Small Town Living!

My friend Rachel called me up a while back and said something along the lines of... my hubby is going out of town for four days, my baby is teething and waking me up every hour, and my three year old needs a friend to play with... Help! And on top of all that, if you come see me I'll pay your gas! She lives in Arivaca...aka the middle of nowhere (or three hours south on the Mexico boarder)! It was perfect!
Her husband Davey works on a ranch that helps boys who, well I guess need help, but they do it in a really cool way, they have them bond and train a horse! So some how I get to reap the benefits, of not having to work or take care of the animals (aka clean their poop), but I got to go play with baby horses, baby goats, and chickens! Barbara Loved it she chased and caught the chickens, fed the pigs, hugged the dog, loved the baby goats, and pet the baby horses! She loves farm animals! She follows them and pets them and makes friends with them! She even steals their eggs :) Watching her makes me want to get some... Maybe someday. This is Joan, the teething baby! I know she doesn't look like it, but this kiddo is draining her momma of sleep. When I'm that sleep deprived I do much worse then Rachel does, I want to do nothing and my fuse is short! She on the other hand was amazing, she was up cooking, cleaning, playing, and carrying Joan around all day! Awesome! She's an amazing woman! This is Barbara and Sophia after they caught a couple chickens! Babs caught one and we were so excited we had to tell everyone! "I caught two chickens on my first day trying" she kept telling everyone! Rachel's neighbor had baby turkeys we went over to see them and hold them! Those big birds are freaky with their loud gobbles, but they end up being big scaredy pants! They got away from us quick! I was also amazed that the momma turkey didn't try and peck our eyes out when we were holding her little ones! She got nervous, but she just gobbled at us and that was that. One night we let the kids watch a movie at the end of the day cause we were pooped, and hopping they would crash watching the movie. This is how John preferred to watch the movie. Yea he's pretending to be a monkey in this photo, he figured if monkeys can hold things with their feet, he can to, and he was right! Funny kid! It was a great trip! Some of the other cool things we got to do was... go to story time at the library, go to the city centers puppet show, play on the city centers play ground (which had an old school merry go round! Awesome), go visit with some Hispanic people who sell food, and stop by the farmers market! The kids loved playing, Babs especially loved playing outside! It's something she doesn't get to do as much here because I am a lot more cautious around this neighborhood then is needed in theirs. She loved playing with Sophia! they played dress up, read stories, road trikes, played with kitchen toys, played dolls, and with lots of other toys! Babs loved it and baby John followed as much as he could! It was great to watch them, and amazing to see how much happier Babs is when she has a good friend to play with!

Rachel and I spent the time catching up, cleaning, organizing, cooking, talking, talking, and talking! It was great to have an adult to talk to about the crazy things I think of throughout the day! She shared with me lots of fun things on parenting, kefir, yogurt, homemade Popsicles, and on and on! It was so great to go and get away from the city and to spend time with friends! It is definitely a different life style then we have here in the city! The changes are good, and fun! I did start to get a little home sick near the end. I missed J.R.. It was a great trip though and I'm hopping I can do it again soon.