachi band, and it is a new, young group, but mariachi is expensive, so the kids are doing fundraising to help offset the costs. We had a benefit dinner last night, and it was so nice for picture reasons, because it was *our* event. Normally the kids are playing at someone elses event and so sneaking up to the front with my camera would not be appropriate. I also snagged them after and made them smile.

The benefit went really well, and lots of family was able to come support them. I tried to grab pictures with people, but missed my mom, Katie, Terry and Collin, and Chris, Brie and Avery. Kim and Jason made it and so did Lawson and Phoebe. We had a great time, with fantastic entertainment, by Inspiracion, as well as two other groups and a folklorico group who danced for us. Dinner was amazing Mexican food as well. Shawn worked the drink booth all evening, which was really nice, because I was able to just focus on the kids and our guests.

Here is several of the kids in the group and other groups that played.

Rare shot of Evan actually performing, he even smiled for me. He is pretty elusive normally, he's not very tall and guitars stay behind the violinists. 

 Kira sings too! (And in apparently flawless Spanish, without an accent, as I was told twice yesterday by Spanish speakers. Wow!)

With Papa and Nonie. 

On violin. 

 Fun angle of all of them.

 With Uncle Jason and Aunt Kimi.

We've been busy.

But I've also been wrapping up the semester, which is always a crazy time for anyone who has been in school. Projects, papers, exams all due in crammed together.

The weekend was full of family time. Kim and Jason are LDS and on Sunday they had Olivia blessed. My mom made the dress, and I'll be getting more pics of her in it soon. But after church everyone just wanted to eat lunch.

I'm not sure why I didn't have someone else take this and put Kira and I into the shot, but too late now I guess. I didn't even realize it until I uploaded pics.

 Jason's family and extended family were there as well.

They had a really nice luncheon, and it was really nice to meet some of Jason's family. They don't live in Tucson, so we don't have the opportunity often.

Riding horses with friends and family!

The D family had all of my family over for dinner, horse back riding, and s'mores on Friday. It was a great time!

I took a million pics, but somehow my own children, the little D, and Della all managed to stay away from my camera.

But here are the rest of us having a good time! Sorry for the grain, the sun was going down, so the ISO is high. But I'm trying to keep in mind that it's that we have pictures that matters not that they are perfect!

Here is Collin, Katie's oldest.

My dad. :)

Jason didn't ride, but he and Olivia with her sticking up pony tail hair make me smile so I took their picture. 

This horse is so stubborn. He is not impressed with people who have no idea what they are doing.
He was really giving Katie a hard time. I thought this picture was hilarious. 

Standing there ignoring Kim and what she wants to do.

My favorite pic of the night. Liam is so adorable in this picture! He had such a good time. 

 He was Ms. Chris's helper he told me "I got this". 

  Olivia showing me her owl shirt.

 Olivia went riding with me. I'm on the stubborn horse, so for saftey sake we had Grammy lead us around the arena.

 Her hair cracks me up. And I don't know why she doesn't look as happy as me? 

 Mom said she hasn't been on a horse since was about 13, but apparently the horse decided she qualified as someone who knew what they were doing, because he went for her.

 Sitting all by her self with help from Uncle Terry.

 Terry *does* know what he is doing and the horse went just fine for him. Damn horse. He just wanted to make us all look bad.

 

Terry and Greg rode for awhile and had a good time out there with cooperative horses. ;) 

Thanks for the great night D family! It was a blast!