Elia's Life

Now that the Cub Scout program has done away with official themes, Mom and I had to come up with our own for this year's Blue and Gold banquet. I suggested that it would be a great time to pull out all the flags that were so generously donated from the base those many years ago. So we decided to go with the theme "Scouting Around the World." Things turned out really well, and Mom was especially proud of her decorations. So she asked that I post some pictures for y'all . So here we are- Pack 214's 2011 Blue and Gold Banquet. The church is kind enough to let us hold our Blue and Gold upstairs in the Parrish Hall. This is the over all look we had going. :) the table. The boys made the "name" cards and Mom and I designed the placemat . Dad and Jon hanging flags. Nancy setting up her train. We had our annual cake auction. There weren't a lot of cakes this year, but there were some cute ones. Here's our awesome auctioneer. He's a professional...

Okay, here are the aforementioned pictures from the new zoo we found in Phoenix. It was small, but still fun. They boasted having some rides, including a log ride which we thought sounded like a lot of fun. Well, the thing was the size of our slide in Hawthorne...not big enough to warrant a ride. Oh well, we were there to see the animals anyway. :) This was a small enough zoo that you could get pretty close to the animals. They were all well-taken care of though, or I would have had to leave. I was hoping the camel would spit on Alita , but alas... Sloth's are still one of my favorite animals. First of all, they have the cutest face in the world. Second, Coleman once told me I had as much athletic ability as a three-toed sloth. I thought that was hilarious and it has become a bit of a mantra with me. :) See, they were close enough to get spit on. Turtles are so cute! I want one but Mom and Dad keep ignoring my requests. Thanks to Mom, I still always have to take pictures of the...

Okay, here are some random pictures for you all to enjoy. These pictures are from clear back in March of last year when I went to Arizona to visit the sisters. We decided to take a day and go find a new zoo that they had read about (pictures from the zoo will soon follow.) It took us about an hour, maybe an hour and a half to get there. On the way, we started to have a little too much fun with the camera. Oh, we also passed a farm field that had a giant baby sitting in it. It was one of the most random things I've ever seen and that is really quite the accomplishment. :) Seriously people...it was just sitting there (and it was GIANT!)

We decided since we were already going to Tucscon for Wicked and Alita's birthday that we would stay the night and see what there was to see in Tucson the next day. Alita had heard of San Xavier. It's known as the "White Dove of the Desert" and was built in 1783. I believe it's one of the oldest missions, but I can't remember for sure. Anyway, we went out on a Sunday, so knew there was going to be a crowd. We had hoped to avoid Mass since all of us felt it would be inappropriate to tour a church during a service. Well, we miss read the times and ended up getting there in time for the noon mass. They do have a museum so we spent some time walking around there. One thing that was interesting was the vendors that were in the front courtyard. There were at least 15 Navajo taco stands, so I'm sure you can guess what we had for lunch. Anyway, here are the pictures. It really is a beautiful building. The Church is located outside Tucson on an Indian Reservation....

A few months ago, Alita called me to ask my opinion on something. This was of course a huge shock to me since I don't think she does that on anything but electronics. :) This time, she was wondering if January was too soon to see Wicked again since she and Annette had seen it when it came to Phoenix a few years ago. I told her that it's never too early to see Wicked and while she was buying tickets, she needed to get me one too. Well, the more we thought about it, the more we realized that Mom should come to. So we decided that this year's Martin Luther King Jr. weekend should be a "girls vacation" Here are some pictures of our visit to Wicked. It was down in Tuscon this year and the first time any of us had been to this theater. It was on one of the Arizona college campuses and was pretty fun. Since this weekend was also celebrating Alita's birthday (even if a few weeks late), we surprised her with decorations and a present in Mom and Annette's hot...