Ugly Sweaters Galore!

Brrrrrr - it's been chilly in Phoenix lately (relatively speaking of course!) so we've all been breaking out the warm clothes. In honor of the holiday season and the cool weather...our friends decided to have an Ugly Sweater Party!Brett Farve decided to make a guest appearance at this exclusive event. He even allowed us to dress him up and posed for a photo with Matt and Nate! Lisa won the contest for the ugliest sweater with her above-the-knee, puffy paint, jaquar aplique sweater and is posing with her Santa boot prize. She was so proud. Turns out her Sweater was functional too!
Eric and Jamie opted for the Christmas sweater look.

What can I say? The sweaters made some people feel like 80's superheros.

Mike D's sweater not only provided warmth - but the promise of a bountiful crop if he were to plant all the little seeds sewn in between the blue boxes (just trust me...they were cool!).

Until next year...

Mucho Mata Ortiz

I can't believe it's been more than 2 months since my last post.
Anyhow, life keeps flying by. And speaking of flying by, I thought you might be interested to see photos from our recent trip to Mata Ortiz, Chihuahua, Mexico. Matt and I traveled down there the Friday after Thanksgiving with our friends 'the Gartons' (Eric, Jamie, Palmer, and Katie the babsitter). It was a whirlwind trip and a lot of driving along crazy Mexican highways and through the Sierra Madre Occidental range. But it was worth it!

This is a photo of main street in Mata Ortiz:

OK - so it may not look like much.

But it is a quaint little Mexican town nestled in a beautiful valley with towering Mountains in all directions. Most of the homes are made from adobe bricks (which I love!) and the people are incredibly friendly.We stayed at the only hotel in town where we enjoyed fresh tortillas and other Mexican favorites for every meal.

The local church - decorated for a boda (wedding) or Quincinera. We weren't sure which!

But Mata Ortiz is not just a cute Mexican town with yummy food...it is also famous for its pottery! They estimate that about 700-800 people live in Mata Ortiz and up to 500 people make pottery!! One of the best parts of our trip was walking down the dusty streets and being invited into people's homes to look at their pottery. Everything is priced in American dollars and you do get a tour bus the rolls in every once in a while...but it is still an incredibly authentic, Spanish-speaking experience!

Eric has been there a number of times, leading trips for the Desert Botanical Garden (where we both work). He and Jamie bought an amazing, very unique pot for Jamie's mom (shhhhhhh - don't tell!) from one of the more renowned potters in town.

The story of how Mata Ortiz became a 'potting' town is a fascinating one...I recommend you check it out: http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/mexico403/index.html

Basically, one guy - Juan Quezada - was hiking around the hills day when he came across a cave with ancient pottery inside. He started to try to make his own pots by copying the ancient pots, mastered and improved upon the art, and then taught others to do the same.

There is actually a wonderful museum featuring that ancient Paquimé people who had a triving settlement in the area and became fantatsic potters. It was kind of strange to find such a high quality museum in a place like that...but very cool.

There are some of the escavated ruins of Paquimé:

Palmer and Eric exploring the ruins:

And, of course, the one photo of Matt and I posing in front of the ruins:

Disneyland Adventures

I guess it's true - you don't need little kids to have fun at Disneyland. In fact, it might be possible to have more fun there without kiddos - as we learned last weekend when our whole family spent the weekend spinning tea cups, singing Disney songs, and screaming on roller coasters.

The original impetus for the trip came from a desire to share in Disneyland's 50th's Anniversary, but quickly became an excuse to help Angelina (my Little Sister of 10 years!! from the Big Brother/Big Sister program) celebrate her high school graduation.

We even squeezed in a Disney-themed 'portable birthday party' for Matt on the ride out there.

Needless to say, we had a great time re-visiting Disneyland and exploring California Adventure for the first time.

Karen couldn't pass up the opportunity to impress her preschoolers with a photo of her with the real Buzz Lightyear!

Mom thought she'd outsmart Splash Mountain by sitting in the middle of the log ride...

but Briar Rabbit and the rest of the Splash Mountain characters showed her (she got drenched!!)

When we got tired, we rested on the train...

And Preston rested with the Lego man!

Until next time...

76ers party...here we come!

Well - it's official. The 76ers party is on the way. We decided to have a big party to celebrate all of us who are turning 30 this year (i.e. born in 1976). The funny thing is - we don't exactly know what 1976 was like. But we're having fun doing some research. Steph, in particular, has already bought her 'outfit' and modeled it for us - dance moves and all!

(I think Mike D. is still trying to figure out what to wear.)

Stay tuned for more info...

Woods Canyon-Chevelon Creek Adventure

We just got back from a fabulous trip to Chevelon Creek - downstream of Woods Canyon Lake (about 30 miles outside of Payson). Being Labor Day weekend, we got to share the roads with lots and lots of people. But once we finally found a spot to park the car and walked below the Woods Canyon Lake dam, it was smooth sailing. Actually, it was like we jumped into a remote wilderness area because we didn't see one person all weekend!! We had an inkling this might be the case after talking to numerous campground hosts, employees at the lake store and forest service employees and discovering that none of them even knew there was good hiking below the dam.

Our group consisted of the Gidley family (Matt, Julie and Tommy), 2 of our friends (Janice and Daryl) and their 2 dogs (Nugget and Jackson).

The weather was nice and cool with a few scattered showers - a perfect escape from the lingering Phoenix summer heat.

What a gem!