We had a great weekend. Sorry there are no pictures though. I took the camera but after you hear the whole story I think you'll understand. There was a ward campout this weekend. I, of course, was very excited about it. Greg was not. We were debating switching and going to Phoenix instead and to add to that we were deliberating Greg's work and if he should take the time off. So we are down to the wire on Friday evening and just as we are talking about it he gets called. Off he goes to work and I decided to take the 4 kids up the mountain to the campout. The drive/arrival/set-up and all was great. We enjoyed our smores and the outdoors. About 9pm that night the kids are begging to go to sleep so off to our tent we go. It started to sprinkle once we got nicely tucked inside and I figured it would be one of these Arizona storms that only last 15 minutes. Boy, was I wrong. After about 6 hours of downpouring rain it finally stopped. We were soaked. During the night I had been adjusting the kids trying to move them out of the constant drip from above our heads and the puddles that were seeping through the bottom and rising. Thankfully the girls were completely dry all night long. They slept soundly too. Zach and Adam, poor guys, were drenched. Their sleeping bags and jammies were soaked and unfortunately our overnight bag of dry clothes was soaked too. We huddled together to keep warm, put our dirty clothes back on and tried to move to stay dry. It was a LONG night. We got up with the sun at 5am and packed all our stuff up. As I was rolling up the sleeping bags I was squishing water out of them. It was one giant mess! So we warmed ourselves by a fire in the morning and then had some breakfast. Adam and Elayna took off and played with their friends for a couple hours and Zach just vegged. He was really tired. We eventually headed out and made it home about 10am. I got home with 3 of the 4 babes asleep and decided to hang up the sleeping bags to dry. I got most of the car unloaded before the kids woke up, which was a great advantage. We cleaned up, turned on a movie and I went to sleep on the couch for a little bit. I was asleep just long enough to be refreshed before we had to get ready to go to the bbq.
Greg still wasn't home from Yuma and I was getting the kids, food and extra's ready to go bbq with another RR family. The kids and I got there and then about 2 hours later Greg arrived. It was a fun evening of food, swimming, talking and fireworks. We were thinking we would have an awesome view of the fireworks since they were launching them a couple miles from our friends house but sadly we couldn't see them too well. Amazingly we caught sight of another show from their backyard and let the kids sit on the fence to watch them. They loved it even though you couldn't hear the crackles and pops of the fireworks.
It was a fun weekend. We spent most of our Sunday laying around trying to catch back up. My house went to pot and the kids ate junk but we had fun. It was one great adventure the kids are still talking about and hopefully remember for some time.
Here are some pictures of our new house. We are so excited. Its in Red Rock, about 30 minutes north of Tucson. We have the walk thru/signing on the 22nd and we pick up our keys on the 27th. At least its currently scheduled for those days as of now. Let me tell you, we are excited! Obviously the stove is not in yet but will be soon.(its in the garage, along with the dishwasher, yea!) Our little piece of heaven is 1700 sq. ft., 4 bed/2bath. We have a spacey 20 feet on both sides of our home before you run into any neighbors. We are also excited about the water park and the other neighborhood amenities. There is a school just down the street but we are planning on keeping our kids in the charter school they are currently at. This is a great place for our family to start/end the next stage. We are really excited to be done with managing the apartments and looking forward to having more time to do family things. We are planning on planting the az ash trees in back and maybe some veggies/grape vines and grass along with our trampoline (double yea!). We will be painting at some point as well. Grand plans but time will tell when it gets done. Its going to be great having the space. The boys and girls each get a room and then the 4th room will be for visitors. Anyone who wants to come visit is welcome anytime! 
Greg is also excited because we are so close to his hunting spot. He gets to store our 4-wheeler at our house now and gets to go riding whenever he wants. The builder is planning on leaving a section open just for dirt bikes. How cool is that? Now when he does go out hunting its just a short 10 minute drive into the mountains. We are really excited that Picacho Peak is in our backyard. For anyone who has been here we will be 5 minutes from the ostrich farm.
I am really liking the tile floor. The house has carpet in the bedrooms and everything else is tile. It makes for really easy clean-up and being that we will be having dogs it keeps the animal smell down to nil. We are talking about getting an english springer spaniel, english bulldog or another mid-size breed. We'll see. Things keep changing so maybe we'll end up with a Mastiff or chihuahua. (both of which I would love to have) The tile will also help keep things cool and for those of you who know az summers this is a pretty cool thing. I am very excited about the a/c as well. No more swamp! Thank heavens!!!
