Butterfly Gardens

We got out of the house and had a fun adventure yesterday. Ever since I got a coupon for Butterfly Magic at the Botanical Gardens, I have been waiting to go see the butterflies and the gardens. I put it off until Mom and Dad's visit so we got to discover this little gem together, and it was indeed a gem after all! We were slightly pressed for time because we had Nicco's swim class to get to afterwards, so we went directly to the butterfly house.
Nicco, appropriately, a monarch.

One of many blue morpho butterflies. They were truly brilliant.

There were laminated cheat sheets and magnifying glasses to find and identify all the butterflies in the greenhouse. Nicco loved it.

There was a little fish pond in the greenhouse, and Nicco had his lucky day, he got to feed the fish!

It was actually refreshing to get out of the tropical greenhouse into the desert air. As one might expect, the gardens were mostly varieties of cactus. They are surprisingly beautiful. Or not surprising, I guess that depends on your point of view. Anyway, they were quite lovely and delightful.

Organ pipe and cholla cactus. There was one that looked like it had a furry head of hair called the "Mexican Old Man" and one that looked like a bunch of cotton balls. I had to snatch Nicco's hand away, because contrary to their fuzzy appearance, they remain cacti.

Nicco and Grandpa digging in the Zen garden.

The Tucson Railway Society built a small electric train and a little town for it to travel around. It was Nicco's second favorite thing about the gardens.

In October, the fall festival at the gardens invited local artists and groups to design and build scarecrows to be placed throughout the gardens. Some were more creative than others, and it was fun to see the different groups who contributed and their creations.

Nicco loves water and fountains. He always wants to make a wish. If he doesn't have a coin, he fishes one out of the bottom. I am not sure the wish-granting-fairies (or whatever) appreciate the double dipping. I know this because Dad's double-dip wish did not come true. He wished for a certain wide-receiver to break his leg and not be able to play the Monday night football game. Maybe it was the mean-ness of the wish. The wish-granting-fairies don't like double-dipping haters and don't grant their wishes.

There were unique scarecrows, fountains, and benches scattered throughout the gardens. These benches were tile mosaics of desert critters. A road-runner, quail, desert tortoise, and javelina. Very cute!

There was also a kids discovery garden. This is a water wall that shows the inside and outside of different fruits and seed pods.

Nicco liked hearing the bamboo creak when he moved it back and forth.

He also liked digging for worms with Grandpa. Unfortunately, the worms were not to be found this day.

Nicco and his grandparents relaxing at the gardens. A happy, blissful day in the Arizona winter sun!

Our Visit So Far

Thursday morning Nicco woke up and said "This must be my lucky day!" I asked him why and he told me "Because...IT'S GRANDMA AND GRANDPA DAY!" We picked them up at the airport and arrived home as the sun began to set. Nicco was a perfect host, holding the doors open for his grandparents and showing them to their room. Once their stuff was all put away, he gave them the grand tour, including closets, the garage, and the refrigerator.

We had a relaxing first evening, just visiting together. Nicco demonstrated his budding reading and math skills as he read stories and snuggled on the couch.

This is a noisy book with a little musical tune on the car's dashboard, and Nicco is singing along. Either that or he is mimicking one of the other various car sounds.
When we got up in the morning, we took a little walk around the neighborhood. Nicco gathered all his things so that we could pull LRH (Lord Royal Highness) on our walk.

We made a big circle and ended up at the park across the big street from our house. (Someone is due for a haircut)

Grandpa seems to enjoy our 75 degree afternoons! He has spent some quality time with the hammock.

Last night, we took a little drive up into the hills to watch the sun set. It was by far not the most impressive of our desert sunsets. There were no clouds to reflect the light.

Our little family watching the sun go down and the city lights come up.

Like I said, not the most impressive sunset by any means, but the cacti silhouetted against the sky are always a pretty sight.

So far, it has been a lot of hanging out and visiting together. Today we are going to go have some adventures!

God and Country

I've been thinking about some unexpected lessons I learned from my NASCAR weekend. As expected, there were some intense race fans, shall we say "interesting" wardrobe choices, and plenty of beer.

Something unexpected was the lack of security. We had two biggish bags, including a glass bottle of bubble water. Nobody checked our bags. In reflection, I think that is due to the demographic. NASCAR people are all about God and Country, just down home folks. If some clown did dare to bring harm to the event or the people at the event, said clown would have a bunch of God-fearing patriots on their back, taking care of business. It seemed that "threats" are just not a threat with that particular crowd.

The announcer at the beginning of the race acknowledged all our armed forces, welcomed servicemen as special guests, and had a serviceman (I don't remember which branch) play the national anthem on his trumpet. It was fantastic. Very impressive. There were fireworks at mid-day during the "bombs bursting in air" line of the song. There was a military flyby, which apparently, is traditional at NASCAR races.

I don't know if it is always a driver who offers a prayer to start the race, but it was on Saturday. Patrice was videotaping the start, so here is a transcript of the prayer before the race:

Dear Lord,

The clouds have cleared and the sunshine reminds us of your love. We thank you for the blessing of accountability. We are accountable to those we serve. Most importantly, we are accountable to you. You fill our hearts and help us, oh Lord, each and every day. Now may we have a safe race and may we all be thankful for all our blessings. These things we pray in your name, Amen.

I loved it! Especially recognizing accountability as a blessing.
So now as I go forth in the "race" that is my life, may I be safe and thankful for all my blessings.

To Give an Idea of the Noise...

Turn the sound up full volume, plug your computer into some speakers, your surround sound system if you have one, and then you will have an idea of the noise. Holy cow, the noise.

Gentlemen, Start Your Engines!

It was a NASCAR weekend in Phoenix. We got tickets for the Nationwide series race on Saturday and decided to make a weekend of it and spent the night at a fun hotel. We had perfect weather, there was a slight chill when we arrived and we even had a few raindrops but the sun burned the clouds away and it was about 75 degrees for the race. We had to park about a mile away (we wanted to use the park-n-ride shuttle service, but it was only running for the Sprint Cup series race on Sunday) so we decided to pay a little bike cab for a ride to the gate. Nicco and Daddy on the ride to the track.

Here is a view of the track and the infield from our seats in the grandstands.

Nicco and me before the crowds arrived.

Patrice had a pit pass so he got to wander around and see all the cars, mechanics, and garages up close.

The tail end of a crashed-up car in the pit.

Rows and rows of tires ready to go.

Patrice took this picture of us from the pit. We thought we were going to have the section all to ourselves for a while there!

The practice laps from the ground level.

That's the Number 6 for our number 6 Discount Tire driver, David Ragan.

Pre-race checks and adjustments.

One car getting ready to go.

More of the practice laps. It was cool to see the guys lining up and getting in position to get out of pit row onto the track.

Nicco settled himself in under the bleachers before the real race even started. I had a bad feeling about how the day would go when he was already lying down after a half hour.

There's our #6! Getting into position. He started in position 10. He ran 3rd for the first third or so of the race. He was 8th by the time we left. We don't know how he finished. Any real race fans would consider that blasphemy...We didn't stay till the bitter end, and we don't even know how our driver finished! Shame...shame.

The start...getting positions, following the pace car. The start and re-starts were the coolest part of the race, I think. There was one crash while we were there, but we didn't see it happen. I was listening on the track scanner to one of the drivers and he said "we can't get any work done with these MO-rons" The scanner was switching from driver to driver, so I didn't get the context of the comment, but it made me giggle a little.

In spite of Nicco's understated enthusiasm during the practice laps, he did get pretty excited and enjoyed checking out the cars up close through the binoculars.

He also listened to the drivers talking to their pit crews. We were told to be sure to avoid Jeff Gordon's frequency. Apparently, he has a foul mouth.

This is what Nicco did for most of the race...lined up 3 of his Lightning cars, raced them to the end of the row, did a couple of circles, then raced them back to their spot by my leg.

As time went by, his "track" got progressively shorter. Eventually, he only had about 3 feet to play on. He was visibly offended when our neighbors on the bleachers sat down and cut his track in half.

Nicco did great. He loved the start, he loved the big military helicopter fly-by, and he loved the airplanes pulling banners. He did get worn out after 100 laps or so. He started getting really antsy and bouncy and I couldn't deal with him in such close proximity to people, so we read the body language and left.

The area outside of the track was lined with vendors, advertisers, and of course, race cars. Two thumbs up!

Another cool race car.

And the boy's day was made when he saw this bi-plane.

An enormous engine. A car guy would have to tell you what is cool about this. I guess the pipes and stuff.

A tire big enough to sit in.

This "Texas-sized" grill served Texas sized turkey legs and Texas sized sausages. In case you aren't aware, "Texas-sized" is really, really big.

We rode a bike-cab back to the parking lot and headed to the hotel. Nicco loved it. I think it is always a fun adventure to spend a night in a hotel. Nicco was excited that the couch turned into a bed. He told us he's seen that before, at Grandma and Grandpa's Fairview house.

Nicco didn't have his Sponge Night Light to keep the ghosts away, so he came into our room around 5:00 a.m. to show me the ghost. It was gone by the time I got there. Nicco said "But...but...it was here just a minute ago!" I snuggled him back to sleep until it was time to get up, eat breakfast, and go to the pool! We played and played in the heated pool for a couple of hours. Nicco showed off his newly acquired back float skills.

The hotel pool had slides and waterfalls and a kiddie pool and a lazy river wandering around the resort. Of course, only the main pool was open. The rest of it was under repairs and re-opening on the 16th. The day AFTER our stay. We managed to have fun anyway.

It was a successful weekend at the race. Fun and exciting. A great experience. And frankly, all the NASCAR I will ever need.