The Park and G&T's

I love our park. Himmel Park is a small neighborhood park just a mile east of us, and it's great. We played there for two hours today. Alden loves the Orange and Yellow slides, but most of all he loves the other kids toys. I've noticed that Alden rarely plays with his own toys at the park, even though their his favorites at home, but rather always goes for the other toys. I think this "Oooh, something not mine" phenomenon is not restricted to children, but they're more likely to express it given their lack of social restraint.

Anyway, the kid is napping and this afternoon we're going to go run errands (buy some 4x4's to build lab stands, get a Alden a new truck for when Isaac comes back tomorrow, return movies, etc.)

Recipe of the post...

Raspberry G&T
1 Can of tonic water
1 splash of Gin (preferably Bombay Saphire)
5 frozen raspberry's

Pour in glass, stir, and sip for refreshment on a hot day. Beats a Lime G&T any day...

Home Alone

Christa and Isaac are out of town for the week for a geo conference, but Alden and I just got back from a 3 day camping trip to the Chiricahuas. Granpa Wink joined us for a great trip. The Chiricahuas are a 2 hour drive east of Tucson, and the northern end, Chiricahua (Cheer-ee-cow-ah) National Monument has a high concentration of very spectacularly eroded welded tuff formations (that's hard-baked volcanic ash for you non-geo types). Anyway, we went on a long 4.5 mile hike with Alden in the backpack. Alden loved hiking, especially where the slope was shallow enough to let him get out and run. At the campground Alden was flabbergasted by the great gobs of dirt and rocks available to load into his dumper. Alden can now sing large portions of the ABC song, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Let's count the Raindrops and Rockabye Baby. he doesn't mind yodelling every now and then either.
Not much wildlife (a deer and some squirrels), but when we got back to Tucson, I managed to run over a rattlesnake as I pulled out of the carport the next morning. What the hell! Now I have to worry about rattlesnakes in addition to the crime and noise?