The Moving Wall

Two weekends ago, a half-sized replica of the Vietnam Memorial came to our community. We gained a much deeper appreciation for the men & women who serve our country.

Every time we visited the Moving Wall that weekend, we were humbled to tears: talking to soldiers and hearing their stories, reading names of the fallen & lost from the Vietnam War (I read for 2 hours, but it takes an average of 66 continuous hours to read the names of all 58,282 people), seeing crusty old vets break down and sob, looking at the gifts loved ones left beside the wall, researching soldiers and finding their names, attending ceremonies like the POW/MIA candlelight vigil, and walking alongside the wall to take in the impact of the names building exponentially after the first death.

Retriever

Our once afraid-of-swimming, sorry-excuse-for-a-lab Leo actually retrieves balls from the pool now! Way to go, pup!

George

Scott and the kids found this tarantula in our side yard after last Saturday's storm.

Naturally, we caught him and named him George.

That's a quarter next to George, for scale.

The next day, we released him back into the desert.

So long, George. We miss your hairy legs.

Rain storms and cooler days

Saturday morning was warm and sunny for Benjamin's soccer game.

A huge storm hit a couple hours later, bringing lightening, thunder, wind, and rain. We all ran outside to play! 

This was, by far, the best daytime storm we've had here-- and we were all home to enjoy it! 

The clouds hung around into the evening, bringing a bit more rain at times. Then the sky cleared just enough for a gorgeous sunset.

Guess what? It hasn't been hot outside since that storm! The mornings and evenings actually feel cool. We have more hot days in the forecast, but this little break is heavenly.

Ballet under the Stars

Fall is here! Oh, wait...

For the most part, we've enjoyed the weather here... until the past few weeks. 

Most other places we lived (Stateside, anyway) begin cooling off around now. When we watch BYU football games, Scott and I feel nostalgic for crisp air and crunchy leaves. While the heat is on a slow decline, we're still in the sticky temperatures of late summer monsoon season.

Locals say that early fall can be tough on morale. At first I brushed this off, but I'm starting to feel it now. At the same time, veteran transplants have told us that the first year in Arizona is the hardest-- a gorgeous late fall, winter, and spring put the long summer into perspective.

So I look at the year-round averages and repeat this mantra: pretty fall, nasty winter; hot fall, pretty winter. As eager as I am for the weather to cool off a bit, we still can't have this kind of fun in the snow.

Yeah, it's not so bad.