a break...for spring

Every few years we try to do a vacation that is JUST a vacation; no family, nobody we HAVE to see, nowhere we HAVE to go etc. This year we were in dire need. Ryan has been uber busy at work, like he gets up at 5 and after getting ready for the day and reading his scriptures he works until he leaves for work at 7. After the kids are down around 8 he works for 2-3 more hours and there is still more he could/should/otta do.

We went to St. George this year and it was so very nice! We drove up Saturday afternoon and spent Sunday after church visiting the church history sites in the area.

We started at Brigham Young's winter home:

The big old cottonwood tree

We don't have pictures at Jacob Hamblin's home but we did go and thankfully Nelson slept in the car for the whole visit. I did not konw that Jacob Hamblin holds the record for most miles traveled on horseback and most number of Indian treaties negotiated - very cool.

The St. George Temple is always so beautiful and the kids had a nice afternoon on the grounds and visitor's center.

The rest of the vacation was spent at Zion National Park. We had such a nice time. The park was not hot, not crowded, and, as always, very kid friendly! Hooray.

On day one Ryan tool the four older children on an eight mile hike up and down to/from Observation Point. It took them all day and they had a great hike and a spactacular view. Isaac was especially proud of himself.

Nice view, huh?

While the big kids were off with Dad, Sarah, Nelson and I did "lazy day in Zion's". We walked down to the river and ate snacks, threw rocks, flew our kite, I read a novel, and got our feet wet. When the need for a potty drove us back to the trailhead several hours later we sat in the car for about 45 minutes so Nelson could "rest" and then played in the creek for another couple of hours. I have to say, it was one of the most relaxing, pleasant days I have every had - happy kids, happy mom, beautiful world - so nice!

See, rock throwing HEAVEN!

Sarah was so excited to fly the kite and it was nice to have it all to herself. It fell in the river a couple of times and finally broke but it was magic while it lasted.

MORE rock throwing at the creek, also sand, sticks and a bridge!

Day two found us hiking Angel's Landing (Not the end part with the chains and dangerous stuff). Sarah was the trooper in this one, it was a steep hike with lots of switchbacks and she did great!

Here we are heading up "Warren's Wiggles" a set of 26ish short, steep switchbacks.

Heading down the wiggles. The kids had a lot of fun telling people "You're almost there!"

I love this picture.

We did some good scrambling on the way down. It was really nice to have our days planned so as not to be in a hurry, we could stop, climb, explore etc and nobody (mom or dad) got antsy.

 

I loved this view with the almost identical mountains marching off into the distance.

Our last day we did a bunch of shorter hikes strung together to fill a day. We started with the river walk and it was a very chilly morning, seriously cold, especially for those of us in shorts. Once we got back out into the sun we were happy hikers once again.
 

Poor Sarah was the most scantilly clad, shorts and a very flimsy sweatshirt, she was a champ and didn't comlplain nearly as much as a few of the other kidos.

Ahhhhhh, sunshine for those poor Arizona children.

It was a fantastic trip and I'm so grateful we got to go. Ryan had several people at work comment that he seemed so rested and relaxed! SUCCESS!

Hope to see you again soon St. George.

a few doings

I am SLOWLY hacking away at some of the more inexpensive projects around here. This month I worked on the desk/bookshelf for Nora and Sarah's room. The desk I got on Craigslist ages ago and the shelf on the side of the road. The desk is wood and fake wood and the shelf very beat up wood, so I used Annie Sloan chalk paint because it's supposed to be amazing at making lots of different materials look the same. It worked fine but I was a little (OK , a lot) shocked at the $40 price tag for a quart of paint - ekk, plus the wax. Needless to say I have made sure to use up every bit on a few other random projects.

Here is the incredibly beautiful before shot.

And here is the after (buttery yellow, of course). Nora has stuffed the shelves with stuffed animals (so much for books on a bookshelf). It matches Nora's new quilt from Grammy perfectly! Hooray. I will take a picture soon - the quilt is amazing!

 

Sarah, Nelson and I took a jaunt to Ikea and were coveting the hammock.

 

 Spring Break has come and gone. We had a lovely trip to the zoo with friends to kick it off.

Swimming season has started for the brave of heart (I wait until it is 100 degrees for several days in a row to get the water nice and warm).

Up next - ZION NATIONAL PARK and ST. GEORGE - it was epic.

rockets

I've finally downloaded pictures (Why is it so hard to just do it??). You can expect a few posts in the days to come.

We begin with rockets. Diana, Emily and Nora all joined "SPACE EXPLORERS" (to be said in a deep reverberating voice). It's a lunch club where cool engineers from Orbital come and teach about space and then help build model rockets of increasing complexity as the grades get higher. I was the helper for Nora's class and our super nice teacher Bill even let me launch a rocket.

Here she is, the lovely Nora ready for launch.

Bill is on the left, he was so kind and patient and prepared every week - awesome.

3-2-1 launch! Our whole class had great straight launches (again, Bill was a great instructor).

I sure love this girlie.

Some of our class (it was pajama day at school).

a rough start so starting over

Our Spring Break got off to a bit of a rough start beginning with less than optimal sleep Sunday night, I was sore from it - weird. Anyhow, we went to the zoo for visiting teaching and although I love my friends, love the zoo and love my kids, it was just a Monday, you know and the house was in post Sunday mess, and nothing got done and it was hard to be cheerful, and I tried to avoid going to Sam's Club with 6 kids so waited til everyone was down for the night only to discover it closes at 8:30 not 9 as I had assumed.

We are determined to make today better:). It is a little after nine a.m. and we are almost done with piano and cello, Emily has done some math, we have made beds, done hair, swept the kitchen, started the laundry we didn't do yesterday, and the upstairs has been vacuumed. We are going to go to the library and Sam's Club and the prospect of 6 kids is just brighter today. We have great leftovers for lunch and I am going to practice and try to memorize all my choir music for our April 11th concert because we still don't have all the music and when we get it it's goign to be tight.

I'm so grateful for new days where I can start fresh and make it better.

yesterday

Yesterday was a big day around here. First: Diana gave her long worked on Abraham Lincoln oral report (thanks McKay for the hat). She knocked it out of the park - A plus on the written and oral. I am sosososo happy and grateful when my kids can see tangible evidence of hard work and good planning. It was a big project and I think we are all glad it's over.

This week is Spirit week so the rest of the kids raided my bandana collection for wild west day.

While the bigs were off wild west-ing and Abe Lincoln-ing, we headed to the zoo to wander slowly and pretty much play at all 4 play areas with Di and Livy.

We seriously only looked at maybe 5 animals in 4 plus hours.

Sarah and Nelson were wiped out and slept in the car until we went to pick up the kids (yes it was cool enough in the garage for a nap).

Did I mention next week is Spring Break? Saints preserve us!

temple culteral celebration

Wow oh wow! Am I ever proud of the youth, troopers all! As you have probably figured out, we have a new Temple here in Gilbert AZ and our 12,000 kids decided a party was in order, a gift of sorts to celebrate the amazingness of it all. So some adults with WAY more energy, pluck, courage, and sheer grit than I, wrote a script, wrote some songs, choreographed some dances, figured out mountains of logistics (how to move so many people on and off stage, feed them, have potty facilities, costumes, lights, sound, and on and on and on it went). A few thousand random adults on the ward and stake level were assigned to teach the kids all of the above and prep them for the actual celebration. So we sang, we danced, we threw candy, we did sign language, we picked up, dropped off, took pictures, gathered medical forms, texted parents, called, emailed, and then sang and danced some more.

On Saturday rain was in the forecast, but we marched on with the plan of picking up, dropping off, making sure the kids had a jacket and the final rehearsal began. There were a few sprinkles during the afternoon but it seemed that Discovery Park was immune from the storm dumping rain on the rest of the valley. At 6 pm Kate, Hillary and I drove our cars over in possession of 3 of the few "tickets" to sit on the hill and watch live while the rest of the valley watched on TV.

Here is the sky at about 6:15.

At 6:30 it started to rain, OK pour, but we had faith, we prayed for the rain to stop and did for about 3 minutes and then it rained and rained and rained all through the entire celebration. What I did not know is that the youth had been praying too, but not for the rain to stop but for the show to go on. They knew we were in a drought and that the rain was needed, but they wanted to give their gift anyway and so they did, with all their hearts. Those kids sang, danced, cheered and testified as the heavens dumped much needed rain. I was one proud little ward music helper!

Hillary our AMAZO secretary (she was the one who had to do all the legal forms, photos, security lanyards and communication), Kate, costumer extraordinaire maker of a million flower clips, sashes and scarfs, and me, music and sign language (I was the one throwing candy and making a complete fool of myself during rehearsals but hey, they knew their songs!).