Siamese Twin Strawberry

One of the young women at church turned 12 yesterday, so this Sunday, she moved up from the Primary to work in the Beehive program with me.

Thanks to her birthday, for the first time, I (successfully)
made an Angel Food cake here in Arizona.

I say that because from the moment we moved here, I have had trouble baking in the gas oven--I suppose the 4,500 foot elevation does not help!

Psst Ilene: I found the trick to Angel Food cake here.
It is all about adding 1/4 cup cake flour to the mix (no extra water this time),
bumping the temp down to 325, and cooking for only 30 or so minutes--
not the 38 minutes "recommended" bake time!

Naturally, I needed toppings for the cake. I whipped up some fresh cream and started to slice strawberries, when I found THIS highly unusual berry in the pint:

It even had two stem areas! It was a "Siamese" strawberry!

Call me crazy, but I always enjoy it when nature is a little
out of whack because it keeps life interesting.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

is a hummingbird!

One of our daily visitors zipped into the photo as I was snapping it this afternoon.

One year older and wiser too

I celebrated my birthday worrying about a final exam, and Jared celebrated his birthday alone in Hawaii (I know--terrible life). But, we enjoyed a cake together, despite. We are one year older (and wiser too) and almost burned the house down with all the candles topping our cake!

CASA Training

Back in March, I looked into volunteer work (this was before I found a permanent job to keep me busy and when I still had nine months of graduate work left). After completing some online research, I stumbled across the CASA website and contacted the local director, Joan Hansen, to get the ball rolling. CASA is a perfect fit for me because it puts my schooling and interests to work in the court system. I can't help but think that the Lord called me to the church nursery, primary and seminary in order to help me prepare me to work with kids of all ages!

In order to volunteer to be a CASA, I have thus far submitted an application, had a 2-hour interview, submitted fingerprints, taken a polygraph (I passed--ask me to tell you about it some time), and completed 30 hours of training. And I am not even done with training yet! Hopefully I will be ready to accept a case soon...

Last weekend I took leave on Friday and drove up to some more CASA training in Phoenix. My favorite neighbor, Ilene, completed the training with me and made for a good travel partner and roommate.

The training was held in one of the AZ Supreme Court conference rooms. We learned a lot about CPS, Foster Care Review Boards, abuse, neglect, psychological repercussions of being a foster child, etc. I definitely feel a lot more confident about the process now and what I can do to help.

We stayed at a very nice Doubletree and received the customary chocolate chip cookies upon arrival. Nice of them to share one with us, but at $16.00 a tin (for 1/2 dozen) in the hotel gift shop, I wasn't quite persuaded to buy any...

Two days of 8 hours worth of training (on a Friday and Saturday!) is completely draining, but we survived! We enjoyed a little time by the pool, a meal at a hole-in-the-wall Mexi restaurant that had really yummy horchata and rice pudding, and shopped at Phoenix Mills before heading home.

During one of our late-night meals in a rundown part of downtown Phoenix, Ilene looked at me and said "Adri, what are they DOING over there?" Across the street were more than 30 thugged out teens swarming around. I told her I didn't want to look because I didn't want to get pulled into a gang fight or anything. All of a sudden, they got into a large circle and I thought they were about to start a fight. But instead, they started praying! They must have been holding a vigil or something. It made me feel guilty for judging! Good for them...keep the peace!

Desert Flowers

Until I moved to Arizona, I had no idea that a desert could have so many blooming beauties!