Vida. Risa. Amor.

It's Labor day today and I can honestly say I'm not sure what to do with this holiday.  I work part time during the week as a teacher's aide, (of a highschool nursing class), so I understand the concept of looking forward to a three day weekend a little more now.  I am usually incapable of taking a "day off" anyway so looking back on my three day weekend I did exactly what I usually like to do:  got a bunch of stuff done.  (I assumed I was supposed to labor anyway).

Lanie made a club softball team a week ago, so until she has games she has practices both on Friday night and Saturday mornings.  There was a lot of time spent in my lawnchair in that dusty dirt dugout with a watered down diet coke, so as soon as we got back home I decided to disappear in the front yard with my leaf blower.  I didn't seem to notice it was 110 again, and I am still under the impression my neighbors think I am insane...(well, atleast they can see I like to keep my yard clean).

Sunday was the only day this week where we had abso-freaking-lutely NADA on the calendar scheduled to do.  I should have done exactly that:  nothing...but as I have mentioned before, I have serious issues of pulling that kind of day off.  Instead, I had the genius plan that it might be fun to take myself and the kids up for a daytrip to Sedona.  With all our phones, DSI's, and the portable DVD player packed, we had pretty much everything to make the 2 1/2 hour drive pretty bearable.  What I didn't plan for was the extra hour the last 13 miles was going to take to actually arrive to Sedona, because it seemed that half of everyone in Phoenix had the same idea as we did.  I also didn't realize the temperatures were going to be the same 103 degrees as the valley area, and that I should have had cash instead of a credit card to park to go hiking.  The lot where we wanted to hike was full anyway, so our place in line was going to be farther back if I had to drive the 20 miles back to an ATM to get cash and come back, so we checked out the stores and bought Ikea meatball-sized scoops of icecream for $3 each instead. 

What made this trip worth it for my kids was when we stopped in the Los Abrigados Resort near Tlaquepaque where they played minigolf at the park with a creek behind it all to splash around in....(nice that it was free.)  What made the drive worth it for me was the smell of the leaves and listening to the sound of the running water at the creek while being shaded under the huge trees.  I love nature and hope my kids grow up loving it too.  As an extra bonus a little nature rock found it's mark on the windshield on the drive home.

Today, besides laundry and grocery shopping, I decided I wasn't quite finished with being outside so I conquered more yardwork.  I was in a mood to trim my backyard trees, so with country music blasting, and standing on the last rung of my extension ladder, I found a way to slice those wicked palm fronds off.  (By the way, those branches have no mercy on you if you accidently scrape your arm along the edge.)  I also realized my mesquite tree was looking pretty shabby and one power-saw tool later I had about 3 wrist thick heavy branches successfully sawed off.  I also got mesquite sawdust up my nose and in my eyes.  I sat in the kiddy pool for about an hour after that.  Yep, still not sure what my neighbors or my kids think of me some days.

I admit I like projects and yardwork, but I love more the bits and pieces in a weekend that allow me to catch up with my kids and just be around them.  Maybe the hope to create a memory in Sedona was more spent in the moments during the drive, and I loved that I had all 4 of them to myself.  I'll take as much of them as I can get.

This was the last unscheduled weekend before the games begin, and it's going to be interesting to see how we're going to juggle all four of them in sports this season....