On 8/26/16, I went to Tohono Chul Park, DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun, Lowe's Ventana Canyon and Tucson Botanical Gardens.
The next day we went to the Lowe's in Chandler for Nathan's Build and Grow Hulk workshop. Then we went to the Toys R Us there for a Lego Captain America workshop. We of course stopped at Portillo's for lunch!
I had jury duty on 8/31. I had to fill out a long questionaire about a murder case. A man was charged with murdering one of his twin babies. The trial was going to be a month long and it would have made it very difficult on me to do that since I don't have any help with Nathan. I also did not think that I could be unbiased in the case so I ended up getting excused.
Ann Alvir and I had one last lunch together at Pappoules on 9/1 before they move to the Phoenix area.
Nathan asked me to help vacuum on 9/2. I told him that I did not know if he could handle the vacuum because it is pretty heavy. He did pretty good with it. He wants to do chores now to get an allowance.
Nathan attended a Home Depot whiteboard workshop on 9/3. That night I saw my first hummingbird moth in our yard. That was pretty cool to me. On 9/8, I actually saw a damselfly in our yard. Over the next several days I saw three different ones.
We went to a parent teacher conference with Nathan's teacher on 9/16. She basically said that he is doing really well. She says he likes to talk in class and that he sometimes rushes too much, but that he is doing well in most of his subjects, especially math. We got access to the Leman computer system where we can see Nathan's grades. That night he was getting all A's and 2 B's. As of today, he has all A's and 1 B. The B is in reading and is currently an 86. He has one week to get his grade up to an A before the end of the quarter. He had a couple of bad grades in Reading that really brought his overall Reading grade down. She said that she will throw out the lowest grade at quarter end and that he has a couple of other opportunities to bring his grade up. I just don't want him to be disappointed if he ends up with all A's and 1 B. He had all A's last year and this would be so close. I don't want to put too much pressure on him at this age, though.
We went to the U of A vs Hawaii football game on 9/17. It was a tribute to the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. They honored military members and rolled out a huge flag the size of the football field.
Paul celebrated his 46th birthday on 9/20. We went to Oregano's Pizza for his birthday dinner. He previously bought himself a Lego Lincoln's Memorial set for his birthday. I also bought him a Fitbit Blaze.
Paul took a vacation day on 9/22. He and I were going to spend the day together going to the Desert Museum. However, he got sick the night before and was not up to doing much. Also, we just bought a new computer and had trouble with the internet ever since we set it up. We ended up buying a new router/modem that day. It seemed to work for a day or two, but then the internet started slowing down and freezing up again. I disabled some Chrome extensions and that seems to have helped. It still has problems once in awhile, though.
On 9/24, we took Nathan to a Lowe's Fireboat Build and Grow workshop in Sierra Vista. Then we headed over to Madera Canyon. We had never been there before. We saw a black-tailed rattlesnake trying to find the waterfall. Paul jumped 10 feet in the air! We finally found the waterfall, but it was not easy to get to like I thought it would be. It was close to the parking lot, but you have to go "off-trail" and go through a lot of brush, some of which has thorns. We had to cross the water and then once down by the waterfall I had to walk in ankle deep water to see the waterfall. It was worth it, though. Then we drove to Santa Rita Lodge down the road. They get a ton of different hummingbirds. I also saw Mexican Jays, Woodpeckers and some other birds. I would love to go back some time for more birding. One famous bird in Madera Canyon is the Elegant Trogan. I would love to see it. We then drove down to the other end and I took some pictures of the landscape. I was fortunate to see some turkeys.
So right now we are looking forward to our vacation starting next Friday. Nathan starts his school Fall Break then and we are headed to New Mexico. We are going to the Balloon Fiesta and to the Albuquerque Zoo/Gardens/Aquarium. Then we are headed to Colorado to the Durango train ride. Then we are going up to Grand Junction. We will be stopping in Flagstaff on our way back home. I hope we see some really good Fall colors.
