Saturday Morning With The Bryce's

For the first time in a long time, I stayed here in Pima, AZ and spent a Saturday with the Bryces. After breakfast, I decided to break out the ol' air rifle. Everyone had a pretty good time taking turns shooting the air rifle. Kitt and Klaire both managed to get their faces a bit too close to the scope. Klaire has two little marks on her forehead now.

After she pulled the trigger and got hit in the forehead with the scope for the second time, she reloaded and took aim, being careful this time not to get to close to the scope.

What happened? As soon as she pulled the trigger, the scope just fell off the rifle and landed in the dirt.

So, that pretty much ended that activity.

Michael wanted to let the calf graze on some grass growing on the side of the house. There's not much grass there, but there is also only one bale of hay left, and no firm appointment set with the butcher yet.The problem is that the little area is not fenced in. The idea was that we'd rope the calf and then let him out as long as there was a rope dragging from his neck so that we could grab on to it if need be. Supervised release for the calf basically.

Michael tried to coax the calf into the rope with some grain.

The closest we ever got to getting a rope around that calf's neck was when he didn't see it slipped around a big grain pail.

Turns out the calf ran off as soon as he saw the rope. That led to some practicing on a bucket. And of course, Michael had to teach Kitt how to rope so that she wouldn't forget her ranching heritage.

Kitt did okay, but struggled to keep her eyes open.

In the end, Michael ended up roping the calf's hind leg which scared it to death, and after the calf nearly tore down the fence in two different spots, we decided to give up on the whole idea of doing supervised grazing.

It was about time for lunch anyway. We gathered some dead branches from behind the yard, and we started a fire in the newly finished pizza oven for the inaugural pizza bake.

Everybody got to make their own pizza. This is mine.

Although I am still looking forward to my house being done and getting to live with my wife, I have been having a pretty darn good time living with the Bryce's for the last four months.

My Boys

Check out my boys in Ajo. This aired on Fox News I believe two days ago. I miss riding at night. Those were good times. Now I have to ride in the daylight.

Also, since you can't very well run a video camera while riding a horse in the dark, the write up is here if you are interested in what the reporter had to say. In the first paragraph the reporter says:

We had only been in the Border Patrol truck for about 15 minutes, horses and trailer in tow when the call came over the radio... Now agents ride full speed in all out darkness... "dodging stuff". Half the time you can't even make it all out.

Good Times!

Lucy, you're born into a family. You do not join them like you do the Marines.

Josh's younger sister had her mission farewell last week. It was really good to see everyone and get a chance to say goodbye to Lisa. On Saturday we did family pictures and it was a relatively painless process, which is pretty amazing. Josh's cousin Sarah took them, and she did a really good job. Here are some of my favorites-

Here's the missionary

The whole fam. Notice how there is a convenient slot behind Mark so we can photoshop his future wife in? We'll probably need to do that, as the chances of us taking family pictures again before someone is added to this group are slim.
Lisa being silly

The playground. Josh really wanted to hang upside down for this picture, but he would have been cut out. I didn't like these shots at first, but now I think they are really fun.

Lisa again-I like this one because she is laughing.

Well, this is fate

Jay: "She's divorced. We don't want to redo the cabinets, and you need a new wife. What do they call that when everything intersects?" Sam: "The Bermuda Triangle." Classic. Name that movie, and if you don't know it, you are either a guy OR someone who was born after 1985.
It really has nothing to do with my life, except for I will be getting cabinets soon. Woohoo! Also, we picked out our countertop, GRANITE! We weren't sure we could afford it, but turns out we're okay so we decided to go for it. Some pictures of the process if you're curious.

Come again on my Birthday!

We had a really great Christmas Vacation. First, I got to go home for five days and see my family. It was really fun doing Christmas things with them, since I haven't really been able to since we moved here. We usually go up after Christmas.

Then, Josh's family came down to Arizona for Christmas and then a bunch of the Brady's came after Christmas for their niece/grandaughter/cousin's wedding. It was like a really long party that just kept going and going. So fun! And my work computer crashed so I wasn't able to work. The. Whole. Time. (Well, almost.) Bummer. I was pretty broken up about it. The only really sad part was I was so exhausted from not sleeping enough and having a really bad headache that I fell asleep on New Years Eve at 10:30. My poor husband didn't have anyone to kiss at Midnight. I think he tried to wake me up for it, but I am kind of grumpy when I sleep.

So anyway, my house is being built super fast, which is good in some ways; like in the way that I will be able to live in the same city as my husband. But it's also not so good in other ways; like in the way I haven't really packed and we really need to sell the house in Ajo and it doesn't seem like I am getting anything done to further either one of those things. But I'm sure everything will work out okay in the end. Anyway, here is a few shots of the process. It's all very exciting!

Front of House
Front Door
Lots of Windows
Fireplace
East Side & Garage

Back Porch
View from Back Porch

Pretty cool, eh?