GoPro fail

My friend John makes promotional videos.  He'll really good (see representative sample here).  He uses a GoPro camera mounted to a little helicopter to get the overhead shots.

Looks real nice, right?

My children have destroyed our small point and shoot.  Like, the casing fell off but it still worked, and then the shutter was stuck open, but it still kinda worked.  And then it wouldn't turn off, but if you took out the battery when you weren't using it, it still kinda worked.

Tyler and I decided to hike Mt. Wrightson a few weekends back, and as I was afraid I'd drop our nice camera off the side of the mountain, plus it's heavy, we decided to borrow John's GoPro.

I'm not sure what went wrong, but these are some of the better shots.

This is a herd of wild turkeys, obviously.

 Because it takes like 6 hours to do the hike, it was either take the baby or lug a pump.  I almost wish we had taken the pump because 1. I think it would have been lighter, 2. The baby was freaked out about the fact that it was VERY COLD up on the mountain and refused to nurse, and 3. I wouldn't have worried about the pump getting frostbite.

I think this is me... maybe its' Tyler.  There is only one button on the GoPro, so I'm not sure how we could have screwed it up, but here it is.  Unfortunately, the camera died before we could take a picture from the summit.  It looked like this:

image from summitpost.org

Is One Kid or Three Kids Harder?

Let's fast forward, away from Hawaii, to a few weekends ago.  I had just gotten back from taking the kids, by myself, to California for a week.  It was hard, but not as hard as I remember a trip I took with just Lillian when she was 2 and we went to visit family for a week.  Adjectives I would use to describe this last trip: fun, enjoyable, pleasant.  Adjectives I would use to describe that trip with Lillian: drudgery, tiring, exhausting, never ending.

I think I was pregnant with Nora, but that can't be the whole reason it was more difficult.  I think, now hear me out, that having 3 kids is in a lot of ways easier than having one.  With just one child, it's just you and that kid, staring each other down, all. day. long.  There is no one but you to distract them, to play with them, and to fight with them.  With 2 other kids around, you can outsource all of those things.  You can say, "Hey Lillian, go see why Ethan is crying," instead of having to leave your pleasant conversation with your sister to go find out for yourself.

These pictures are not from our trip to California.  As I was saying, right after I got back from California, it was the ward camp out, and Tyler took the kids up to Mt. Lemmon by himself because I had to work.

I don't think he (or I) would have been brave enough to try that with only 1 kid.  

However, he did not attempt to go hiking.  He's brave, but not crazy.

Kartchner Caverns

My in-laws were here for a week and so we did a whole hecka-lotta things, most of which I failed to get pictures of because I was chasing after one kid or another. One thing that we did and that I did take at least some pictures of is head down to Kartchner Caverns.

The caves are "alive" so you are not allowed to touch anything.  Or take pictures.  Or touch the curbs on the side of the walkway, or let your clothes touch the curbs.  Or talk or complain that you hate the caves while the fussy tour guide is talking (Ethan, I'm looking at you).

Photo appropriated from Arizona State Parks

This is what the formations look like.  It's very pretty, and also impressive how much work two U of A grad students did to keep this thing a secret while trying to get it turned into a state park before it fell victim to vandals and thieves.  The tour was fun for the kids, but a little over their heads what with the guide going on and on about how carbon dioxide dissolved the limestone to form the cave, and the barometric pressure of the cave, and the minerals contained in the various colors of the rock, etc.  I would give a green light to those 5 and over.  What I really wanted to do (Ethan as well) was to climb off the path and wander around, but I think what with the no touching policy, I would have been arrested.

Budding cavers inside the visitor's center

Ethan mostly just wanted to play with the lockers and cried when I dragged him away

After this, I took the two littler kids home for naps while Mark and Darlene took Lillian down to Tombstone.  I was skeptical that they would last very long as it was already pushing 100 at 11:30, but they didn't come back until 6 or so.  I presume they saw gunfights, wandered around Boot Hill, and saw the courthouse.  I know there was sarsaparilla involved (which who knew was spelled like that?) but I didn't see any pictures, so these reports cannot be independently verified.

Thanks for coming Darlene and Mark, and thanks for doing all the dishes while you were here.  Seriously, that was amazing.

Sonora Desert Museum

Tyler's parents came to visit for a week some time in September, I think.  During which time, we finally got a proper visit to the Sonora Desert Museum.  We have tried to go on multiple occasions but were foiled every time.

The Desert Museum isn't really a museum, it's like 30% museum, 70% zoo, but with only animals from the Sonoran Desert in it.

Tucson has a lot of bats.  I love bats.

I think it has a lot of fossils too.  Here's the little area where you can discover a dinosaur.

This picture is sideways because I was holding the camera at a funny angle.  Isn't she precious?

Somehow this was the only animal picture I managed to take.  It's a mountain lion.  I think I had my camera out because I was hoping that the mountain lion would pounce on the squirrel that wandered into the pen.  He didn't.  He just watched and watched.

Also at the Desert Museum, you can learn all about the 5,000 different snakes and insects that live here, like the kissing beetle that likes to eat the soft, thin skin on your face and mouth while you sleep.  Welcome to Arizona.

When we first moved here, I was pretty sure that the environment was doing everything in it's power to kill me.  From scorpions to kissing beetles and jumping cholla, I knew I would be dead in 5 minutes if I ever got lost out there.  Now that I've learned a few of her secrets, I think I would last at least 45.

Thanks for visiting Mark and Darlene.  We'll see you at Thanksgiving.

Ostrich Farm, Part 2

As promised, the monster truck.  OK, I'm a few days late... see what happened was I was planning on writing Sunday's, Monday's and Tuesday's posts on Sunday, because I worked Monday and Tuesday.  But, actually I worked Sunday and Monday, and so I didn't get a chance.  I was about to promise to post extra, but we'll see.

 There were goats.  Oh my, were there goats.  These were the kind with creepy-looking rectangular irises.  But the kids wanted to stay and feed them all day long, which I think would have been fine by the goats.

We need to get one of these for the backyard.

All right, enough with the goats already.  They also had lorikeets.   Admit it, you didn't see that one coming.

They gave you little cups of something they called nectar to feed them.  The lorikeets are not shy or very nice, and they get very mad if you try to pet them.

If you come visit us, we'll totally take you.

Ostrich Farm!

Last month, Tyler decided we needed to go to the ostrich farm.  It's about 45 minutes away from our house right next to Picacho Peak.  I've driven past it maybe 20 times thinking it would be fun, but I never felt like driving that far.  Then, a family in our ward went and posted pictures on Facebook, and just like that, Tyler decided it was high time we went out there.

 They have many different kinds of animals at the Rooster Cogburn ostrich farm, and you can feed all of them.  You start out with these nice deer.

By the way, Ethan has no fear.  He climbs up the ladder on the big kid slides, the loopy-twisty kind that Lillian isn't even all that keen on, and goes down face first making all the other moms at the park nervous.

  Then you have mini donkeys.  This isn't the first encounter I've had with mini donkeys.  Somehow, I'm really fuzzy on the details, my Chinese friend Patrick's parents, who now live in Hong Kong, lived for a short time in the unspecified past in San Luis Obispo, where I went to school and met Patrick.  During their time there, they somehow befriended a couple who own a mini donkey farm out in the sticks by Templeton, not really all that close to SLO.  They became good enough friends that this couple hosted a BBQ in their honor every time they visited the states.

Being friends with Patrick, I had the privilege of being invited to a few of these occasions, which always left me puzzled and not able to get a straight answer of how this relationship was formed.

But the mini donkeys were always great.  These ones were greedy and nipped at the kids fingers.

Again, Ethan didn't care.

 And then come the ostriches.

 I was not brave enough to feed the ostriches out of my hand.  There were signs all around warning that they bite.  For chickens like me, they had little tubes that went through the fence.

 For those brave enough, the ostriches can get over that fence, no problem.

They also have monster truck tours of the desert.  I'm only posting half our pictures today as a) I have a lot and b) I'm afraid I'm going to run out of things to write about before NaPoBloMo is over.  The point is that I didn't get a picture of the outside of the monster truck until right before we left, so you'll see it tomorrow.

The tour was fun and informative.  I now know more about ostriches than I ever wanted plus, I learned that barrel cactuses tilt SSE.

Yes, this picture is in the running for the worst shot of my family.  But you get to go ostrich fishing on the monster truck tour, which was fun.

Basically, they stick quartered grapefruit on a nail on a rope on a pole, and you tease the ostriches with it.

Then they get it and swallow it whole.  You can watch the lump move all the way down their throat.  Check out that ostrich's neck on the right there.  The kids thought it was great, until Nora dropped her pole.  That was devastating.

Turkey Trot

On Thanksgiving, we participated in the 17th annual Thanksgiving 5K at Reid Park.

Tyler's game face. That kid in the elf outfit actually placed 5th or 6th out of all the men. Quick little guys, those elves.

It was promoted as a "European-style" 5K with obstacles, which is why we decided to do it. But this water feature/hay bale combo is 3 hay bales short of the sum total of all the obstacles. Tyler is behind that guy in the white shirt.

Hey Elizabeth. Sure, come visit us for Thanksgiving. While you're here, surprise! You can wake up at 6 to watch our kids while we go running. And it will probably be something like 40˚ outside, so bring a jacket.

The girls were such pansies when it came to jumping these pools. I'm in the middle looking decidedly uncool. They were all of 3 cm deep but everyone wanted to run around them, so there was a traffic jam on both laps. Come on ladies, live a little.

Tyler got 29:00 and I got 37:17. I would have been faster except I got a wicked cramp around mile 2 and had to walk it off.

Candy Bomber

The number of living legends I've met has gone from zero to one.

Gail Halverson is in my ward and he's the coolest nonagenarian I've ever met. He came and talked to our primary and told the story of how he became the original candy bomber.

I missed the beginning part, so I'm not sure what he was doing by the fence, but he was standing outside the fence that separated East and West Germany during the Berlin airlift after WWII. Whenever he was in uniform walking around in the States, kids would mob him asking for chocolate, so he was really impressed that the group of kids who had gathered on the other side of the fence were just looking at him. He felt prompted by the Holy Ghost to give these kids the two sticks of gum he had in his pocket. He quickly dismissed the notion as he felt it would cause a riot and he didn't want any of the kids to get hurt. The feeling persisted, so he broke the two sicks in half and passed them through the fence.

There was no riot. Instead the kids distributed the gum and then passed the wrapper around to the kids who didn't get any so they could smell it. This made Brother Halverson want to help them even more, because they weren't greedy like American kids. He worked out with the kids that he would come and drop chocolate in a few days and they would know it was him because he would wiggle his wings on approach. He convinced some of his buddies to give up their chocolate rations and he tied handkerchiefs onto the chocolate bars because, as he said, "getting hit in the head with a Hershey bar going 110 miles per hour would make the wrong impression."

He did this for a while in secret (the kids nicknamed him Onkel Wackelflügel (Uncle Wigglywings)) until a German newspaper picked up the story. He thought he was going to be in trouble because his commanding officer looked upset when he called Brother Halverson into the office. He didn't get in trouble, quite the opposite, the project was expanded into Operation Little Vittles.

I hope I can be that cool when I'm 90.

Monsoon Birthday

Untitled from Amanda Ball on Vimeo.

Mother Nature was kind enough to give me a pretty rockin' monsoon for my birthday.

Nora Bora

We here at Us and Things have been deluged with requests for more pictures of Nora. And, by deluged, I mean two of you asked. This series of pictures represents my best efforts at a photo shoot.


The problem is that she won't (can't?) hold still. She is the wiggliest kid I've ever met. She's up, she's down, she wants to crawl over here. What's that? Can I eat it? Pick me up. Let go of me.



We had our neighbors watch our kids when we went to El Charro, birthplace of the chimichanga, which I never thought were good until I had The Pollo Elegante, and now I wish I had an extra-large stomach so I could eat two. Pollo Elegante... so good. Oh, anyway, our neighbors. When we came back, she said, "wow! Nora gets around. We were watching a movie and Lillian was sitting nicely and Nora was on my lap, then on the ground, then on John, then in the toys, then she went in the other room, and when I went to go look, she was up on the 3rd shelf of the bookcase."