Monsoon Madness

For anyone that's ever lived in the desert of Arizona, this is not news to you. For two people moving from Utah and living through our first AZ summer, we're absolutely fascinated! Maybe we should have done a little more research about the area to know what we were in for. I naively assumed that the summers here were just dreadfully hot and you wait for the nice fall and winter months to arrive. Though that is mostly true, I had no idea about the monsoon storms that come along with those hot summer months.

Although we get rain during the winter, this is nothing in comparison. The past 3-4 nights have been filled with thunderstorms. There have been a few over the past couple months and we thought they were crazy. The storms come in and start dropping rain incredibly fast.

Many times there are dust storms associated with them and it is like a wall of dust where you can't even see across the street. I guess these storms usually occur during the night. (No, I did not take any of these photos :)

Anyway, the other night was just awesome! Ashlyn was already to bed, Derek was upstairs (either watching sports or playing sports on the PS2), and I was downstairs trying to catch up on Grey's Anatomy when the dish reception was cut out because of a storm arriving. So I went upstairs and Derek and I opened up the blinds to watch the storm outside. It was incredible! 15-20 minutes or more of straight lightening bolts filling the night sky like fireworks. The thunder was literally shaking the house at times. The next day we heard that several other people throughout the valley had done the same thing and turned everything off to watch the show. Apparently it was one of the worst monsoon storms they've seen in 20 years. Tons of damage around the area. The inflatable football practice dome at ASU worth millions of dollars was completely destroyed. Wild! Just another reason you should all come visit during the winter and not during the summer!

Ashlyn Update:

Since coming home from our UT trip, Ashlyn's really decided to take off. Funny how kids can not make apparent growth for weeks at a time and then within a two week period be a completely new baby. She's finally rolling over - yay! It's always the same direction (back to belly - over the left side), but at least she's doing it. I'm not sure though. I get so excited when she learns something new, but that means she's growing, getting bigger, and wanting to get into lots more. She's also sleeping a lot less these days. I've got her on a pretty regular schedule now and that makes things easier to plan around.

She's sitting up way better on her own - most of the time with no hands for balance. She's also "rocking" on her hands and knees a lot or getting in a "stink-bug stance". She still pushes herself backward and around in circles, but hasn't quite figured out that her hands can move too in order to go forward. She gets pretty frustrated when she pushes herself back into corners and can't get out.

Peas are out of the question, but otherwise she's doing pretty well with the solid foods. It took her a while to get used to the fruits and she still doesn't like juice. I guess that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Oh well, That's a quick update on our end. Hope ya'll are doing well!