taking on tucson

This weekend, Wes and I finally ventured out of our little city of Yuma to take on Tucson. The purpose of our trip was to watch our Duckies demolish the Arizona Wildcats, but just like any other Los Bryants road trip, there were plenty of other exciting events along the way. Here's our weekend told through photos.

Saturday, 6 am

Leaving Yuma at sunrise. 

(Side note: I hate to brag but this is actually what I get to see every morning when I drive to work, as I drive this street everyday at 6:30 am....yes, I know, I go to work way to early. Welcome to the life of a first year teacher)

Saturday, 8 am

We stop at a very eclectic Shell gas station for Wes to take a pee stop (wait....did we have to pull over for Wes' bladder!?!?!? Finally, I'm not the one causing all the pit stops!!!!! We look around at all the unique desert yard art and bought some Mike & Ikes (at 8 am! nothing like breaking rules on a road trip!)

Saturday 10 am

We arrive in Tucson, stop at a Starbucks, check craigslist, and within 20 minutes have a pair of tickets to the game in our hands. Oh the joys of technology. Section 109 has no idea what is coming their way at 7:15 pm. (Apologies, I forgot to document this crucial event of the trip in photo form).

Saturday, 11 am

With time to kill before kickoff, we drive 14 miles outside of Tucson and explored this awesome cave.  The pictures inside the cave didn't turn out great, but here's a few extra shots of the park....

Saturday 6:00 pm

Arrive at Arizona Stadium to loudly cheer on our Ducks to victory.

We were the only Duck fans in section 109 and Wes did a great job of driving every one insane. He quickly began receiving death glares from everyone, including his wife. One sore loser meanly asked him to stopped making that stupid "O" during every kickoff and important play. Haha. Awesome. 

By the 4th quarter, either the score or our cheering had managed to practically clear out the entire section. Ahhhhh, foot room (not like I actually need it).

Sunday, 9 am
I slept in until 9 am. This is a miracle, considering I wake up around 5 or 6 every stinking day because of my annoying internal alarm clock. Thank you Duck game.






Sunday, 11 am

We had what we called "brunchwery" (brunch at a brewery). Yep, that's allowed on a vacation, right? We sat right behind where Wes is standing, and enjoyed a beer, a view of the mountains, and a train passing by carrying lumber from Roseburg (Go Oregon!).






Sunday, 3 pm

We drove 18 miles off of the Interstate to check out these Native American ruins dating back to the 1300s. A five year old decided to be our cute little tour guide, as he informed us of things such as, "and this is where the Indians put their couch." 






Sunday, 6:30
We finally make it back to Yuma, in time for me to buy finger paint for a math activity in the morning.


And sure enough, as always, Monday came way too soon!

bienvenidos al kindergarten

So...um...yeah....yesterday was an interesting day. My kiddos were a little overly wired and it was just one of those days where you swear the clock must've broken around 9 am. Oh wait, perhaps it was "one of those days" because I was puked on and had to clean up pee.

Yep, that is right. Welcome to the life of a kindergarten teacher. This is how it happened. This week, I have lunch recess duty. During this recess, I was holding a little boy's hand, as his teacher had asked me not to let him play during recess. Apparently, he'd had a bit too much white milk for lunch. And there it was. All over my little silver ballet flats. Awesome.

Twenty minutes after the puking nastiness, I kid you not, one of my little girl's announces that she couldn't hold it anymore and simply peed on the rug. Bring out the gloves and disinfectant. At least I could finally clean off my shoes too!

Oh kindergarteners, your incredible talent of puking out your lunchtime milk and peeing your pants never ceases to amaze me. Love, Mrs. Bryant

this poor rug has endured so much and it's only been 1 month :)

Oh, and PS. I came home and Wes had decided to grow a mustache. I think that might be grosser than being puked on and cleaning up pee. He claims he's trying to fit in with the locals.. Ugh.

free meals and missing home

This last Saturday, like the loyal Duck fans we are, Wes and I attempted to watch the football game. We called every sports bar in town, hoping that at least one would be showing the Duck game. After a morning of phone calls, we finally found a great little place called Brewers that was showing the game......or so they thought. Unfortunately, even though one of their billions of sports channels claimed to be showing the Oregon game, this was simply a lie (thanks Dish network!). On a more positive note, the servers felt so bad that they'd encouraged us to come in, that they gave us both our meals for free (seriously, Yumans are incredibly generous people). Even though we were watching teams like Washington, Texas, UCLA, Notre Dame, Michigan St. rather than our favorite Duckies, at least we got to do so while enjoying free grub.

After shoving our faces, we opted to go to the Hispanic festival (note: the 16th was Mexico's Independence Day) and take a look at the low rider show. I think this picture explains how ridiculously awesome this event was.

Although we were blessed with a free meal and an incredible cultural experience at the low rider show, I must admit it was so tough not being "home" with family and friends watching the Duck game. I lost it. For the first time since being here, I cried like a baby and simply wanted to go "home". Don't get me wrong, I love my kindergarteners. I love the warm weather, the desert sunsets, the Mexican food, and floating the calm Colorado River. But dang, you Oregonians are just so cool and I miss you all so stinkin' much!

P.S. Being the true nerd I am, while sulking about missing home I worked on a 500 piece puzzle. Wes was watching tv and I didn't want him to know about my girly emotional breakdown, hence the old school headphones

bikes rides and.....anchovies?

Last Saturday night we pulled out sweet Stingray and Schwinn and took our first official bike ride around Yuma. The scenery was a little different than the trails in Oregon. Palm trees instead of oaks. Irrigation canals instead of the Willamette. But hey, we had fun and our sweet bikes rocked this city's trails.

We traveled clear from our rental to Da Boys, a favorite Italian place of ours, and engulfed a 1/2 Da BBQ 1/2 Da Works pizza. Wes randomly asked for anchovies on his Da Works. The waitress must have thought we were on a first date based on my intense facial reaction to his abrupt ordering maneuver. Even after a year, good ol' Wesley always keeps me on my toes.

Wes, since when do you ever order anchovies?

texting and riding. SHAME!

mission accomplished

we may not have snow days but......

we do have "No Power days"! That's right. Yesterday at precisely 3:30ish, the power went off throughout all of Yuma (and apparently all the way to San Diego). Not to mention, it was 114 degrees at the time. Awesome. I had just said goodbye to all of my students except for one, the kid who's ride is always late (all teacher's have to have one of these kinds of parents). Ironically, the power went out while he was in the bathroom. While standing outside the door waiting for him, I heard a loud, but ridiculously cute, "What the....?". I can only imagine what that floor looked like :)

After school, I proceeded with my evening as usual. Oh except for the fact that it took me 45 minutes to make it home from my usual 6 minute commute. Oh.....and there was that other minor detail, the AC was out. Have I already mentioned that it was 114 degrees? We opted to ditch our place and hang at another teacher's house. Somehow, she seemed to be the only person in Yuma with power.

And then, much later in the evening, I heard that annoying sound that my phone makes every time I receive a text (yes, I know, a year later and I still need to change that stupid thing). Huh, why was my principal texting me at 9 pm on a school night? Thanks to the power outage, school was called off for the day and here I am enjoying a nice day with my h-band (I refuse to call Wes hubby).

We celebrated the day off by spending way too much of our morning sitting at that wonderful place we all love...the DMV....or as it is referred to as here, the MVD (weird Arizonians). I was so sad to say goodbye to my Oregon license and plates. I'm so weird about little changes like that. Am I turning into my kindergarteners?

As for the rest of our day, we plan to float the river and head to the Yuma Historical Theater for the showing of the Big Lebowski. Thank God for power outages!

Note: Our power, as well as the rest of the city's, came back on nearly one hour after school was called off. Haha. Suckers!

feliz cumpleanos Papa Arny

As mentioned in the last post, we spent this Labor Day celebrating Arnulfo's (aka Papa Arny's) 40th birthday party. For those of you who may be new to the blog life of Los Bryants and are confused why we randomly hang out with people in Mexico, our Mexico journeys go back years and years. We've been living and working with a community in Mexico for the last 10 years and a huge advantage in this move to Yuma was our proximity to our favorite little town of Islitas (Dear family, we still love and miss you dearly!).

Anyhow, we had a wonderful evening celebrating our Mexican papa's birthday. Here are some highlights of the evening.

1. Just as we started to make our way to the border, Yuma was rocked with monsoon rain and storms. Check it out! I thought I moved to the desert to get away from the rain. Geesh!

2. Getting to decorate with my favorite little ladies

3. Arnulfo's face was priceless when he pulled up. A true surprise party.

4. Post monsoon/storm awesomeness

the joys of Dairy Queen

So yesterday, we went to Mexico (I know, no big deal right?). Not to brag or anything, but yesterday was my 17th trip to Mexico. Jamie Wright, have I beat you yet?

Anyways, during the afternoon siesta, Wes & I were the least bit tired and simply could not adapt to the slow pace of the Islitas life. We decided to do a little something more adventuroso. We woke the boys teenagers, Gamas & Sami, up from their siesta and asked "Quieres ir a San Luis?" (Do you want to go to San Luis?). We didn't tell them where we were taking them, so Gamas said, "No thanks" and Sami spiffed himself up in no time for the trip.

We took Sami to a marvelous place he had never been before............DAIRY QUEEN (Yes, there's one in Mexico). We introduced him to the joys of soft-served ice cream in delectable Blizzard format. We also attempted to buy Arnulfo an ice cream cake for his birthday, but the debit card machine decided we were thieves and wouldn't allow the transaction.

After Blizzards, we stopped at the famous Ley grocery store, purchased Arnulfo a 3 leches cake (yuck! But they love it) to celebrate his 40th, got gas, spotted quite the Ranchero, and headed back in time for evening church service.

Tonight, we are headed back to Mexico yet again to throw Arnulfo a surprise 40th birthday party with the entire Islitas community. Life's pretty rough this Labor Day weekend.

2 words.....GO DUCKS

Today is the big day......the start of Duck football season 2011. It's only 10am and we are already for 5 pm kickoff. We're rocking our Oregon gear and looking like that nerdy couple that intentionally attempts to match.

Moments like these (Duck football games) make me REALLY miss home. Wes & I used to always have friends over during the games, with the famous Leila Kammerzelt as our little cheerleader. It's a little hard to invite friends over to watch the game when you don't have any friends (ok, don't pity us too much, we have a few friends, just unfortunately none of them care about Duck football). So, to our dearest Eugenians, we miss you dearly. Especially on such important days such as these.

GO DUCKS!

Such nerds