Blogging Break....

Not that I am great on keeping a regular blog anyway but I will be taking a break for a while.

Carlsbad Caverns

My mom and dad and sister Emily all came into town last week and while they were here we went to Carlsbad Caverns. If you have never been it is amazing. This is the beginning of the natural entrance. We all went into the cave this way except for my mom, grady and Emily's baby (Jace). My mom has a bum knee and since this hike is all down hill for 800 ft. we figured it would not be very smart for her to try to hike it, which worked out well to send the two little ones with her. So this first picture is at the beginning of the hike.

Here is Cayden and Ally, they did AWESOME!! Ally only complained of her legs hurting at the very end after hiking down for 45 minutes and then for an hour on the floor of the cave.

Here is my dear dad taking pictures for my mom. He was so cute, the first 10 minutes we were stopping every chance we got to take a picture and he would always say "me me will love this one" (meme aka my mom). We quickly decided we will never make it to the bottom if we don't move it along.

Here we go....

There was so many little walkways where you went in tunnel like areas and a few places you had to duck. For the most part it was wide open, it is a huge cavern, biggest in the US I think.

My dad and Cayden. It was so nice for Cayden to have my dad there because they both wanted to stop and read every sign and Cayden loved pointing every little thing out to my dad. From the picture it looks like the cavern is gray but it is not, it is much more colorful.

After we got to the bottom and met my mom with the two little kids (who took the elevator) we walked the loop of the "Great Room" which size was equivalent to 14 football fields, it took about an hour and was amazing. Jace was a trooper, he actually fell asleep in the backpack and his poor little head was bobbing all over the place.

I carried Grady most of the way on the bottom. There are some pretty good size drops, although there is a railing, but it still made me nervous. I told him over and over about the danger and that he could fall far far down. I think I may have overdone it, he was too scared to walk after that.

The kids with their meme and grandpa. They absolutely LOVED having them here. Funny thing, my mom came here 50 years ago with her grandma and now was here again with her grandkids. She told my kids that in 50 years they need to come back with their grandkids.

We had a great time and I am glad we made the trip.

Trip to Prescott

Over Labor Day weekend we went to Prescott to my mother in laws little house to help work on it and try to speed the process of getting it in live in condition. It is the cutest little house and we had a great time with family working hard, eating lots and laughing even more. Here are a few pictures of the house and us working. This is the front, isn't it darling???

Here's Kristi, takin it easy just like she should be.
Wierd, this one is sideways but this is Grandpa Rowley workin really hard on ripping out a bathroom. I hope I can work half as hard as him when I am his age, he amazes me.

Travis in the backyard AFTER we got all the weeds pulled. I wish I had gotten a picture before. He is visualizing the masterpiece we are going to create.

Here he is hard at work leveling the ground inside the pathway we made so we can lay a brick border and fill the path with pea rocks.

Grandpa Rowley taking a quick break and on the phone with his sweetheart.

Wow, Brian, lets try not to make that face again EVER!! Putting up the white picket fence.

Kristi outside enjoying the BEAUTIFUL weather. Seriously we couldn't have ordered better weather, it was so great. Little Owen in the background playin, he is such a good baby

Laying the brick border. I am not sure what Hillary is doing,lol! Here is proof that I DID work and not just take pictures, ha ha

I just loved this random picture that was on my camera. I am not even sure who took it, I think Kristi did but it is so classic Hillary I had to post it.

We had a wonderful time and really got a lot of work done!!!!!

T.E.A. Party Express

I don't know if any of you are familiar with this movement, but it is a huge bus that is traveling from Ca. to Washington making like 30 stops along the way. It is a rally getting people excited and standing up for what they believe, quit raising the taxes, no on the health care bill, etc. Well one of the stops was Las Cruces last night. We decided to take the kids and head down and show our support. We all wore our red shirts and made posters. Travis and I talked to the kids about what we were doing and why, Cayden understood pretty well but I think Ally was just excited to go to the "Tea Party". We were so proud of the kids, they held their posters high and wanted to get right in the middle of it all. We knew there would be reporters there and so we had asked Cayden what he would say if anyone asked him why he was there. His response was "I am here because I like my country the way it is and I don't want them to change it". We had a great time and there was an awesome turn out. Towards the end the kids headed over with Travis to where there was a bunch of commotion. It was the reporter from Fox News there reporting for the Greta Van Susteran show. That was pretty exciting cause that is national news. The kids of course jumped right in with their posters in hopes to make it on TV. Sure enough Cayden was in view the entire time the guy was interviewing the lady who put the party on. It was so neat. We rushed home and set our tv to record the later showing of her show since it was live and we got up this morning and watched it. I was so proud of my kids. Cayden is there behind the reporter holding his poster that read "Dude, where's my country" and his flag and just as happy as could be. A couple of times you could see Ally's head poke out from behind the lady and I saw myself a few times when they spanned all of the crowd. It was a neat thing and I am glad we took the kids and hopefully they learned a little bit about the importance of standing up for what you believe in. Of course I forgot my camera, luckily Clayton had his so once I get pictures from him I will post them.

First Days....

First Day of School, Aug. 17th 2009

Cayden is in the 4th grade and it still blows my mind that my little boy is this big. He is such an awesome student, he loves loves to learn and always tries his hardest. Thanks for being you Cayden and wanting to be the best you can be.

Our sweet little Ally girl is in the 2nd grade now, wow! It seems just yesterday she was so sad that Cayden was going to school all day and she was in preschool for only half day and she would get so bored at home without him. She is a little social butterfly and has ALL of her friends in her class this year, poor Mrs. Hendon! She is seven going on seventeen and Travis and I are doing everything we can do keep her "our little girl" for a little longer.
They were both so excited they could hardly stand it, they were both up and dressed before my alarm even went off to wake them, I am so glad they both LOVE school!

"Bye mom" she is off, Cayden was already long gone.

Now another first day, if you have a tendency to get queesy (sp) easy then maybe this next post isn't for you...

My first day of canning meat. Yeah I know alot of you could probably do this in your sleep but it was my first day and I got 4 other suckers, I mean people, to do it with me.

I have canned before, beans, applesauce, jams, etc. but my first time doing meat. We had 180 lbs. of beef. Yikes!

Here is a small glimpse of some of the meat in an ice chest being transfered from the "thawing staion" aka bathtub to the kitchen.

Here is a very small portion of the lids and one of the three canners we used.

Shannon Carver very studifully picking out the thawed meat to put in jars and the still frozen meat to go back to thawing. *Notice the clorox wipes on the the counter by her. We used many of these through out the day* Shannon and Lori were AWESOME and had their system down of putting the meat in jars, while the rest of us salted, sealed and dealt with the pressure cookers, oh and the 5 kids we had.

Again just a GLIMPSE of the jars. I think there is about 30 jars in this picture and I believe we ended up with just about 200 jars, give or take a few.

Lori, such a good sport to transport the meat from the "bloody bath" to the ice chest to the kitchen. Not the job I would have most preferred but we all did a little of everything. Kind of gross to see that bathtub full of bloody water. We joked all day about that Brooke and Heber (we were at Brooke's house and Heber is her hubby) better not get in a fight and have the police called, cuz with all the DNA all over the place it would have been quite the seen, lol! I know kind of twisted synical thinking huh?

We had a good time, it took us 12 hours to do it all. We could hardly stand on our two feet by the end of the night, well except Shannon who was playing the wii at 9pm while we waited for the jars to finish pressuring, but with some energy strips, coke and dr. pepper we did pretty dang good! Look forward to our next canning adventure ladies.

What a MONDAY morning.....

So let me start, I woke up and didn't feel like eating (unusual for me) so I simply ate a plum, took a handful of different vitamins and headed to the gym to teach my class. I had no class, due to everyone being out of town, so I decided to just work out on my own. I couldn't figure out why but I kept feeling like I was going to puke, I wasn't working out THAT hard. Just about the end of the workout I couldn't make it any longer and made a dash to the bathroom. Then, I get the kids out of daycare, still not feeling well, and head to Albertsons where I have preordered 180 lbs. of beef, thats right 180 POUNDS. It was a great price and so a friend and 4 of her family members (friends too) and I decided to can some meat. So I am loading up this beef into my shopping cart(s) and it is gross and leaking blood on me and the kids and the floor, yuck!!! So we are checking out and we have to ring up each pkg. of meat since they are not exactly the same amounts, there is 24 of them. We are about 1/3 of the way through ringing them up and double bagging them and Ally says "mom, grady stinks." Well, you may think so what, you can change his diaper when you are done. Well, not so easy, he is now potty trained or mostly potty trained. He has an accident (poo) every once in a while. Of course today, that time would be when it happens. I offer to pay Cayden 2$ if he would take him to the bathroom, dump the underwear clean him up and put his shorts back on. He agrees and takes him and is gone no longer than 2 minutes and comes walking back with a disgusted look on his face and explains there is no way he can clean this one without poo getting everywhere. He says it is down his legs and everything. Oh brother, so I finish bagging this meat and paying for it (which took like 15 minutes), meanwhile telling Grady "don't move, stay still". I leave Cayden and Ally with the carts and head to the bathroom, Grady walking like a penguin in tow. I get in there and start stripping him and it is EVERYWHERE!!!! Up the back, down the legs, in the shoe, just everywhere. I toss the underwear, wrap up his clothes in paper towels, and start the wiping process. I had to use paper towels since the toilet paper would just rip. He starts crying that I am hurting him, and I keep reminding him "you shouldn' t have pooped in your underwear, huh?". I finally manage to get him all wiped off, after about 50 wet paper towels, no joking. Then I sit him in the sink to really clean him with soap. Finally, all clean. During this process I am thinking to myself " I have nothing to put on him" "I didn't bring any change of clothes" (We have been past this stage of training for a while). My only plan was to wrap him in paper towels and head out, just as I was about to do that I realized I had a sweatshirt, whew! I usually get cold after working out and sweating and then heading to a grocery store where it is cold and I was actually prepared for that and grabbed a sweatshirt. Yay, I am in luck, so I grab my sweatshirt and throw it on him, roll up the sleeves and head out. Wow, and this had all happened by 10:00 in the morning! It was definately a MONDAY!!!!!

Better Late than never....Ally's 7th birthday!!

Ally's 7th birthday!!! Only 2 months late,lol!! She is such a sweetie, we don't know what we would do without our little Ally girl!!

Here we are lighting the candles on her flower cake!! They could hardly wait another minute to eat!!

Here is all the girls after busting open the pinata and getting the goods.

Just before blowing out the candles, gotta love the one tooth in the front!!Claiming their candy! I felt bad, you know how pinatas usually take FOREVER to break, well not this one. Ally had a couple good swings and then the smallest of her friends got a couple and that was it, that was all she wrote. I guess as long as they got the candy they were happy!

Ally and a few friends and cousins before the party began.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR LITTLE PRINCESS!!!!!!!!!

We love you sweetie!

Pictures from family camping trip

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this picture of Travis and Ally. They have such a special relationship and she just cherishes her daddy!!

One day we went shooting and Cayden LOVED it, he did pretty dang good too for not ever shooting before.

This was at the top of Greens Peak. It was so pretty up here, you could see forever. This is "me-me" (my mom) with 11 of her 18 grandkids.

My hottie husband!!! I have to say it is kind of a turn on watching him shoot guns!!

Grady and my nephew Porter who are only about 3 1/2 months apart. They had a great time playing together, making mud, putting mud on eachothers heads and swinging in the hammock.

I also love this picture of the girls at the top of Greens Peak. They sure love eachother and have so much fun playing together, which I am grateful for since Ally doesn't have any sisters.

Our Family!!!!!

This little guy's favorite things are dirt and water so you can imagine how much fun he had in the mountains, especially when MeMe helped him make mud! Let's just say his face pretty much looked like this the entire 4 days

Another picture of Cayden shooting his dad's 22!! Way to go Cayden

FAMILY REUNION 09

Due to much grief about my blogging, or lack of, by my family (hm hm Sarah) while we were camping I decided to post. We just got back from our family reunion in the mountains. We went camping up close to Greer, Az and it was BEAUTIFUL!!!! The scenery doesn't get any better. We had good weather, good company, GREAT food, and a tent that didn't leak. What else do you need. Besides the enormous amount of BUGS and my poor dad not feeling well it was a flawless, much needed break! I am in the process of uploading pictures so once they are done and I figure out how to get them posted to where they show up I will.

help

Can anyone explain why my pictures don't show up on the last post? I don't understand, I have never had that happen before. Any help would be appreciated.

Memorial Day Fun!!

We had Travis's sisters two kids for the weekend and we had so much fun with them. They are great kids and we were glad we could help out and watch them. We hung out at the house for the weekend and went to Peter Piper Pizza and then on Monday we went to Trav's brothers house and had a BBQ with all 10 kids, wow! We spent (Travis even longer) hours filling up water balloons for the big showdown. We decided that the boys and girls would each have a base and they each had a cooler full of weapons (balloons) and they got to use their weapons on each other. Since the girls maybe had less chance of actually hitting the boys their base was loaded with a hose and a swimming pool as well to even the odds. This first picture is Gavin and Grady running away after their attempt to hit the enemy

Here are the girls at their base, loading up to head over to the battle ground

I love Grady's face here, he had JUST been sprayed with the hose and wasn't so sure he liked that.

Trav's wet face and chest after being hit by a balloon by Calvin, you will see later what happened to Calvin.

Ally really getting into it.

This was about the extent of Grady's involvement, he just grabbed a balloon, walked a few feet and threw it to the ground. He did try to hit the dog once, which was really funny

So Calvin, who is 10 years old, though it would be really funny to hit his dad and Travis but once he did...

It was payback time, and boy did he get it.