Day 41: Snapple Papaya Mango Tea

One of my favourite things to do when I'm in Arizona is just hang with my nieces and nephews as much as I can.  Today I watched two of them while my sister and her husband were away, and it was such fun just to spend normal time with them, doing regular daily things like eating lunch, folding laundry, going for a walk, and having a water fight.  (In Arizona, in May, that's a regular daily thing - or it ought to be.)  My nieces and nephews always end up saying something just so matter of factly that always makes me feel like crying a little - not in a bad way, just realising that they miss me and would like to have me around.  Today it was Jude's prayer at lunch: "God, we thank you that Auntie Karen is here with us because we hardly ever ever ever get to see her, so this is really nice."  I thought it was, too.  We played with my iphone, recording the kids' voices and then playing them back as 'Robot', 'Guitar', 'Underwater', and a number of other funky recordings.  We laughed ourselves crazy.  Kids love iphones.  (And almost accidentally purchased an upgrade to the free app for me - whooops! A little too easy to buy things!!)

We decided to go for a mini adventure, so we just wandered down to the local petrol station (gas station!!).  The kids were awesome - Jude brought along his skateboard and had to carry it most of the way back (because he was holding his slushie) and never even complained once.  Audrey said that her feet were tired, but made sure to explain that she wasn't complaining, just stating a fact.  (She even kindly gave me an example of what 'complaining' would sound like so I would realise that this wasn't it.)  Audrey is big on telling stories - she wanted to hear stories of when I was little, so I dredged up the story of Auntie Karen And The Bees, Auntie Karen Gets Attacked By Large Dog, and a more recent story (in the last five years or so) of Auntie Karen And Melissa Nearly Get Run Over By A Stampede Of Highland Cattle.  (True story.)

The kids got slushies and I picked out my tea for the day.  Snapple is one of my favourite cold drinks in the States, especially on a warm day.  (It wasn't even close to hot, really - barely 30 C.)  This Snapple was a new flavour (my favourite is kiwi strawberry), and I think I like it because it's not sweet.  It has all the natural sweetness of fruit, but doesn't make you more thirsty by pouring in lots of sugar.  The funny part was, I had it in my head there was pomegranate in it, and was drinking it thinking yes, I can taste the pomegranate now, and have just realised that it's papaya mango. Flavours are funny things.  I read somewhere that there have been blind taste tests done and as long as something is coloured pink or red people will say it's strawberry, or raspberry, or cherry, even if the flavour is more like grape or pineapple.  Our minds decide so quickly on so many factors. I have to think really hard about my teas - although I will say that the hot teas seem to bring out the tastes more.  But I enjoyed my Snapple ("Auntie Karen, why are you taking so many pictures of your Snapple? Do you really really like it?"), and then when we got home we had an impromptu water fight. We couldn't find the water guns or even how to turn the sprinklers on, so we made do with water bottles.  Jude had one that he filled and just flung it at us shouting 'Water Bomb!!!' and then he and Audrey turned themselves into sprinklers, spinning round and round while the water squirted out of their water bottles.  They got soaked and I managed to get damp (they're short, so I mostly got wet on my legs and shorts, not so much my top half), and I looked at Jude and said, 'My goodness, you're completely soaked!'  His response was, "I know, isn't it awesome??"

I love being the cool aunt.

Oh - almost forgot - my walk today was at 5.30am, and Pin and I went together.  It was lovely to walk at that hour of the morning while it's still fairly cool, but you can wear shorts and be comfortable.  We skipped the sprinklers as it wasn't that hot yet.  No running, but it was a good solid walk - and add in the walk with the kids and I'm beat!  But a good tired. 

Total walk length: 70 minutes