Who knew I’d want to write about the weather so much?

Maybe one day I won’t, but that’ll probably be later, once I’ve adjusted fully and wear sweaters when it dips below 90.

But wow.

Ashley and Elliot came to visit the last weekend of September, which, unbeknownst to me at the time, was also the tail end of the heat.

They were here for three days: 105, 107, 104.

We swam as much as we could, and we hilariously tried to play on the playground, but by 9:15 in the morning, it was already 86 and climbing. So, after 15 minutes, we’d drank through the water and got back in the car.

We went instead to the indoor playground … twice.

When we were younger, and kids were just a vague “someday” event, we’d have fun weekends where we’d stay up late, drink a bunch of wine, watch Sex and the City (I’m sure we watched other things, but that is most prevalent in my memory), and talk and talk.

We never really did anything other than dork around.

So adjusting to “girls AND TODDLERS weekend” wasn’t so hard.

We skipped all the touristy everythings. Unless you consider an indoor kid play place a tourist attraction. (If you do, you should absolutely come visit. It’ll be a scream!) We didn’t even go to my favorite part of Chandler — the downtown area — this little square of shops and restaurants that are cute and fun but hard to fit in around pool mornings, nap times, and play date afternoons.

Instead of staying up late, we stayed up a LITTLE past toddler bedtime. But we did get to connect and hang out, and man was it nice to have Ashley here.

The night they left, the clouds rolled in.

We got the remnants of a hurricane, which meant six inches of rain (which! fun fact! is an entire year’s worth of rain in Phoenix!) fell over the course of 24 hours.

Arizona has cute little ditties about really awful things. The one I learned while driving home during a flash flood warning was, “turn around, don’t drown.” It rhymes. It’s cute. It’s terrifying.

Kind of like a lot of nature here.

Once we got all the rain we could handle in 24 hours, and then some, Phoenix started showing me what fall looks like here.

I am here for it.

Today, Clara and I went to the park after her nap.

The temperature was probably 78 degrees.

There was some afternoon sun.

It was everything.

We’ve had windows open in the house. The air conditioning has been turned off. It’s like in regular-person town when it stops being crappy outside for the first time in forever and you decide to shampoo the carpets (no? just my dad? ok!). But here, we do fall cleaning, not spring cleaning. And the carpet shampooer is too far away to borrow, so we’re doing things like yard work instead.

Bethany texted to let me know that this is not a blip. This is what fall looks like here.

I need my merit badge.

You know, the “I survived my first Arizona summer and only went crazy two or five times” badge.

Sorry, dining room. You’re being replaced, for the foreseeable future, by the patio.

AND IN JUST TWO WEEKS my family is coming for fake Christmas!

I’ll write more about that in another post.