2/27 I went to Tucson Botanical Gardens.
3/2 The Big Snow! It snowed in Tucson. I joined many others by Gates Pass to capture the beauty. I drove through Saguaro National Park thereafter, but the snow was melting quickly. It's quite magical to see snow on saguaros! I also went over to Pima Canyon.
3/7 Paul weighs 140 lbs! He's making progress.
3/9 I went to Picacho Peak State Park. The wildflowers looked amazing.
3/11 We went to Peridot Mesa to see the poppies and other wildflowers. It wasn't quite peak yet, but the flowers were beautiful and there was hardly anyone there.
3/14 I went to Tucson Botanical Gardens. They had the most beautiful tulips all around the gardens.
3/16 I went to Pima County Cooperative Extension Gardens.
We decided to go to San Diego for Spring Break. We could only go for a few days since Lisa was going to be coming to visit us during part of our break. We left Friday 3/17 to drive to San Diego.
3/18 I went to see the Carlsbad Flower Fields, something that has been on my bucket list. You can't actually walk down all of the rows of flowers, but you can walk around the edges and still get pretty close to some of them to get pictures. The flowers were just starting so only about 1/4 of the fields were in bloom. Ranunculus in every color. After going there I headed a few minutes away to the San Diego Botanic Gardens. They are doing some construction in that garden so unfortunately part of that construction was the waterlily/lotus pond that I love to see. They had the most beautiful orchid exhibit, though.
3/19 I went to the San Diego Zoo. Paul and Nathan went to the Air & Space Museum and to the USS Midway.
It was a partially rainy day on 3/20 so we did Birch Aquarium in La Jolla. Paul and I really liked the Leafy Sea Dragon exhibit. We ate lunch in La Jolla, then went to the Cave Store where you can pay a few bucks to see a sea cave. There was even a mom and baby sea lion/seal in the cave. We also saw the seals at Children's Pool and more sea lion/seals at the Underwater Park a little further down closer to the Cave Store. We also got to see Brown Pelicans and the Cormorants nesting with their babies. That was a first for us to see the cormorant babies.
We had to drive back home the next day and it was raining like crazy. Unfortunately, because of the rain we opted not to go to Anza Borrego to see the wildflowers.
Lisa arrived 3/22.
3/23 Paul, Nathan and Lisa went to a White Sox spring training game while I went to the Wildlife World Zoo. The White Sox lost.
3/24 We went to Colossal Cave. Paul and Nathan had been there once before, but I had never been there. The cave was pretty cool. Coatis like to hang out there, but we didn't get to see any this time :( However, they have awesome soft serve prickly pear ice cream!
3/25 Nathan went with Lisa and her in-laws on a jeep tour. They were all in Tucson visiting Lisa's great-niece who is going to U of A. Paul and I went to the Thunderbirds air show.
3/26 They all went to Bisbee and Tombstone. I was going to go to church, but I was so exhausted that I stayed home and cleaned while nobody was there.
3/27 Nathan went back to school and had soccer practice after school.
3/28 My first yard cactus bloomed for the year. It was my June Noon hybrid. One flower bloomed that day and then another one opened up the following day. I took Lisa to Picacho Peak State Park to see the wildflowers. Unfortunately, the super bloom was over. There were flowers scattered here and there so we pretty much just did the nature trail. There were a few light purple/pink lupines right off the side of the road and I had never seen them in that color before. There were also a couple of hedgehogs blooming as well as many cactus buds getting ready to bloom! I have never been to that park before to see the cactus flowers so I may go back. Nathan had his first soccer game against Legacy NW where he will be going to school next year. Unfortunately, they lost 1-4. Nathan was upset that he didn't get to play much. Part of the problem is that he wanted to play midfield, but the coach put him in defense. Most of the other girls on the team are also defense. Since you have to have a certain amount of girls on the field at all times (4, I think), that doesn't give Nathan a lot of play time. She said those who didn't play much that game would get to play more the following game so we will see if that is the case. She is considering letting him play midfield so that may be better for him. He wore the #6 jersey and if I remember right I think I may have been #6 at least one of the years I played high school soccer.
3/29 It was Lisa's last day so Paul brought her to the airport. I had to pick Nathan up from school at 1:10 and then we had to go back over that way for his soccer practice at 4.
3/30 I went to Bach's Cactus Nursery. I finally found a pink claret cup cactus so I bought it! They had another pink/red claret cup that I liked and should have bought, but I didn't. I went back the next day and didn't see it. There was another similar one so I bought that one. The pink claret cup had two flowers today and the other deeper pink claret cup that I bought yesterday had one flower today. It was partially open yesterday when I bought it yesterday, but opened more today.
3/31 I also went over by Oro Valley Hospital and saw some orange claret cups in bloom as well as a few Argentine Giants.
