Spring Break

We had planned on starting our Spring Break with a mad dash to drive up to Manti in time to go through the temple with my cousin Donny as he got his endowment on Saturday and then hear him speak on Sunday before he left on his mission to Seattle Washington. A few days before we were supposed to leave I started to have doubts- we'd been feeling really stressed out and needed some relaxing time and a long, rushed trip with four kids is not so relaxing, the girls were still getting over colds and Sophie was still having a fever off and on, and I would have to miss my Monday night class and take a B instead of the A that I'd worked so hard for, then there was my mom's feelings of foreboding and worry about the icy, snowy roads. That was pretty much the clincher- who can go against their mother's sincerely worried wishes? So sadly, we ended up canceling the trip. We were all pretty bummed, especially Shazer (when he found out there might be snow) but us parents were also a lot relieved and we took the first four days of Spring Break to just relax, chill out, and catch up on some cleaning and organizing. We also took the kids swimming for the first time this season on Tuesday. The pool is heated and it was a beautiful warm day in the low 80s but there was a wind that made it a little chilly so we didn't make it a long swim.

Wednesday we packed all our camping gear up, adorned ourselves in green and drove down to Tucson to have corned beef and cabbage with the Hendersons, spend the night, visit the Thwaits in the morning and then drive back up to Picacho Peak and camp out on Thursday night. We made a deal with my mom that if she would make her labor intensive yet delightfully yummy ten layered rainbow Jello for dessert then we would make the corned beef and cabbage for dinner. I'd planned on buying the ingredients once we got to Tucson but I hadn't realized how popular that dinner would be on St. Patrick's day. We went to three different grocery stores until we finally found corned beef at Sunflower Market.

Dinner and dessert were super yummy and then we watched the Princess and the Frog (which would have been more theme appropriate for Mardi Gras...but frogs are green, right?) Here are all the kids getting cozy for the movie- you can see Sally's wooden dagger that she painted pink and decorated with fringe/lace and plastic jewels.

Sally taking her new sleeping bag/air mattress for a spin at Nana's before camping outdoors. As you can see, it worked like a charm.

Playdough at Grandma Linda's

Playing at Aunt Anne's

Setting up camp

Shazer's favorite part of camping was chopping wood. He said "camp chores are actually fun"- I'm sure we'll definitely be using that one against him in the future ;)

Hanging out with cousins (I finally had to ban the DSs to the car for the rest of the camp out-at first Shule didn't know what to do with himself but he figured it out eventually)

We had to keep a close watch on Sophie because she kept trying to take off and explore the campgrounds on her own.

 

She totally loved camping.

We had a nice visit with Lorin and Brenda's family over chicken, potato, and carrot tin foil dinners. As I look at this picture I took of their family I'm realizing we missed an opportunity for them to take a similar picture of our family. Oh well, maybe I'll think of it next time. After Lorin's family left, Shazer had a scary experience. He went to use the bathroom which was a stone's throw from where we were, but it had gotten dark and he got turned around when he came out of the bathroom and started heading in the opposite direction. He ran into some guys that teased him about being careful not to stumble upon a trip wire and he ran back to the bathroom and shouted "Help! Someone! Please! I'm Lost!" We heard a kid yelling but couldn't make out what he was saying and we realized that Shazer was taking a while so Shule, Sally and I headed over to check on him. As we approached the bathrooms two flashlights pointed at us and I heard Shazer say "It's my mom!" One of the forest rangers had come to his rescue :) He was pretty shaken up about the experience and  we had to say a special prayer to calm him down so he could get to sleep. I think this is the first time he's ever been lost. 

Boys on the difficult hike up Picacho Peak

Girls on an easier children's hike

the "cave" at the end of the trail

Riding skunks on the playground

I was really impressed with how nice the camping grounds were. They had really nice bathrooms with private showers that you didn't have to pay extra for, really nice campsites with picnic tables and fire pits with grills. It was a great time to go because everything was really green (as far as deserts go) and there were lots of pretty wildflowers- Sally was in heaven. The weather was really lovely, not too cold at all. The only thing that was a bit of a bother was that the winds really picked up until about 1am and then calmed down so we could get some sleep. My favorite part was the star gazing. I always forget how gorgeous the night sky is away from the city lights- it is so intense. Jon was awesome with making hot cocoa at night and again in the morning, making Sally a new fan of the stuff (she's been asking for it more than juice since we've come home- and if you know her, that's really saying a lot). 

We'd already packed up camp before our hikes, so when we were done hiking we drove across the freeway to the DQ and had some burgers and ice cream. Great way to end our Spring Break :)

Renaissance Festival

On Saturday, March 6th we took the whole family out to the Renaissance Festival. It was my first time going and it was a blast- a gorgeous day and a ton of fun. Unfortunately, we had given up looking for our camera after searching for it for 20 minutes just before were about to leave. The only pictures we have were taken on our cell phones- which don't have the best resolution, so please bare with me. If you'd like to see some nice photos of the festival check out this other blog that I follow: RootsAndWingsCo.

Shazer and Jon throwing axes.

Shazer, surprisingly quite adept at handling throwing stars.

Who could pass up a free butterfly ride?! Not us!

The kids loved the Klan Tinkers- this was a funny one man wrestling bit they did, there was also juggling, dancing, magic, a lot of jokes, and music- very entertaining. 

Shazer's first joust.

He hit his target on the first try and secured himself an honorary knighthood. He says this was the highlight of the day for him. We called him Sir Shazer the rest of the day. 

Sally loved dressing up as a fairy princess and was too cute as she danced to some live harp music. 

Shule says this was a highlight for him, even though he didn't think it really fit the Renaissance theme. A first for everyone riding the elephant. We couldn't fit our whole family up there and I'd ridden an elephant before so I stayed on the ground with Sophie. 

There were lots of other fun activities that we enjoyed but didn't capture, like a glass blowing demonstration, wood carving, wool spinning with a wheel, black smithing, eating yummy foods and watching actual jousting and other knightly drills. Shule took home a cool wooden wand, Shazer a toy wooden battle ax, and Sally a toy wooden dagger. Sally and Shazer painted and decorated their weapons when they got home and I'll have to share pictures of the results later. We had a lot of fun and are sure there was lots more to see that we'd like to see next year. Think we could win tickets three years in a row? We'll be crossing our fingers but not holding our breath ;)

What have we been up to, you ask? Well, this...

Well, it's been a while since the last post. I've had things to blog about but just haven't had the time and energy. Sometimes I lack the motivation too, but my sweet cousin, Julia, has encouraged me this week by assuring me that people actually do read this blog and enjoy the updates...so here goes. I'm thinking this will be at least two separate posts; pre-spring break and spring break.

A few weeks ago we had the cub scout Blue and Gold cake walk that I helped Shazer make this creation for:

Hopefully you can tell that it's supposed to be a bear's face (because Shazer is working on getting his Bear). If you look very closely you might also be able to see that it is actually made up of cupcakes alternating in blue and "gold" (aka yellow). We just used yellow cake mix for the yellow and then used food coloring to make blue batter of a white cake mix. The decorations were made using a very dark store bought fudge icing and chocolate sprinkles and frosting. It was fun for Shazer to do (as you can see he was very pleased with the result) and it seemed to be a big hit at the event. 

Our girls have had many a runny nose off and on the past month. Here's a picture of them "helping" their dad fix our bed. 

Here's a pretty good picture of the huge bruise that Sophie got while playing chase on the porch with her sister. Sally was on her tricycle and Sophie was running around. Sally got a little overzealous and pretty much mowed down Sophie, Sophie hit her head really hard into the metal frame of the sliding glass door. I'd seen it happen and heard the loud thud and was afraid at first that she'd cracked open her forehead, but upon closer inspection I was relieved to see she'd gone down on her chubby cheek and didn't even bite the inside of her mouth. Just a few days after this first incident we were sitting in Sacrament Meeting in the middle of the blessing of the water and she squirmed down off the bench and fell directly into the hard wood bench in front of us- in exactly the same spot on her right cheek. It took the poor girl at least three weeks for the bruise to go away. 

Sally has been helping me plant and water some nice flowers- I'm happiest with our violets.

Here are some pictures from a recent trip to the Arizona Mills Mall. We've been purchasing a lot of shoes recently (thank you tax return). I had to replace my black mary jane Dr. Martens because the strap broke on my old ones-they were older than Shazer and looking a little shabby. Shule finally allowed us to buy him new shoes in a size 9- we'd just bought him new black slip on Vans in the fall but he's had a hole in the big toe in both shoes for months now- he wouldn't let us buy new ones but I think they were finally too uncomfortably tight. He chose the exact same style shoe as before. Why mess with a good thing? Shule has grown a lot just in the past month. He's taller than me now and while he's grown up he's also lost inches off his waist. Shazer is also growing but adding inches to his waist- I think he's getting ready to have another growth spurt soon. He also needed new shoes after his sneaks that we bought in the fall had the soles coming off the bottom. Boys are crazy hard on shoes! He got some black Vans as well but his are the ankle kind. I also got myself some pink, white and black checkered vans (in a Ked style *cringe*)- I needed a cool, comfortable sneaker to wear that wasn't my Nike running shoes (at least that's what Jon said, he's not too hip on my Nike's but I can't help but love them for being such a comfortable shoe to exercise in, plus I kinda like the look- they're grey with a purple Nike symbol). Wow, I didn't realize I had so much to say about shoes- maybe I'll take a picture of all our cool shoes and do a separate post dedicated just to them. Look for it ;)  

Girls are loving the quarter rides and Shazer is a sweetheart for making sure Sophie didn't jump off and get hurt. 

I love this sad picture of Sophie- for some reason she was NOT into this train engine ride.

But the ice cream truck was much better. Maybe because it was broken so it didn't move or make any scary noises ;)