Strawberry Festival.....

Last night, I decided we should drive up to Strawberry, Arizona... which is a small town about 100 miles north of Phoenix... to go to their "Strawberry Festival". So, I got up at 4AM, and Jasmine insisted on getting up with me.... and she was very grumpy:). We left at about 6AM, and since it was a 3 hour drive, we got there at 9AM. Luckily, Jazz slept the whole way. The town is just one main street... which had a few vendors selling jewelry. Not a strawberry to be seen, except a few kind of old looking strawberries at the Senior Center. We had one chocolate covered strawberry. They had advertised miniature horse rides, other rides, a bouncy house, etc... but none of that was to be found anywhere. So, overall, the Strawberry Festival was a disappointment. We did go to the Strawberry Quilting Contest... which is judged by the viewers.. so we voted on the quilts that we liked the best. For brunch, we went to HP's Place.. which was about the only restaurant around. It was obvious that they were not prepared for the line of people wanting to get in. Jasmine became a little less irritable after she had her bowl of oatmeal. After leaving HP's Hole, we drove south to Payson and took a small hike... about 200 feet:).. thru the forest. It was so nice to smell the pines, show Jazzy the pine cones, and take a little walk. It was 20 degrees cooler there than where we live. We also looked at various campgrounds for future travels. All in all, it was a fun day, even though we spent most of it driving in the car.

Swimming again...

Tonight Jazzy finished the first 2 week swim segment. They don't have names like polliwogs, tadpoles, etc, but just a certificate. She is now diving into my arms into the water instead of just jumping, and tonight was the "free swim". She went down the gigantic spiral slide with the teacher. I thought she might cry when she got to the top because it is 3 sets of stairs to the top and is pretty high. She was laughing all the way down... the little daredevil....

Swimming....

Tonight we went to swimming lessons... which were supposed to be outside of the pool. No one else showed up for our group except me and Jazz, so we went over CPR:). When the swimming instructor, Cassie, asked me what I did for a living and I told her, she told me that she wants to be a pediatrician who treats kids with natural therapies.... so, that's all she wanted to talk about after that. Then she took Jazz in the pool for a few minutes in the very shallow end.

Cassie and Jazz.

SSN...

Yeah.. Jasmine finally has a Social Security number.... and now I can do my taxes. Vital Records is second only to the Vietnamese government when it comes to the mananna mentality. I must have called them at least 14 times over a period of 3 months just to get them to get off their butts and send a completed form in the self addressed stamped envelope I sent to them. Never have I seen such slow, uncaring and possibly even mentally retarded people working in one location. Then it only took another month after that to get the number from the Social Security Administration. Yeah......

Playdate....

Today, Joan and Jolee came over for lunch and a playdate. We had calzones and fruit... for something unhealthy and something healthy.... then we painted and danced:)

Ostrich Farm.....

Today, since it was only about 100 degrees instead of 108, we decided to be tourists and visit Rooster Cogburn's Ostrich Farm right down the street from us at Picacho Peak. It's pretty small, and walking slow and taking our time, we were done in 1/2 hour, but it was a fun thing to do on a Saturday afternoon. They have a zillion ostriches, deer and Larakeets. Later, we went to our favorite truck stop in Picacho... the only restaurant/truck stop around for 30 miles or so.

swimming....

Jasmine is upset because she has to wait a couple of minutes for her swimming lesson.....