April 2: I went to Oro Valley Hospital to photograph the cactus flowers, Lambert Lane to photograph the claret cups, Green Things Nursery and Tucson Botanical Gardens and Tohono Chul Park.
April 3: The first cactus flower to bloom in our yard this year was the pink claret cup. Grandma June had knee surgery this day, too.
April 4: Nathan and I went to the dermatologist, me to get a skin cancer screening and Nathan for his acne. No skin cancer for me! Nathan started on some medications for his scarring acne.
April 5: I had redness in the roof of my mouth for a week or two. It wasn't going away on its own or with the help of Listerine or the such. I had to pick up a prescription for Nathan at CVS so I went to the MinuteClinic there. She could see an infection in my ears, nose, mouth and throat. I told her about the vertigo I had a few weeks ago and she thought it could have been caused by this infection that probably started in the ears. She gave me an antibiotic.
April 6: Paul went hiking at Catalina State Park.
April 8: I went to Lambert Lane to photograph the claret cups, Pima County Cooperative Extension Gardens, Green Things Nursery (bought a crab crawl cactus), Pima Prickly Park and River Road to photograph the prickly pear flowers. Also, my pink claret cup bloomed.
April 9: I went to Oro Valley Hospital to photograph the cactus flowers, Lambert Lane to photograph the claret cups, Bach's Cactus Nursery and Catalina State Park. I hiked a new trail at Catalina State Park, the Alamo Canyon Bathtub trail. I went halfway to the waterfall and turned around because I wasn't sure where the trail picked back up on the other side. This trail is my favorite there because it was full of wildflowers.
April 10: I made banana pudding layered dessert.
April 11, Paul and I went back to Catalina State Park to hike the Alamo Canyon Bathtub trail. The wildflowers were amazing!
April 12: My June Noon hybrid bloomed. I went to Bach's Cactus Nursery, Green Things Nursery (bought another cactus), Pima County Cooperative Extension Gardens, Tucson Botanical Gardens and Pima Prickly Park.
April 13, we went to the Pima Air & Space Museum for Nathan's final paper airplane fly off contest. He will age out of it next year. He and Paul participated in the family competition and won 3rd place thanks to Nathan! Dad did pretty well, but Nathan had a really good throw. Unfortunately, he pulled a muscle and couldn't throw very far for his individual age group contest. If he would have thrown the same distance he did for the family competition then he would have placed in the top 3 for his age group, too.
April 15: I went to Lowe's, Pima County Cooperative Extension Gardens, Green Things Nursery and Pima Prickly Park.
April 16: I went to Oro Valley Hospital to photograph the cactus flowers, Lambert Lane to photograph the claret cups, Bach's Cactus Nursery and Tohono Chul Park.
April 17: I went to Pima Prickly Park.
April 18: I went to the Desert Museum, Reid Park Zoo (where I got to see the baby giraffe and the baby elephant) and Pima Prickly Park.
April 19: I went to Pima County Cooperative Extension Gardens and Green Things Nursery (bought a trichocereus grandifloris cactus).
April 22: I went to Tucson Botanical Gardens, Green Things Nursery, Pima County Cooperative Extension Gardens and Pima Prickly Park.
April 24: I went to Tohono Chul Park, Pima Prickly Park and Bach's Cactus Nursery. My favorite cholla was in bloom at Pima Prickly Park. The pink ocotillo was in bloom at Tohono Chul Park.
April 25: My trichocereus grandifloris cactus bloomed again.
April 26: I went to Pima County Cooperative Extension Gardens, Green Things Nursery (bought another cactus, a peachy one), Tohono Chul Park and Pima Prickly Park.
April 28: I took Nathan to the ER after Sunday School. Sore throat, nausea, headache, chills, body aches, etc... Strep and Flu tested negative. They decided to treat it as a sinus infection so they prescribed an antibiotic. Days later he started to get a rash on his hands and feet that we thought was an allergic reaction to the antibiotic. We found out that he had hand foot mouth disease when we consulted with the dermatologist.
April 29: My peachy cactus had two flowers.
May 1: I went to Prima Prickly Park.
May 3: I went to Pima County Cooperative Extension Gardens, Green Things Nursery and Tohono Chul Park.
May 4: My June Noon hybrid cactus bloomed.
May 5: My peachy cactus bloomed. I went to Sandy Kaiser's house after church to photograph her First Light cactus flowers. We counted about 35 blooms. All I had with me was my phone to photograph them.
May 6: My June Noon bloomed. I returned to Sandy Kaiser's house to photograph her First Light cactus flowers. I also went to Pima County Cooperative Extension Gardens, Green Things Nursery and Tucson Botanical Gardens.
May 8: I went to Tohono Chul Park, Pima Prickly Park and to Lowe's to photograph their flowers.
May 10: I discovered that the Great Horned Owl nest in our subdivision from two years ago is being used by a Cooper's Hawk couple this year. Mom was sitting on the nest and dad was flying from tree to tree nearby.
May 11: The nothern lights were visible in Tucson. Unfortunately, I did not think they would be as visible as they were. I went out on our back balcony and took a few pictures with my phone. They said the phones picked up the lights more than our naked eye. I wish I would have gone out to the desert for better photos. Unfortunately, I tried the next couple of nights without success.
May 12: For Mother's Day, Paul cooked me Greek chicken and potatoes. He bought me calla lilies and gave me a Starbucks gift card. My mom bought me 2 massage gift certificates and 2 bottles of tea from my massage lady.
May 13: I went to Sabino Canyon and Pima County Cooperative Extension Gardens.
May 17: I found out that Vincent Edwards passed away from a fungal infection. We went to grade school together. I hadn't seen him since grade school, but we kept in touch on Facebook. He was a really nice guy.
May 20: I went to Tohono Chul Park, Tucson Botanical Gardens, Pima County Cooperative Extension Gardens, Green Things Nursery and Pima Prickly Park. I also photographed saguaro flowers at the Starbucks on River and Stone. Nathan had a field trip at school where they went to the Main Event.
May 22: Nathan graduated 8th grade! We went to his graduation ceremony to see him get his diploma. We ate dinner at Sauce afterward. Nathan finished 17/132 with a 3.8462 GPA. His last quarter and semester he had all As (Literature, Science, Social Studies, Geometry and Coding) and 1 B in English.
May 23: Nathan had a water day at school and they had an awards ceremony where he was given a medal for making honor roll all year. This was Nathan's actual last day of school! Time for summer. I went to Bach's Cactus Nursery, too.
May 27: We broke the ice in Tucson, 100 degrees. Actually, in Marana we saw 100 way back on April 22!
May 28: I went to Pima County Cooperative Extension Gardens.
June 2: This would have been my grandma's 106th birthday, but instead she is celebrating her first birthday in heaven.
June 4 & June 6: There's a baby Cooper's Hawk! Actually, the "baby" was getting pretty big already. I photographed mom and the youngster sitting in the nest in our subdivision.
June 5: Nathan and I went to see the Garfield Movie.
July 6: Our downstairs A/C stopped working. 2 weeks ago it was the upstairs. A circuit breaker needed to be reset. This time it was $270 for a capacitor.
June 8: After attending Pat Harmon's surprise 80th birthday party, I went to Pima County Cooperative Extension Gardens.
June 15: We went to Vivace to celebrate Father's Day.
June 21-7/4: We went to Colorado with a stop in Albuquerque. June 21, we stopped in Hatch, NM. June 22, we went to Albuquerque Zoo and the Aquarium. I also went to the gardens. They are all in the BioPark. It rained on us again. It rained on us the first time we went to that zoo and again this time! Nathan was excited because the aquarium had pufferfish. The zoo was a little disappointing. They redid some of it and are currently redoing other areas. The newer sections actually make it harder to get good photos. They were working on the gardens, too. They have a nice waterlily pond with wood ducks. June 23, we stopped in Santa Fe. It was raining that day, too. We walked and shopped a little in the downtown area. I went to see the miraculous staircase in the Loretto Chapel again. June 24, we were in Crested Butte and Gothic. Crested Butte is the wildflower capital of Colorado and the wildflowers were beautiful. June 25, we went to Maroon Bells in Aspen. We saw a fox leaving Crested Butte that morning and another one by Maroon Bells. June 26, we went to State Forest State Park and to Walden since Walden is supposed to be the moose capital of Colorado. We didn't see any moose :( June 27, we went to Fish Creek Falls in Steamboat Springs, Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge and then to Grand Lake. We really liked the Grand Lake area. We think that side of RMNP is better than the Estes Park side. June 28, we went to RMNP. We didn't stay long because Nathan was complaining that he was having a hard time breathing and pain in his chest. We took him to urgent care when we got to Estes Park. They did an EKG and xray which both came back normal. She thought that maybe just lack of physical activity and too much gaming was causing his pain in his chest. We told her that he may have asthma so she said the higher altitudes could be part of the problem, too. She prescribed him another inhaler. June 29, we went back to RMNP. We hiked to Alberta Falls, Bear Lake and Nymph Lake. When we got back to Estes Park, I did the tram. June 30, this was our last day in RMNP. It was clearer on the top so we were able to see a little more, including a bunch of marmots! We also finally got to see a moose with her baby, but very briefly. July 1, we went to Mount Blue Sky and Breckenridge. We saw mountain goats on Mount Blue Sky, but unfortunately visitors with dogs scared them away. That night we stayed in Salida and Nathan was complaining again about his chest hurting and having trouble breathing. He used his inhaler, but still was feeling good. So we too him to the Saldia ER. They said since the Estes Park urgent care had done an EKG and chest xray that they wouldn't do those again. His heart rate and oxygen level were in normal ranges. They said the altitude was probably to blame and that the inhaler must have done its job getting his oxygen back to normal. July 2, we went to Bighorn Sheep Canyon in Canon City. It wasn't until we came back and were almost out of the canyon when we finally spotted some bighorn sheep. From there we headed to Silverton. July 3, we watched the 2 trains come into Silverton, including the steam train, then he headed to Ouray via the Million Dollar Highway. We stopped at Box Canyon to see the waterfall. Then we headed to Gallup, NM to stay the night. July 4, we headed home stopping at Petrified Forest State Park.
July 4: I watched the fireworks from our balcony by myself. Nobody wanted to watch with me.
July 14: We had a bad monsoon storm by us. A microburst or mini tornado. Caused roof damage that would end up to cost $2700 out of pocket since our deductible was about that much, too. Roofers said we should replace our roof in 3-4 years for about $18k. Ironically, that's around the time our A/C people told us we will need to replace our heating and cooling systems also for about $18k. They finally did the work on our roof on July 26.
July 15: Nathan met with a gastroenterologist because he has difficulty swallowing. The gastroenterologist suggested getting an endoscopy and an esophogram. After his doctor appointment, Nathan went to Nerf Day at Greg Lyons' house.
July 17: We got Nathan's state test scores back from this past year. He is highly proficient in ELA (English Language Arts) with a score of 2609/2658. He even slightly improved from his 2600 score the previous year. He also scored higher than the state, district and school average. He is highly proficient in Math with a score of 3741/3776. His score was 3714 the previous year. Again, he performed higher than the state, district and school average. For science, he got 1398/1500 in the proficient category, but almost highly proficient (1400 and above). He was still above the state, district and school average.
July 18: Nathan met with the dermatologist again. He has had some slight improvement with his acne so we decided to stay on the current medications for now. We will follow up with her on September 17
July 19: I had my annual gynecologist exam and mammogram. My ob/gyn coudn't see me so I saw an assistant. We discussed HR therapy, but I am still undecided. She also suggested that I do the Cologuard test so I agreed. She said she would set it up, but I haven't heard anything since. My mammogram results came back normal. The ob/gyn assistant would not order me bloodwork, though. They have done so every year for me, but she refused saying I should have a PCP do it. I don't have a PCP! I still need to find one.
July 24/August 2: Paul had a vision appointment. He needs to have cataract surgery on one eye. It is scheduled for August 21.
July 25: Went to Lowe's to photograph their flowers. Most of theirs weren't doing well in the summer heat either, but there were some nice ones.
July 26: We had Nathan's freshman registration at Mountain View High School. We got his schedule, paid our fees, got his chrome book and took his ID/yearbook picture. This year he’s taking Pre-AP English, AP Biology, Art, German, Marketing and Honors Algebra 2.
August 1: Nathan had his endoscopy at Banner. He had to be knocked out for it. She said everything looked normal, but she did several biopsies. She said those results would be available in about a week. Nathan has his esophogram on August 23 at Banner so he's going to have to miss school that day. We meet back with the gastroenterologist on September 19 to discuss the results of the two tests. He will have to miss at least half a day of school that day, too, for this appointment.
August 2: My June Noon bloomed.
August 5: Nathan started school. They did freshman orientation in the morning and then had shortened classes the remainder of the day. Nathan now has early release on Fridays at 1:55. His first week went well, but he still doesn't like school.
August 8: I took pictures of barrel cactus blooming on the side of the roads.
August 9: I went to the Pima County Cooperative Extension Gardens, the Reid Park Rose Garden, took pictures of the Arizona Summer Poppies on the side of the road and found some barrel cacti blooming by the Lazyboy store.
