A baseball game, the final game of the season. Another strong showing by our favorite player. A visit from Mom and Dad
A pizza party with coach, players, and families at Peter Pipers
An afternoon of swimming (first of the season!) and visiting at my sister’s. A ride in her new Prius
A day around people who love my kids and who let me be me
I needed that
Last week, Skip & Barbara, and Rob, Celia and little Ayla all came to visit. I posted this one picture (the rest of the weeks pics can be found here, here, here, and here) because the outdoors seemed to be the theme of the week. We spent much of the time just sitting out back – watching the kids play, chatting around the patio table, eating (always eating!), and catching up. We spent a day at the Wildlife Zoo and Aquarium, another exploring an old ghost town, and an afternoon playing at Makutu’s Island. We watched Paxton’s baseball game, celebrated at Everett’s 5th birthday party, and rocked out on Rock Band. Celia made us an authentic puerto rican meal, filled with yummy foods with fancy names that I vowed to myself I’d remember, then of course promptly forgot.
The week wasn’t without it’s snafus though. We never did get to take them geocaching or offroading. I never made my berry dessert (I hope introducing them to Jamba Juice made up for it!) We learned that the children’s museum is closed on Mondays, that Mike’s truck will overheat after too much heavy mountain driving, and that it takes a long time to get 11 people all moving in the same direction at the same time. I’d like to think we’d all agree it was worth it!
It was so good to see them all, to get to spend time with our neice who we’d previously only known through photos, and to share our little corner of the world. I only hope they all had a good time, and that their vacation was a great one.
And last but absolutely not least:
Happy, happy birthday to my beautiful five year old Everett. I loved petting all the baby goats with you last week!!!!
We’ve been a little too housebound. We’ve been sick with various ailments recently, and Everett was diagnosed with strep throat on Friday. On Saturday, no one wanted to hang around at home – including Everett, who felt much better after a good night’s sleep and his first two doses of antibiotics – so we headed out to do some more geocaching. Since Everett wasn’t up for hiking, we chose a series of micros that were right off the side of the road, all in row. Perfect for “park and grab” caching. At some of them, myself and one or more of the kids jumped out, and at others Mike took a turn. We did all 11 caches in the series, and enjoyed a leisurely ride through a beautiful area. When we finished with those, we did only two that were a couple hundred feet from the car…
One in a really cool wash
And one on a long (and beautful) winding mountain road, at the location of a no-longer standing General Store.
We were pretty hungry by that point, as it was well past lunchtime and we hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so we decided to call it a day and head home. We’d been on the mountain road for a long time (which is funny in retrospect, given what followed) and didn’t really want to retrace our steps. We weren’t sure if it circled around to somewhere familiar or not, but we were having fun and willing to chance it. We promised the boys we’d stop at a store – when we found one – and get them a snack. We enjoyed the scenery; passed a campground, some tiny houses and old sheds, and a whole lot of miles of nothing. We were feeling pretty good about coming out to civilization soon, and then we came across this sign:
The sign made me laugh. What else could I do? There were tears in the backseat though, which turned out to be due to a fear of being “lost in the middle of nowhere.” We reminded the crying party of the GPS, showed him the atlas with its detailed map, and told him that if all else failed we had cell phones. Mike did some quick research, and found that there was a turn-off road (that would eventually lead to the freeway) up ahead and that we would not in fact have to go the whole 60 miles. Onward we went.
It really was a beautiful area! Truly God’s country. I pray I never get blase about the beauty that is Arizona.
It was well into the afternoon by then, but we were all enjoying the drive. It was slow going of course, as some spots were extremely rocky and/or steep or narrow, but no one seemed to mind, even the hungry boys in the backseat. It was an adventure.
And then there was a sound, and a “What was that?”, and well….
Not to be deterred, the pit crew made quick work of the flat, and we were on our way again in 20 minutes.
Are you wondering if we passed any other cars? We did. In fact, two good samaritans stopped to see if we needed help while we (by “we”, I mean Mike) were changing the tire. After we were up and running, we came across one of the very same good samaritans again, when they were dealing with a flat tire of their own. We returned the favor and stopped to help. We stretched our legs, and Tegan had a snack – the only one of us who was able to eat all day…
While we were stopped, we were passed by more cars, this time coming from the opposite direction. They were bearing news, and it wasn’t encouraging. Three miles up ahead was a river that had to be crossed. A wide one, with large rocks and soft sand.
Did I mention my truck is not 4-wheel-drive?
It does have high clearance though, which played a big factor in our decision. Of the people who stopped, one thought we could make it if we took it slow and easy, and two thought we’d be foolish to even attempt it.
There were a few more brief tears. The kids, who were incredibly patient and pleasant for the entire trip despite being starving, were getting tired and were not happy with the new turn of events. But we all eventually rallied.
We had two options… not even trying, turning around where we were, and driving the many many hours back through the mountain (eventually through the dark); OR continuing on up ahead and risking either having to turn around like the others and driving the many many hours back through the mountain anyway, or even more worrisome, getting stuck!
There was really only one thing to do.
Mike took one look at the river three miles later and essentially said that it would be a piece of cake. And it was.
Until it wasn’t.
Thankfully, no one panicked when it got stuck. It took some rock rearranging, some finagling, some praying, and of course some careful driving… but it was only a matter of time before he got it un-stuck. Our hoots and hollers must have been heard clear across the mountain when we’d finally made it back on dry land. My truck, and my husband, ROCK!
There were even more tears. This time, of happiness. The last hour of the trip was perhaps the best. The sun was setting as we were finally making our way out of the mountain, and everyone agreed that it was well worth the drive.
It was 7:30 PM by the time we made it back to the highway, and our first order of business was stopping at a Walmart to get the kids their promised snacks. We got them their snacks (and some dinner too!) then we headed home, all six of us tired and happy.
Filed under Arizona, family, geocaching
Has it been only 9 days since my last blog? What a full and eventful 9 days it’s been.
First, I’m sad to report that we lost the praying mantises. 🙁 We still don’t know what went wrong, but every last one of them had died by the time 3 days had passed.
On a brighter note, on Friday we released our butterflies. It actually took some coaxing to get them out of their habitat (I think I was envisioning them just gratefully bursting forth as soon as it was opened) but they eventually found their wings – and their freedom – among the bushes in our backyard.
In other animal news, Paxton’s leopard frog tadpoles are still doing well, but Everett’s tadpole is… off. We can’t yet tell if he is dying or if he has just slowed way down because he is a critcal stage of his transition. I’ve been following the instructions, feeding him regularly (but not too regularly), keeping his water cloudy (but not too cloudy) etc. I guess all we can do now is wait.
We actually haven’t had a lot of time to think about butterflies and tadpoles lately anyway, because we’ve been busy visiting! Our good friends Doug and Erika were here for five days and we had such a great time. We hadn’t seen each other in six months so we had lots to catch up, necessitating lots of busy days and late nights… and in one case, staying up till 4 in the morning playing Wii, PS2 and baking cookies.
Our first order of business was going geocaching. We’d been wanting to do it forever, and were happy to finally have an excuse to go, and some willing cohorts to go with us. For the uniformed, geocaching is like a big treasure hunt game. You plug in some coordinates into a GPS, hunt for the cache – which is filled with little trinkets – sign the log book, take something & leave something, and re-hide it for the next person. It was a blast and it is now officially our new favorite family hobby. We can’t wait to go out and do it again.
We also went to the Phoenix Children’s Museum for the second time, and it was every bit as fun as the first.
Last, but most definitely not least, we celebrated both Spencer and Tegan’s birthdays in one big party on Saturday. Tegan loved spending time with her grandparents and aunt and uncle, and she had a blast opening her presents
But the highlight for Tegan, in traditional Tegan style, had to be eating and enjoying her first ever birthday cake. I have to note again, for the people who have not yet heard me say it, that the lamb cake was made from the very same cake mold that made my first birthday cake 34 years ago. I was so very excited to make it for my own daughter, and what made it even more special was learning from my Mom that she too had a lamb cake for her first birthday. Three generations of little lambs! She commented that my grandmother – who passed away 5 years ago and whom I still dearly miss – would be tickled to know that Tegan had a lamb cake too… and I know that she was.
Spencer loved his cake too
and his presents
and having a real life police officer to show him how to use his new fingerprinting kit
All in all, it was a great day, and a great week… with great family, and great friends.
I am happy to report – thrilled to report – that this Christmas was one of the best Christmases I think we’ve ever had. Not that we’ve ever had a bad Christmas… we’ve been extremely blessed in this regard. But this year really was particularly joyful. Everyone was healthy after two months of sickness, everyone was happy, the food was good, the presents were fun, and the laughter was plentiful.
You certainly can’t tell from pictures like this one:
but Santa really scaled down the presents this year. The extra presents were NOT missed!
Everyone loved their gifts, and had a good time sharing them throughout the day – from Wii games to strategy games to lego sets.
The food was simple: lasagna and garlic bread. And of course things to nibble like crab dip and shrimp and crudites. I got my wish for a greener Christmas too. We didn’t use any paper plates or plasticware,and didn’t generate nearly as much trash as usual! We had the traditional Christmas cookies for dessert, my mom brought her pumpkin whoopie pies, and for the grand finale we had Baileys in little chocolate cups.
I adore Christmas.
Mike went back to work this morning, after a 4 day break, and I thought the kids would have a hard time with the transition. Actually, they are handling it just fine, and I am the one missing him, wishing he were here to have a cup of coffee with me. The long holiday weekend really was wonderful. It was neat to watch the kids decide what to play with after the excitement of Christmas day started to wear off. And over the past two days they played with everything! Paxton spent a long time playing with a magnetic building set, punctuated by quick games of Elefun. Spencer was still firmly planted in the seat of his tractor, but took some time out to hammer a few nails in his wood building kit, and dump and sort a set of tiny vehicles. While we were playing, we also did my favorite thing… watched movies! We rented Elf on Sunday, which I’d been avoiding because it looked a little too over the top, but it was actually very very funny. We all enjoyed it, and we just about wore out the tivo replaying the scene where Will Ferrell jumps onto – and knocks down – the Christmas tree, because the boys liked it so much. Yesterday we watched Liar Liar at Spencer’s request. Jim Carrey comedy never gets old in our house! Mike introduced us to the movie Cannonball Run, which was a fun movie too, and we didn’t forget Everett… he watched his new Baby Mozart and Baby DaVinci movies, and bounced and squealed away. He was very excited to see that one of his favorite songs, “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” was included in one of the movies. We did have to make a quick pitstop to Best Buy yesterday, because our poor coffee pot that was slowly disintegrating decided to give up the fight. It was leaky but usable on Christmas day, and the next day it pretty much exploded coffee all over the kitchen counter. So now we have a new one. The long weekend ended with a few episodes of Seinfeld and another chapter from Spencer’s book. I couldn’t have asked for a better holiday.
I'm Jen... the shy, lost girl from the east coast who married at nineteen and eventually found herself - four kids later - in the middle of the desert. I like chocolate. You can read more about me here.
