Vaklentine's Visit from G & G Gurr

 It was great to have grandma and grandpa Gurr here to celebrate Valentine's Day weekend.  I found these awesome, super cheap, giant cards at walmart and the boys loved them.  The my cute, "such a dentist" hubby gave me sour patch kids along with some floss :)  He cracks me up.

 We got soem good projects done.  Grandma made Kimball some awesome blue playdough and Grandpa helped Dad and Joey put in a new ceiling fan.  It's so fun to see 3 generations working together.

 After the projects, we hiked around Saguaro National Forest.  It is such an amazingly beautiful place.  It's so fun to discover the beauty of the desert and see those beautiful, old giants. Saguaro facts:

Life Span

With the right growing conditions, it is estimated that saguaros can live to be as much as 150-200 years old.

Size

Saguaro are very slow growing cactus. A 10 year old plant might only be 1.5 inches tall. Saguaro can grow to be between 40-60 feet tall (12-18m). When rain is plentiful and the saguaro is fully hydrated it can weigh between 3200-4800 pounds.

Extra Fun-facts

• The saguaro is the largest cactus in the United States.
  
• Most of the saguaros roots are only 4-6 inches deep and radiate out as far from the plant as it is tall. There is one deep root, or tap root that extends down into the ground more than 2 feet.
  
• After the saguaro dies its woody ribs can be used to build roofs, fences, and parts of furniture. The holes that birds nested in or "saguaro boots" can be found among the dead saguaros. Native Americans used these as water containers long before the canteen was available.
  
  A saguaro must mature to 70 years old before it will grow an arm.
  

 It was such a beautiful day--in the low 70's.  SO much nicer than when we came right after we moved here and hiked with temps over 100.

 Joey and dad got some cactus fruit off the barrel cactus

 Joey was getting shown some cool saguaro shapes while Kimball loved picking up and slamming down rocks.

 We all pretended we were cacti :)

 Kimball needed a little help up

 Here is a saguaro skeleton

 A nice man told us that after the "dam" there were some great, ancient petroglyphs. It was so cool to be right there, climbing all over these ancient carvings and thinking about the people that once lived here.

 I wish I knew what all those symbols meant!

 Above is a tiny cactus growing straight out the side of the rock--this itty, bitty might already be 15 years old.

Below in the middle is a cool cactus that looked like a mouse with a long nose.

 Kimball tried to make him own petrogylphs

 We found an old dead saguaro and got to see better what it really looks like inside and underneath

 Kimballs pic of grandpa.  We love having grandmas and grandpas visit!