Back to School Party

I shamelessly stole Nienie's (http://nieniedialogues.blogspot.com) idea for back-to-school crowns and a family back-to-school dinner, and we celebrated the last free day of Summer Vacation.

The children all designed their own crowns(except for Sage, and she would have nothing to do with a crown she hadn't made herself, so it sat on the table as her place marker... until she decided she wasn't going to sit there either... sigh).
Gary's was "Gary green", as are many other things in his life. Eden's was petaled and pretty, and Lily went organic and picked a passion flower out of our yard and we hot glued it on.
I tried to make dinner out of things they loved, but I got just a teeny weeny bit creative, and put chocolate mint from out garden in the lemonade slush, and they all thought it was cucumbers and wouldn't drink it. Then they wouldn't eat the potatoe casserole because it too had green specks in it -- which it alwasys does, and they normally love it, but everyone was suffering from cucumber-phobia or something tonight. Then, I'd forgotten to tell Chad that I'd already salted and spiced the pork chops before I sent them out to him to grill, so he salted and spiced them again... My visiting teachers turned out to be the heroes of the evening, as they had, yesterday, brought me a birthday balloon tied to a pineapple. (What a great treat! Thank you Connie and Courtnie!) We chopped that up for dinner too, and, well, nobody could find anything wrong with that!

Then we headed out for a Rhino and four-wheeler ride.
As she waited to get going, Sage looked just like an Eloise Wilkin illustration. See?
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/trywhistlingthis/sets/72157605891976713/)

Sage kept pointing out the clouds, or telling off the chapparral, I couln't figure out which.



We got a very rare glimpse of a desert tortoise. This is only the second one I've ever seen out in the desert. And we didn't touch him, I promise. He was like this when we drove up.

The desert was freshly washed with rain.

Lovely, power lines and all.

This is how you know you've gotten to the end of the road and it's time to turn around and go home.

What a fun day!