Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Big Lake- Day 2


Day 2 began way too early thanks to the car alarm all night long. But there’s no sleeping in when you are in the woods, so we got up and got to playing.

Everyone was itching to go fishing, since we were all too tired to do it on day 1. While Scott went looking for more firewood (we’re way too cheap to actually buy it!) Me and the kiddos went exploring, which turned into a very cute photo shoot. I thought I could photoshop the dirt off of them, but really you can’t tell that they are filthy!





Finally we went down to the lake, our camp site was just far enough away that we had to drive down there, and found a spot on the shore that no one had claimed. Chasetin could have fished ALL DAY!  Tanner was discouraged about 10 seconds after his hook hit the water, and Sienna took over my pole almost instantly. Eventually we teamed Tanner and Sienna up.   We took their hook off and Tanner would cast it out, and Sienna would reel it in. It entertained them for like 3 whole minutes!




They also spent some time picking me every Wild Flower on the Hill. I felt so loved!
Finally we went back to camp and let Scott and Chase go fishing by themselves, entertaining a 2 yr old and a 6 yr old near a lake was too wet of a task to do. We stayed back and played card games with Grandma and more Corn Hole with Papa. Papa let Tanner keep score, therefore he had a blast “Kicking Papa’s butt!”
When Scott & Chase got back, Chase still hadn’t caught anything, so he wanted to go again. So I took him out again. We’re sitting there on a rock, both have fishing poles in the water and he says to me “Hey mom, do you know how to take the hook out of the fish if we catch one?”  I said “No, do you?”  He thought for a minute and then said a little sheepishly, “Well, no… but I guess we’ll figure it out!” It made me laugh. It was good to spend time with him, just the 2 of us. That doesn’t ever happen! Fortunatley in this case, we didn’t catch anything, only crawdads, and a bunch of snags.

We had some awesome beef stew and dutch oven biscuits for dinner that evening and all slept gloriously that night.



To be continued………….!

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Big Lake- Day 1

 Somewhere in the White Mountains of Arizona (about 5 hours from here) is a lake called "Big Lake" - creative right?  Since our favorite spot near Big Lake burned down, we went with the next best thing. And I was pleasently surprised to find Flush toilets and running water! Can camping get any better?

Scott had the fabulous idea to leave at 4am. His theory was that all the kids would stay asleep. Ya, that didn't happen this time. So, we're all awake at 4am, and driving each other crazy during a 5 hour drive.  After we got camp all set up, I wasn't surprised to find this:



Scott had some fun building this "Corn Hole" game.   Tanner kicked butt, until I started keeping score, then he started changing the rules on me. You should google the game, it was easy to make and alot of fun!
 






Say "cheese".  This little girl LOVED the forrest!







And of course, we had to have a campfire!

We were all exhausted by bedtime! Unfortunatly, the stars were not inline for us to sleep this night. For starters Sienna was so excited to be in her own sleeping bag, that she took turns hopping from bed to bed. Then she ended up in our bed, by Scott, then by Me, then she wanted her back rubbed, then her feet rubbed. Finally she fell asleep and I moved her to her bed, then she fell off the air mattress, and I found her asleep on the tent floor. I woke her up trying to put her back in, so then I layed her by Scott and tried to sleep in her sleeping bag, then she tried to find me again, and we both slept in her sleeping bag. If that wasn't bad enough, our neighbors were leaving in the morning and had alot of alcohol to consume before they left. I have no idea when they stopped partying, but at about the time they did, a car alarm started and went of every 10 minutes for the rest of the night! It was exhausting- and then the crows woke up with the sun, waking up anyone that might have fallen asleep. The next morning, when the car alarm went off again, the whole camp ground started yelling. Aparantly, I wasn't the only person having trouble that night!


To be continued...............

Thursday, June 7, 2012


Scott left me for 3 whole days and went to Scout Camp.
 Chasetin told every body he met that "Mom's happy Dad's gone because she gets to watch what she wants on TV."  I was totally kidding when I said it, although there is maybe a small amount of truth in there. (I even rented "The Vow" (which I thought was just "ok") because he refused to watch if with me). 

This was kind of my prayer for the 3 days he was gone:


I told Scott that if he gets a call from the County Jail to just leave me there, I'll need the break:)  
But I joke, and no such call was made. Fortunately, he's back now and we all survived! 
(He's just not allowed to leave again!)

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Wolf Scout

So proud of Chase!  He earned his Wolf Badge, 3 Arrow Points, and 2 Belt Loops at his pack meeting yesterday.   In just a few short days he'll be 9 and moving on the Bear Scouts. Woo Hoo!

Friday, June 1, 2012

Bear Canyon Lake




I think I found my newest spot of heaven on earth. Bear Canyon Lake is so beautiful and when you don't have kids with you, so very peaceful!  Scott & I took an over night trip to check out this lake where he wants to take his scouts. The kids stayed overnight with their cousins. They had a blast, we had a blast, it was really a win- win!

Unfortunately,  about 100 yards from the campsite, we blew a tire. (A BRAND NEW TIRE)  Since the truck is fairly new we spent a good 10 minutes trying to figure out how to even get the jack out. Another 20 minutes trying to figure out how to get the spare out. So about an hour later, now in the dark, we got to pick out a site. Here's the funny thing:  Scott didn't tell me this at the moment (thankfully) but the spare was (a) a bigger tire, and (b) completely rotted, even had chunks missing from it. But the blessing in this is that it had air in it, and got us back into town the next day, with just minutes to spare for closing time of the ONLY tire shop till Phoenix, where they then raped us on the price of a new one. Such is life!
 

We went exploring the next morning away from the lake and found this quiet, little meadow. It was so peaceful. 
 
We borrowed some Kayaks from some friends to enjoy the day on the lake. The internet said that boats are allowed on the lake but that they have to be "carried in" a short .2 mile walk down to the lake. What the internet didn't mention is that it's more of a HIKE down to the lake and that you would have to practically repel down at one point, while carrying a kayak.   The nice thing though is that there were no large/speed boats disturbing the peace. At one point we were the only people around.  ONCE we were down to lake it was very peaceful. The climb in was rough. The climb out was brutal!

 
We tried fishing, but didn't get a single bite. I could have probably had better luck with a net. They were popping up all around me feeding off the surface, but wouldn't even pay attention to our poles.

Because we needed to get back to town at a decent hour, we didn't get to explore the surrounding of the lake very much, but this is a place I definitely want to come back too.   It's completely primitive (meaning no bathrooms)  but that means it's also FREE:)  Can't complain there.

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Kindergarten Graduation

Farewell to Kindergarten! It has definitely been fun, but now we're on to 1st grade (and all day!!!). Unfortunately, this means that I have a 4th grader too. How did that happen?

The Kindergarteners put on an awesome show with songs like:  "I'm a V.I.P in my Family" and "My teacher taught me how to read..."  and "Hit the Road Jack"  It was very cute and Sienna sat there copying their hand actions and just clapping her hands the whole time.   They had each kid walk across the stage, and the teacher told what they wanted to be when they grow up. Tanner said he wanted to be a fireman! 

Tanner at his Table, picking up all his papers.

Tanner & Miss White. Tanner loved her this year.
As Teacher "Thank You's" we gave some plants that said "Thanks for helping me GROW this year"



Monday, May 21, 2012

Biography Report

Meet: Ulysses S. Grant

Civil War General and 18th President of 
The United States of America.

He's kindof cute too:)


Did you know that Ulysses S. Grant's actual name is Hirum Ulysses Grant, but he was embarrassed by that because his initials spelt H.U.G. So when an admissions director at WestPoint messed up and entered his name as Ulysses S Grant, he kept it.   There you go, your history lesson for the day.

This is the 1/2 of the class that presented this day.


Sunday, May 13, 2012

Mothers Day


**I don't even remember why I had nicknames for my kids, and it's starting to annoy me, and since I'm posting pictures with their names in them, I'm officially stopping with this post. Hope you don't mind:)  ***

Back in 2009, When Chase was in Kindergarten, I got a letter sent home saying I had to send in $12 for my mothers day gift. I was beyond perturbed, it was a constant stream of letters like that. Please send in store bought treats, please send in $5 for this, $3 for that, please send in a new book to exchange, please send in $32 because your son spilled a bottle of water on a National Geographic Hardbound library book and it is beyond salvageable (true story),  etc...  Well, I sent in the $12 and then didn't think about it again. I remember Chase was sick the whole week before Mothers Day. His teacher actually hand delivered the gift to us the friday before Mothers Day, because she didn't want me to miss out. When I opened it I was so in love with it:

Isn't it awesome??!  The ladybugs, bee's and butterflies are his fingerprints.

So this year, I got the same letter and I was so excited.   (And then I had to calm a friend down cause she was starting to go into the same rant I did 3 years ago!!  It's her first child & I promised her she'd LOVE it)

So Tanner walked in the door and handed his mothers day gift to me and was more excited than I was to show it to me. Chasetin's hand print has been on display for 3 years, and now we get to add his to it. (I'm officially on the hunt for a plate rack)  His is more of a green color, which is just SO Tanner. 
 I LOVE LOVE LOVE it, and hope that in 4 more years Sienna will give me one too:)


It came accompanied by this cute card. That's me and Tanner and an oddly shaped Sienna.  I love it:) 

Happy Mother's Day out there to all the Momma's in my life. Love you all:)

Saturday, May 12, 2012


Ladybug is now specializing in Pedicures. Call me if you'd like to book an appointment with her. 
They're filling up fast people.

Friday, May 11, 2012

My garden :)


I have kindof a semi-green thumb, kindof brownish- green. But this year I was determined to change all of that.   Thanks to Pinterest I had gardening ideas/tips coming out my ears, I have a "board" dedicated to it called "Garden Awesomeness". So back in December I got seeds and planted them in little bio-degradable cups. I watered them, tucked them in at night when it got cold, fed them plant food. These little seedlings got more love than my kids do on some days (kidding, kidding.... well kindof!)  Come march we prepped the ground with all kinds of mulch/compost. I dug holes and put in some drainage pipes scattered thru-out the garden. The thinking here was that it will water the roots deeper, encouraging them to grow. So far it seems to be working. I found the idea here.  Of course I water up top too.

Thanks to all of the HELP I have around here, most of my little seedlings got trampled. Cucumbers got stepped on while Squirt was helping dig a hole for the tomatoes: "oops!".   Bell peppers got stepped on while Hubbie was watering the Zucchini:  "what, there was a plant there?"   Canteloupe has been stepped on twice by Ladybug. We are now on our 3rd try.... It's about 3 inches tall, if it had been able to grow from the beginning, I'd probably have fruit by now!    Jalepeno's were there one day and gone the next... that one is still a mystery. So anyway, I've replenished everything with some help from the nursery.
This is a pic of my zucchini in the back left (I could loose a small child in that plant, by the way!)  and several cages of Roma Tomatoes. The one in the middle refuses to grow up, it just keeps getting wider for some reason. It's full of green tomatoes though!!
This is Heirloom tomatoes on the left (huge plants, not a single flower on them:(  Cucumbers growing up a trellis I made! (found here) Lettuce and spinach underneath, and Green beans growing in the back, I have some poles for them to grow up but so far they are not cooperating! (found here)



I've been using this book as a guide, since it specializes in "hostile deserts."  He's got me using all kinds of crazy things like liquid seaweed and fish emulsion, they both leave by back yard smelling like a fish hatchery, and the flies around here are insane, but I swear to you, my lettuce doubled in size overnight!


So here's what I'm growing:

Zucchini,  Cherry Tomatoes, Roma Tomatoes, Tomatillo's,
Prudent Purple Heirloom tomatoes,  Green Beans, Cucumbers,
Summer Squash, Lettuce, Spinach, Red Bell Peppers, Anaheim Chiles,
Jalapeno's, Parsley, Cilantro, Dill, Green Onions, Basil and Cantaloupe.

Can't wait till I'm drowning in veggies, If you live nearby I'll definitely be sharing!