{long drives and a messy house}

I am here to report that the Desert is ALIVE!

I am also here to report that my children are ALIVE....very much alive.

They seemed to be even a little more alive than normal today if you know what I mean. All I could think about were wild javelina, which made me think of the desert. I thought to myself as I cruised full speed ahead going eastbound on the 60, "I am going to release my pack of wild javelina far into the desert to rejoin their rightful herd". After all they couldn't possibly be mine after observing all of the mass damage that they had already inflicted in one morning upon their regular stomping grounds.

It's no secret I go on many a long drives. Sometimes the further the better. One week it was the old mining towns of Globe/Miami only to find a park, a drive-thru and a few antique stores that I wasn't allowed to go into. We've actually started a tradition and it's called "field trip Friday". For some strange reason my kids are so content in the car. They love the music cranked up and will often say, "again" when there is a song that pleases them. I finally had to make a same song only 3 times in a row rule (a few songs are exempt..meaning not more than once). The way I see it is less time spent in the house equals less time to mess it up. Believe me it is a mess more than not and I sort of do not care...except on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays...hahaha! The messes will always be there but the 5 non full-time school going kids will not, and good golly jolly I want happy memories in this short lived season of ours. Sometimes those good memories come to a halt because of me and because motherhood is just plain ol' hard. I think I may have even cried yesterday. It is all I can do but to survive at times. I've heard a few comments here and there on my ability of making being a Mom of midget twins and triplets look so easy. I am here to say that I just don't know any different and anybody would do it and quite frankly some days I really just plain suck. Then there are days that I really think that I do deserve all of the love that my little buddies give to me and my heart literally sings....I swear you can almost hear a sweet melody coming from the left center part of my chest.

Anyway onto the lovely day. Our car ended up just shy of Superior at the Arboretum. It was off to a great start until the below. I'm sure we had great propensity to tick a few people off. What was I going to say, "Sorry sir but my kids don't know what closed for historical preservation means and I can't handle them". I kind of wanted to laugh but was a little tense but not tense enough to not take a picture, apparently.

I was seriously hoping for no rattlesnakes & scorpions today. Would kind of be a "debbie downer" to get bit if I do say so myself.

All in all there were only a few blunders but we pretty much came out of the above joint unscathed. Only one major tantrum thrown as observed by the orange shirt dude in the above picture. Oh and one did come close to running off a small cliff into the stream while madly trying to chase a butterfly....such is life.

It was a beautiful day!

P.S. - Thanks to my most precious cousin friend for coming to join in the fun. Sorry we never found you until it was time to leave. Call me and let me know if you thought it was as beautiful as I said. I hope it was worth the drive.

P.S.S. - Here's to a messy house and long drives. The same cousin friend gave me a notepad that says, "Both of us can't look good @ the same time....It's either me or the HOUSE. I chuckled.