{again}

so i was house sitting for a family i know for the last week or so... kelsey and nicole spent the nights with me... austin did too once or twice. and we had a really fun time! we played a lot of games, invited some friends over, went swimming a bunch and ate a lot of hot dogs. this family just got an adorable little german shepherd puppy... 8 weeks old. he was the cutest little thing ever... they have another dog too [a black lab]... shes 13 years old, i think.

anyway. the other night we were coming back from a pizza night at the townsends [devin and zac and me and nicole... kelsey had to run back home to get pajamas] and i start pulling into the garage area but there was something in the way... i thought it was a giant colorado river toad [theres tons of them around this house] but then this thing turned and it was a hu-freaking-mongous gila monster! for reals! apparently we are just gila monster magnets! this booger was seriously 14 or more inches long... wa-hay bigger than the one at our house. we called rural metro [again] and they came out... we were hoping that kelsey would get there with a camera in time, but those rural metro men are just too darn fast and she just barely missed them. nicole took a picture with her phone... its a little blurry, but you can see how big it is in comparrison to our little one last week. it was quite the adventure.

the beast...

the lil' monster from last week...

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we were driving home from adrians birthday dinner on sunday night and it was a beautiful sunset.... this ones just from my phone. but still... its pretty...

{oh wow}

so this morning me and kelsey went to deliver a couple framed pictures to dad at work. one is the one we gave him for father's day [the prayer at valley forge] and the other was a newly reframed drawing that i did of the columbia river gorge a couple years ago. it turned out lovely... and now daddy has a beautifully decorated office [with a window... and a view of the mountains! :) ]

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we spent the afternoon in the pool. dustin, adrian and hayley came up. and ashley, our fun cousin, is here for the weekend. anyway.... we were in there for quite awhile [until a storm blew in, and even then we were in until it was raining and thundering right above us! haha]... but dustin did get mighty burned... poor dude. it just looks painful. hahaha. pray for him!

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we've been playing and having fun this evening... until mom came in [not quite yelling, because miss hayley bug is asleep] but telling us that there was a gila monster in the carport! oh wow!! we've only seen one other gila monster our whole 16 years. my mom called rural metro because the gila monster is a protected animal in arizona [rural metro is the fire department place] and they got here in 18 minutes [kelsey won... with a vote of 18 minutes. haha]. so all of us... mom, dad, adrian, dustin, austin, me, kelsey, ashley, and devin and zac... went out to witness the monumentous occasion.... and these are the pictures! enjoy!


it hid behind the pole thingy... so i was a litte bit more brave to get a little closer to it... haha... then when the fire man dude came we had to nudge it out a bit... haha... look how cool this is though... he had these sweet little forcep things then dropped it into this bucket that looks like a camping toilet!! :) and then i really did get nice close pictures!!


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end note:

there were 1o cars here when the fire department came... for the 11 people in this house [the only one without a car was baby hayley. haha... austin cant really drive. nor is he legally allowed to... but we let him "have" the truck. so really it was 10 cars... for the 9 driving adults in this house.] thats kinda embarrassing. and that is what we should have gotten a picture of. but now its raining... and dustin is gone, so... just imagine! :)