Vertuccio Farms.

Upon doing some internet research, I found a variety of farms that one can visit here in the fall. There are no apple orchards and the only apple cider that I've seen is at the grocery store and is expensive. I'm not sure if there are apple cider donuts, which are really one of the best things about fall. I digress...

While my parents were visiting, we went to one of the local "fall farms". It had similar activities for the kids as the places we've visited in MI and IL. We were even able to buy our pumpkins there.

The kids on a barrel train ride. 

Trying to get the bell to the top.
I tried and could barely get it to the second line (from the bottom).
Weak, weak, weak. 

Lincoln on a tractor car. 

SpiderCass climbing the net spiderweb.

Cassie on the see-saw.

Even better -- Cassidy AND Papou on the see-saw!

Cassidy and Papou doing duck races. 

Go pink duckie, go! 

Walking through the corn maze. 

Yia and Pops on the train ride through the farm.
It was hot and we were glad when the ride was done so we could find some shade.
Shade is everything here as it provides great relief from the hot sun. 

The kids having some fun acting as tractor driver and vegetables!

Happy Fall! 

Lake Havasu City and the Grand Canyon.

With the kids attending year-round school, they have a 2-week break in October. Conveniently, my birthday also falls during this time, thus my parents took advantage and visited for 2-weeks in early Oct. During their first week here, we had a nice 4-day getaway, spending a couple of nights in Lake Havasu City (about 3 hours from here) and one night at the Grand Canyon (an additional 3 hours in another direction).  We sort of did a triangle of driving. It was lovely. We drove through the flat desert where there was nothing around and we drove through Flagstaff/Sedona, which was mountainous and more green than anything we've seen in Arizona.

We stayed at the London Bridge Resort in Lake Havasu City.

This is the London Bridge.
It was built in 1831 over the River Thames in London, England but was purchased in 1967 by Robert McCulloch. It was dismantled, moved, and rebuilt in Lake Havasu City, AZ, in 1971. 

Matt and the kids on the bridge. 

Pretty view of the lake with the mountainous backdrop. 

Us with my mom and dad.
We did a one-hour boat tour of the lake. 

View from the boat.
So different from being on Lake Michigan!

Canal where we saw people diving from some of the cliffs. 

The boat had about 15 passengers and we had the only 2 kids
so the Captain let Lincoln and Cassidy have a go at driving the boat.
That's Lincoln in the driver's seat.

Captain Cassidy.

Little sis and big bro on the shoreline.

An old London telephone booth.

After leaving Lake Havasu City, we drove to the Grand Canyon and spent the late afternoon/evening on one of the free shuttle bus tours, getting out at different scenic points to view the canyon. I can see why they call it Grand. It truly is. Our first look at it was breathtaking. I've never seen anything like it. 

The Gough's at the Canyon. 

The kids and I enjoying the views.

 

Papou and Yia Yia.

On our second day there, we hopped on another free shuttle bus route that takes you to a number of different lookout spots. This was the perfect way to see the canyon for the first time, and it was a great way to do it with "old folks and young kids". We read a lot about hiking, camping, biking, white water rafting, helicopter rides, etc.  Another time, perhaps. 

Yia and Pops with Lincoln & Cassidy.

Cassie liked "hiking" around the scenic lookout areas.

Big brother.

Little sister. 

This was the highest elevation. 

The kids and I at our final lookout point. 

Grandma's fall visit.

Grandma came for a visit toward the end of September. Her visit began with the tail end of Cassidy being sick and the start of Lincoln getting sick. Luckily, a few days off of school cured them both and none of the adults caught it - phew! Lincoln thoroughly benefited form having Grandma here while he was sick as she spent lots of time reading to him and watching superhero movies with him. Good times.

The temps were still pretty steamy during her visit, so we found an indoor activity to check out -- the Arizona Museum of Natural History in Mesa, AZ.

At the entrance to the museum.

Grandma, Matt, Lincoln, and Cassidy discovering dinosaur fossils.

Lincoln looked most forward to seeing dinosaur skeletons. 

Cassidy's foot is a bit smaller than this dinosaur's foot!

Cool dino skeleton.

Even cooler cactus (in my opinion). 

Grandma, Lincoln, and Matt panning for gold. They did not hit the jackpot.

Cassidy using an old-fashioned telephone.
My parents have one just like this in their basement and it still works. So neat.

After an indoor activity, we were able to get Grandma to enjoy an outdoor activity. She joined the kids in the pool, which they absolutely loved.

rainbow.

The kids and I walked outside to play in the evening in late August and Lincoln beamed as he saw a rainbow in the sky. I think this may be the first rainbow the kids have seen so I had to grab a pic.

Rainbows make us smile. 

We experienced another -- double rainbow -- when we visited Lake Havasu City in October. I didn't have my camera handy, but it was surely a neat sight.

different and the same.

Living in the Southwest has certainly brought its share of new experiences for the Gough family. Off the top of my head:

- Summertime brought with it LOW temperatures in the 80s. That took some getting used to. It was just never cool. At all. 

- The water from the tap felt lukewarm for most of the summer. There wasn't much cold water because the pipes aren’t buried as deep in the ground here thus making the water that runs through them warm due to the consistent heat. 

- Nearly all subdivisions have cinder block walls vs. backyard fences. I talked to the woman who lives behind us once and it reminded me of Tim Allen on Home Improvement talking to the guy next door -- you know, you could only see his eyes and hat. That's how it is here. We mainly talk to the neighbors out front instead.  

- Speaking of neighbors, we barely saw them all summer long. We met them all in the spring when we moved in and the weather was nice, didn't see them all summer because the only time you're outside is when you're in the pool (and no one can see you then because of the aforementioned cinder block walls). We are now starting to see them outside again now that fall has arrived. Winter must be the social season around here. Just the opposite of what we're used to. 

- Monsoon season. Here in Arizona, monsoon is defined as a season, not a type of storm. It runs from June - Sept. We didn't really know what to expect of the monsoon storms that everyone spoke of. They talked about increased humidity, wind storms, dust storms, lightning storms, and heavy rains. During our first summer here, we experienced a few dust storms (they remind us of white-out blizzard conditions but with flying dirt/dust instead of snow), some high winds and lightning (not unlike anything we haven't seen before), some humidity after storms (we've experienced far worse in the Midwest), and a handful of rain storms. The worst was a storm that hit in September and dropped 5+ inches of rain in a 2-hour time frame. This is unheard of in the desert and our house didn't handle it well. Roofs here, I'm told, are mainly for decoration, not to protect your home from damage, and we have no gutters to help keep the rain away from the house. As a result... 

This is what our garage ceiling looked like.
There are a few other areas in the house that have water damage as well.
It could've been worse...and it was for plenty of other homeowners.
I just think the kicker is that we live in the DESERT and now is the first time in our lives that our home has had water damage. 

This is one picture of the water pooling on the side of our house. I didn't get many good pictures of the rain because Matt & I were busy raking rocks up against the house to keep water from coming in! 

- Dust. Did I mention that it's always very dusty here? There is pretty much always a layer of dust on everything. Inside and out. I am learning to live with it. 

- The ground is as hard as a rock. To do any gardening, I've discovered that you have to drench it with water in order to do any digging. 

- Arizona is one of the only states that does not observe Daylight Savings Time. 

-- We see geckos on the outside of our family room window screens daily as evening settles in. At first, it was somewhat unnerving to see these little creatures crawling on the screens, but now we've come to enjoy watching the little guys catch bugs as they cling to the light that is in our house.

- We saw this enormous caterpillar crawling in our garage in October. My dad actually spotted it when he was doing some work in the garage. I wish I had put an object next to it to provide perspective because it was probably 5x the size of any caterpillar I've seen in the Midwest. While we do have lots of butterflies here, I haven't noticed any that are the size of a bird, which is what I'd expect to see form from this caterpillar! 

 - One thing that is just like being "home" in Michigan -- shopping at our grocery store, Fry’s, which is a division of Kroger. My cupboards are filled with Kroger brand everything. Feels like home.

There are tons of other differences that we've noticed, and I'll continue to post them as they enter my head. It's been an interesting experience thus far.

happy fall!

As we navigate our first year here in Arizona, we find that there are a number of "firsts" that we pay closer attention to than we might have if we were still living in the Midwest. Yesterday was a case in point -- the first day of fall. Typically, I've always looked forward to fall. What's not to love about the cool, crisp air, the changing leaves, apples, and pumpkins? Here "in the valley", the first day of fall is quite a bit different. We still see apples and pumpkins...at the grocery store. Are there cider mills, apple orchards, and pumpkin patches around here? I have no idea! We also see triple-digit temperatures. Whew! 

This is what the first day of fall looks like in the desert: 

I can't complain about the gorgeous blue skies that we see here on a regular basis.

As we got ready to head to Lincoln's baseball game yesterday, I snapped a picture of the clock that is on our patio. I'm not sure if you can see the temperature in the lower right corner, but it indicates a temp of 102 degrees. Thank goodness for shady spots at the baseball complex!

You know it's football season when...

you enter the family room and see the helmets lined up in front of the tv.

Each week, Lincoln places the team matchups on the entertainment center. The losing teams get tossed aside and then it starts all over again the next Sunday. It's become a cute tradition. I think I'm the only one in the house who still doesn't know which teams are which helmets! I need to get with the program.

Seems like football season is going to require a bit of a mental adjustment this year as game times are gonna feel wonky here in the desert. In Illinois, it wasn't difficult to get used to watching a typical 1:00 EST Sunday game at noon CST. Here in AZ, however, the 1:00 game will start at 10 a.m.  Perhaps the games will start with Bloody Mary's instead of beer?