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Morning walk after a rainstorm.  A. MAZ. ING.

I seriously love it when they do this!

Stopping to watch the neighbors cows

Another one of our stops, the canal, which the kids decided looks just like chocolate milk river would from the book "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory".

Gwen with "white bear" (a constant companion) wearing half jammies, half outfit for the day.  LOVE it!

The boys doing "doughnuts" in the mud

Mud bogging at it's best...bummer of a shoe choice though!

One satisfied participant

Lucy and the smaller kids hung out with me in the Yukon while we waited our turn to ride, listening to the local country radio station.  Awesome.

Blowing out my candles (shhh, don't count the candles, we just used what we had hanging around the house).  

I had a fantastic birthday, and getting to spend it in Arizona made it even better.  The day started off early with our morning walk, but this morning in particular was gorgeous because it had just rained the night before (and Arizona is breathtaking after it rains)!  While walking we realized that it would be a great morning for 4-wheeling because of the mud the rain would create so we headed home and drove to the dugg-outs! Later,  I went to brunch with my sister Becca and my mom and then relaxed until that night when Jacob took me to my favorite local Mexican restaurant.  The kids would have been sorely disappointed if we didn't have cake and ice cream, so we had it before Jacob took me out, so we got to have dessert first and believe me, I had plenty of room for mexican food afterwards! We ended the night with a drive around the town via the back roads while playing country music on the radio (of course) which included driving by the Gila Valley temple which ended my day quite nicely!

Weedin

 Weeding the field is quite the production in these parts.  Uncle Scotty came to help spray.  With Jacob driving and Jackson navigating, they covered a lot of ground fast.  It was super hot too so the cowboy hats were a welcomed accessory!

Telling stories of Grandpa Curtis and saying goodbye

Meet Jimmy

After Jimmy was first let go

Oliver could not control his emotions while saying goodbye

Ava with the flowers she picked out to place at grandpa's grave

Mom telling stories about her memories of Grandpa Curtis

Posing for a group photo, the sun was super bright can you tell?

Eating ice cream watching the cars drive by on the highway

So, this has become something we do as a family every time we come to Safford.  We visit Grandpa Curtis' grave and tell fun stories of him and enjoy a cold treat after we are done.  This time we decided to let go the horny toad the kids caught with their Aunt Becca (we had tried to care for it but after day two and it wasn't eating, so we felt it was time).  It was the perfect place.  It was a perfect morning.

Arizona Bugs

Loved that he is giggling in this photo because the bugs are tickling his hands!

What is cooler than going to a new place where their are new creatures to discover, not much!

Horses at Grandma's

Gwen wanted to feet the new baby horse a "carick"

Yep, you are seeing this right, Jackson eating a sucker at 7a.m. Grandma's house seems to carry different rules then our house in Canada and the kids couldn't be more thrilled about that fact!

At the end of our walks in the morning, we usually try and feed the horses and especially the new baby horse something to get them comfortable with us to that we could pet them.  This morning the food of choice was carrots.  The kids seemed to like feeding them these as opposed to apples because their hands were able to be kept at a more comfortable distance from the horses mouth!