Kartchner Caverns

Saturday, we went to Kartchner Caverns with my grandma, aunt, uncle and two cousins. I'd heard of it and that it was cool, but none of us had ever been so we decided a little adventure was in order.

It was awesome! When we were looking at the map of caves across the United States in the museum they had, we saw several cool looking caves in Arizona. The Lava River Cave in Flagstaff was on the list, so we've already been to almost half of the caves...it might be a new goal of mine to see all of the Arizona caves.

They're trying hard to protect the Caverns, which have only been open for 10 years, so you're not allowed to take in a camera or to take any photos of the cave. But, I did snap these two photos with my phone inside the museum. They're of Aunt Jody and Andy playing in the cave replica they had. It was meant to show you the small spaces experienced cavers crawl through to discover a cave like Kartchner.



Here are a few of the things we saw inside the cave...captured from Kartchner Cavern's web site.

Bacon...really, it grows in the cave and it looks just like bacon!

Soda Straws - they grow 1/10 of an inch every 100 years...the longest one is 21 feet...that's 252,000 years of growth that we were witnessing in the cave!

Kubla Khan - five stories tall and seriously cool!

To sum up...super cool...so glad we went...you should go too!

Sharing Milestones

It's spreading...our tradition of throwing milestone parties when our cars turn 100,000 miles has officially spread outside of our two vehicles.


Saturday, we were privileged to celebrate the 100,000 mile milestone of my aunt and uncle's van. WOOHOO! The party was great fun...we got whistles, confetti poppers and even crazy teeth!


Oh, I almost forgot to tell you...we also had fake, candy cigarettes at our celebration. My grandma and Wil were talking about the candy cigarettes they used to play with when they were kids (I don't remember these at all!), a couple weeks before Christmas. Just a few days later I was at a candy store that sold them, so they both got candy cigarettes for Christmas!


I couldn't get all four of them and the odometer at the same time...but it said 100,000...I promise!

I Cry the Day I Take the Tree Down

Ok, maybe I don't actually cry the day I take the tree down, but I do get a melancholy sort of feeling (and I love the song!). Don't get me wrong, I am beyond thrilled to put my couches back the way they are supposed to go and get my house back to normal, but there's something sad about putting away all of my Christmas memories for another year.

Wil kindly reminded me that I needed to blog about a few of our Christmas ornaments this year like I did last year. My grandma has a tradition of giving each grandchild an ornament every year. Then, by the time you are old enough to have your own Christmas tree, you have a good number of ornaments and lots of fun memories of my grandma for your new tree.

I love this tradition! Each year, she signs her name and writes the year on the back of the ornament. My post today will be all of my yearly ornaments from my grandma, in succession from 1994 (I think that's when she first started this tradition).

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

Kick the Can

We played Kick the Can during our New Year's Eve party at my Aunt and Uncle's house. Here we are all ready for hiding in the dark (they take Kick the Can very seriously!). I haven't played kick the can since I was a little girl...it was SO much fun!!!

Go Car, Go

One last post and then I'm done for today...I promise! :-)

When I was a sophomore in high school, my pre-calculus teacher decided to give us a project to help apply what we were supposedly learning in class. Now, keep in mind this was a math class, not a physics class...and I still have NO idea how this project applied what we were learning in class.

We were told we had to make a car to drive up a ramp carrying a ball, and when it got to the top it had to drop the ball back down the ramp. Now, being me and having NO mechanical inclinations at all...I went to the one person I knew could help...my uncle. :-)


He pretty much made my car for me, while I watched (well, sometimes I watched). It was a work of beauty...four wheels, a little motor that turned the wheels with a rubber band, and a battery pack to run the motor.


Yep, that's my car...I was pretty proud of that car (I must have been, if I saved it in my grandma's garage for the last 9 years!)...even if it never did make it up the ramp! It could drive straight but up a ramp was too much for it! It almost made it once, but then the rubber band broke. I replaced the rubber band, but it was never the same!

I can't remember what grade I got on the project, but I think it turned out being a pretty good grade. An A for my uncle's effort!

The second quarter of that class, however, was my first B (the grade of a B was in no way connected to the car, I think it was because I didn't do so hot on my final...or because the teacher hated me...actually, it was probably, most definitely because my teacher hated me.) :-) I cried for a week! Literally, I cried for a week...how obnoxious! SO glad I am past that stage!!!

Rainbows

After my mom died, my grandma enrolled me in a grief class for kids at a local church. It was called Rainbows and was for kids dealing with death or divorce. We found my Rainbows book while cleaning out my grandma's garage. We thought these two pages were funny, so I had to post them for you!

Remember I was only seven!

On one page, I was supposed to write about something I felt guilty about. I'm betting they were trying to get to the child's inner feelings to see if the child felt unnecessary guilty for something related to the death or divorce.

Here's mine....

"I dripped chocolate and my grandma asked what is this and I said I don't know."

This page is a drawing of my family.

I'm pretty sure the lady on the left is my great grandma and the girl on the right is me. It looks like we are crocheting. I can tell who is who because the one on the left has a whole blanket going on in her lap (definitely my great grandma, she was always crocheting blankets) and the one on the right has a really long crocheted chain (definitely me, I loved crocheting, but I never learned how to go back and forth connecting the crocheted yarn...I just made really, really long chains!).

Garage Treasures!

My uncle and I are both off work this week, so we decided the time had come to help my grandma clean out her garage.

BEFORE


AFTER


Of course...any good garage cleaning day, needs to be accompanied by lots and lots of goofy pictures for this very blog!

Without further ado, our treasures...we'll start with the silly ones...

Too cool for your face glasses!

Watch out, Grandma has a knife and she knows how to use it!

I think she said this was a knife from my great grandma and great grandpa's restaurant. I'm not sure if you can tell, but the handle is being held together by tape!

VHS Rewinder

Remember these...from when it took too long to rewind the VHS tape in the VCR, so they made a separate rewinding machine...remember having to REWIND a movie???

Halloween Costume Box

That's me on the left sporting a pink elephant head and a clown/joker collar, Lynda is in the middle with a purple crayon hat, Miss America cape, old fashioned woman dress and Raggedy Ann socks, and my uncle is on the right showing off a pumpkin costume accessorized with a lovely black boa!

In case we ever need to rob a bank


Patriotic shawl with blue doll

These were my Tante Lina's (my great grandma's sister or great, great aunt), we shouldn't make fun, but really, how can you not make fun?

Now for the garage treasures that were old, sentimental or just plain COOL!

The binoculars

These were my Uncle Erich's binoculars, actually, he was my great-great-uncle...making the binoculars really old, and super cool...and HUGE!

JFK

Yes, those are two ORIGINAL Life magazines from the assassination of JFK. They even have the mailing address labels on them from my great grandma's subscription to Life. (This might be one of the COOLEST treasures we found!)

My wall hanging

My mom made this for my wall when I was a baby...how cute is this???

Grandma's dolls

These were on my grandma's dresser when she was a kid! How cool is that? I love the one with the blue dress, it's so pretty!

TV tray

When I was a kid, we only ate at the table at my great grandma's house on very special occasions. The rest of the time, we ate in the living room on TV trays. I think this was the only surviving TV tray, but at one time, she had enough that at least four people could eat dinner together on the TV trays.

Wedding cup

This is my grandma's, great-great grandma's wedding up...that would make it my great-great-great-great grandma's (FOUR greats!) wedding cup! WOW! That's a really old and totally awesome cup!

I think we need a closer look at that one!