Hell week....

Football and Cheerleading are almost finished with their 3 weeks of what the team calls "hell weeks". We are at practice everyday from 6:30 to 8:50pm. Its been a pretty busy few days, since school has started on top of football and cheer training. The kids are pretty tired but are doing good. Here are some pics with serjio & talia are practicing. Click on pics - and you'll see arrows pointing to the kids :)

Are we ready for some FOOTBALL???

This year we decided keep the kids busy by putting them into football and cheerleading. Little serjio was EXCITED to say the least. I, however- being a mom- really didn't want to put the boy in football- i don't want my baby to get hurt :). Serjio Sr. didn't give me much option though. He looked at me and said "He's fine- he's a big boy". We tried to go to pop warner, but they still had weight requirements and with Jr's height he couldn't drop 20lbs and be healthy- he's already thin enough. The lady at pop warner told us to try ACYFL, because they did not have weight requirements. Coach Mario contacted us that day to see if Serjio wanted to join there team. We met the next day and Jr started football camp that next week.

WARNING: You will see body parts of Talia's in some of these pics- she thinks its funny to jump in front of the camera before i take the picture...lol :)

First day of school- already???

Today is the first day of school. Serjio is now an 8th grader and this is his last year of middle school. He said, he enjoyed seeing everyone and, it was nice to be able to go to school and not have to re-make new friends. However, he did say it felt like he was still in 7th grade and summer was obviously too short!

Talia, had a good day too. Its her first time changing classes and she said the day went by pretty fast. She 's enjoying the opportunity to get to know other classmates. She was suprized when her best friend (Mizia) started screaming when she saw her :)

Poison Ivy....

The trail was fairly easy and fun. We passed through several creeks and old trees that had fallen. All the while, Talia was a little nervous about it raining. The sky was over-casted but not much came of it until the end of our hike. We stopped in an area of smooth red rock with a creek and deep pool. It almost seemed like it didn't belong there- since most of our hike at this point was forest. We sat down- and put our feet in the water- it was nice and cool- a little slimey- but nothing we couldn't deal with :). We decided to go back from there. We still had a long drive home and it was getting close to 6pm. Closer to the way back to the car, it really started to rain, we ended up running to the car. Our last stop was at Dairy Queen for a quick snack, before our drive home. Virginia was going to make dinner for us, upon our return- so we didn't want to spoil our appetite.

Oh, I forgot to mention the poison ivy. Apparently, poison ivy and poison oak was growing rapidly. There were signs EVERYWHERE to watch out for it. So during our hike- Serjio and Talia would point to EVERY green plant- and say "THAT'S POISON IVY???"....Boy, If i had a nickle for every time- i heard that ...lol :)

Hiking???

Depite the rain, we decided to head back to Oak Creek Canyon and go on a hike at
West Fork in Sedona. The hike was amazing- almost majestic. There were old ruins of a 1920's settlement (Mayhew Lodge), with overgrown remnants of fireplaces and stone floors and walls still visible. There is also an unusual cliff house-or what we call a room dug out of the mountain, and a little house that the kids labeled a chicken coupe. We veered off the trail for just a bit- to see the creek and we saw more than we expected. We passed under a vined overpass and there were vines growing on trees EVERYWHERE. Talia said it remined her of the beautiful majestic forest from Snow White. I agree :)