We've been a bit in the land of the crazies over here for the past week, with Eric's brother, Alex, and his wife, Aimee, visiting and staying with us. The visit started out a bit rough as - no joke - on the way home from picking them up from the airport, a bird flew into my windshield! Luckily I didn't close my eyes for too long, and no feathers were found, and the bird was still flying as I continued to drive down the road. Yeah. Mmm-kay.
So we shopped a bit (introduced them to Trader Joe's!), visited South Mountain Park (our house sits near the base of this mountain range), and had a chance to wander around Downtown Scottsdale for the cowboy/old western feel that every visitor to Arizona needs. There's something about the smell of those souvenir shops - the leather/rug fiber/tourist magnet smell - that instantly reminded me of my summer vacations as a kid when my family and I piled into our Ford Fairmont station wagon to tour the desert and national parks. Good times, good times (thanks, Dad & Mom!).
So, without further ado, the pictures:
Eric with 'Jockey Kristen' getting ready to ride the horses in
South Mountain Park
The gang's all ready to go! Alex, Eric & Kristen, and Aimee
Along the trail (or, what the previous horse's behind looks like)
Kristen and Auntie Aimee in Downtown Scottsdale
Me and my little chipmunk
Uncle Alex and the Civil War dude...uh huh
All in all, we had a great visit and hope to see them again REALLY SOON (hint, hint).
ACADEMY UPDATE:
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's once again time for my civilian update on Eric's time in the Academy. He's currently in the middle of Week 6, almost 1/3 of the way through! Yippee!! Tests are getting quite a bit tougher, with all the criminal law, search & seizure, blah, blah, blah (yeah, I don't really understand a lot of it). His class is down to 38 people, meaning 25% of his class are now gone. Today he got his first ride in a police car as they practiced pulling people over for traffic violations. And by Week 8 he should be starting at the gun range.
On a personal note, he's become pretty good friends with his 3 other carpool buddies, so that's been an encouraging thing for him and has helped a bit in the 'getting connected' area.
So that's it! We'd LOVE to hear from you all. How are you? What's up? How do you like Kristen's jockey helmet in the picture above? (HINT: We love blog comments....)
2 comments:
Eric looks like he's sporting some left-ear bling on that first pic! Is it just me?!
And the Civil War dude looks really happy to be there.
There's an old west area of Scottsdale? All I saw was a big mall.
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