New Years Fun 2010

We started the New Years Eve celebrations by opening presents with my family in Mesa. My parents gave us a wheat grinder with 45 lbs of wheat! we were so very excited. They enjoyed their gifts from us as well.

We watched a movie that night - and I fell asleep...shocker... - but I was woken up around 3 minutes to midnight. We counted down and yelled HAPPY NEW YEAR and gave kisses :) and then we toasted with our sparkling bubbly drinks. Then we went outside. We were the only ones on our street that was out doing anything. We did see other fireworks going on though.

Dad got a fun idea and decided to shoot off bottle rockets from the rocket launcher he made. The bottle rockets were seriously about 15 years old but they still worked pretty good. The following video shows one successful blast off. Happy 2010!!




New Years morning we wanted to go trail walking so we did just that. There's a park about 30 minutes from my parents house and they had a trail that took about an hour to walk. It was about a mile long. Our guide was really nice. He was actually a volunteer guide, he's only been doing these trails with his wife for a short time. They came up for vacation a few years back and liked it so much that they were offered jobs :) He told us some neat things about our native Arizona foilage.


This is Usery Mountain and the trail we were walking on. The different color rock on the mountain is actually a different trail. It is much more difficult than the one we were on. Our guide's wife was actually taking a group of hikers up that trail the same time he was walking with us! We were walking away from the mountain on this part of the trail.

Don't you just want to hug this lil fella? This is a Teddy Bear Cholla. It's part of the Jumping Cactus family.

This nest-looking thing in the tree is actually called Desert Mistletoe. It's a parasite. No kissing here...

In the desert, when it rains, a distinctive smell (often described as a wet dirt smell) comes. Well, the smell actually originates from this plant that I myself am smelling in the picture. The moisture in the air and the rain bring out the scent. Our guide told us to cup our hands over a portion of the plant and breath on it and we'd be able to smell it. I actually love that smell.

A dead Saguaro cactus. It was interesting because it had bark. Cactuses are considered trees. They may look green and squishy (minus the spikes) but in all actuallity they're not. They have bark.

This plant is called a Jajoba (huh-hoba). There are male and female plants and the females produce this bean like ...uh...thing...and that is actually used in making cosmetics and shampoos/conditioners. It's also edible, like you'll see in the following video.

This is a family of Barrel cactuses. Our guide was actually amazed because he'd not seen a family this big before. He said that they're normally made up of two or three. This one had 6! Barrels, when they grow, their southern side tends to lean toward the sun, halting/stunting it's growth, making them lean even more towards the south. So if you're ever lost in the desert, look for a barrel cactus and more often then not, it's usually pointing south.

The last place we stopped was at the information center. We'd heard from our guide that there were some interesting creatures to behold there. Particularly a large brown tarantula and a giant snake. **shudders** I took the following video so that all of you could be scared with me. The spider's name is Terry. I've nick-named her "Scary Terry." Enjoy...heh heh...

Later that day we decided to go mini golfing. My father won...when does he not in golf! :) We had a grand ole time. We played in the game center after that but I didn't get any pictures of that.

After we went home we got a Gator party together to watch the Florida Gators in their bowl game. Notice that my dad had his Gator pride going all day? And the Gators won! So all in all, it was a fun New Years!!

We're looking forward to a new year and all of it's memory-making opportunities!