Our First AZ Camp Out

Before I get into this post, I just have to say--oh my goodness, it feels like it is about 1,000 degrees in my apartment. Last summer we tried to keep the A/C set at 78 normally, 76 at night, and 82 during the 'expensive time' (from 3-6 in the afternoon). Well this year, we are trying to convince ourselves that we should be more ambitious. Eighty normally, 80 at night, and maybe 82 during the expensive time. Whew, that is hotter than it sounds. The thermostat is in the hall, and the front rooms (living, dining, kitchen) are much warmer than the bedrooms and hall. So what this means is that we are going to have to hang out more in the back, take fans around with us, and try to avoid cooking anything hot. The added factor this summer is that I am planning on nursing a baby, so we will have to see how much sweat I can handle on me and her for that. Gross, sorry. The sad thing is that it is the end of April and we are just getting our first week of triple digits.  We are not even really tasting the hot weather yet. Sometimes, I just want to move back to Utah. :) 

I really shouldn't complain though. We had a fairly mild April. In contrast, we had a abnormally warm winter, and March started heating up fast. Everyone was pretty panicked because the last time Phoenix had that warm of a winter and spring, it got up to 125 in June and set records for how many days in a row it was 100 degrees or warmer. Thank heavens April was more mild. We have been able to just keep the windows open at night and let that cool air carry us through the day until evening again. Our lowest electricity bill ever here--less than $60!

Anyway, we are just starting to use the A/C night and day and it is getting a little warm for my pregnant self. I feel like I am running at least 10 degrees warmer than typical. Apparently pregnant women have 50% more blood than normal, and the increased circulation makes you warmer. Well, this time around, this is true for me for sure. There have been a few times that my veins are somewhat freakishly visible. Also, I am never cold in church anymore, which is crazy, because cognitively I know it runs about the same temperature as an ice box. Between John and I, I am always the one these days with the warmer feet. This is so opposite of my typical body! So, yeah, 10 degrees warmer than normal, at least!

Back to our family activity, John has gone camping several times since we moved to AZ because of his calling with the Deacons. The scouts are supposed to go camping once a month. Granted, he hasn't gone every single month, but has still gone camping fairly regularly. Especially in comparison to the rest of us, who haven't been camping in AZ since we moved here.

Well we decided to do a little overnight-er in a campground where John had actually been with the Scouts. It isn't too far away, and we are trying to save vacation days for when the baby comes. This campground is at the base of the Superstition Mountains. When John went with the Scouts they did a super rigorous hike up the mountain in the morning to Flat Iron. Well, needless to say, we were not that ambitious. :)

We really enjoyed ourselves though. We roasted hot dogs and tin foil veggies. We also made what is perhaps our favorite campfire treat--banana boats! Bananas stuffed with chocolate, marshmallow, strawberries, nuts, caramel, and coconut all wrapped up in tin foil and put in the fire until it is an ooey-gooey delicious mess. Mmmm-mmm!

The one drawback to our trip was that earlier that day, I took Eliza in for her 6 year well check-up. There I received a pamphlet on all of the poisonous things that live in the desert and info about calling poison control. There were a lot of pictures. Needless to say, there are a LOT of poisonous animals in the desert, and it turns out every single one of them kind of freak me out. It still makes me shudder. What awesome timing for our camp out in the desert!

Not very surprising that our little ones had a hard time going to sleep, but they made it there eventually. We really enjoyed seeing some stars (can't see many of those in Phoenix) and having a campfire!

The next day the kids woke us up bright and early for breakfast and our little hike. Even though it was just the end of March and we had come prepared with a lot of water and hats, it was still plenty warm on our hike.

Miriam especially took lots of breaks walking up the trail. She is getting just big enough now not to be carried very often.

 Four million people live in this valley!

 Red-cheeked momma and girls!

Sorry, girls! I passed on my red-faced genes to you both! This picture kind of makes me hate John just a little. He doesn't even look flushed!

 I loved seeing these cool mountains. 

Miriam (although not being super thrilled with the hiking idea) really, really did not want to turn around to go back. We won in the end though. (I think I bribed her with a treat. It is pretty shameful how often I resort to that with this kid. Probably nearly every day...yeah.)

We all really did enjoy this though. I thought the walk was so beautiful. Even though it doesn't look all that steep, there was a distinct difference walking down hill. Miriam called walking uphill, "the nonsense way." Practical girl. :)

A Girl of Many Hats

Kindergarten is so great! I love the half-day program here. There are only 6 students in Ellie's class, including her. Her teacher is great and seems to really care to get to know all of the families.

Of course Miriam couldn't be left out of the action.

She has come home with an excess of hats though. It got to the point where we had to take a picture then discard. The first three came from Dr. Seuss week. 

The 100th day of school.

Her birthday crown.

It was funny that during Spring Break, our lives really didn't change too much. I normally go exercise and shower while Eliza is at school, which is about all I have time to do. So I still did that during the break only Eliza went to the Kid's Club instead of school. We did do a science experiment about 'Walking Water.' They thought that was pretty cool.

 

Ellie girl finally cashed in all of those coupons for free pizza because of reading everyday. She is supposed to read for at least 15 minutes a day. In reality it is probably more like a couple of hours. Choosing to read is definitely not our struggle with this girl.

Walking water experiment!

Reward pizzas!

Miriam and her to-do list.

I can't believe my new little 6 year old lost her two front teeth! They came out less than a week apart. Actually, I pulled them out. The first one kept getting knocked around and was bothering her because it was so loose. So Eliza actually asked me to pull it. Came out, easy, peasy, lemon squeezy (in the words of my children). The second tooth was apparently being supported by the other one. After the first one was pulled, the second one hung at an angle until I pulled it. Oh that drove me crazy! Good thing it wasn't for very long.

When my mom visited us in February, we made a to-do list of things we wanted to do while she was here. Ellie was at school when we did this, but little Miriam heard us list things and wasn't too pleased at our chosen activities. :) She wanted to make a list of things to do too. I loved it.

Make towers
Eat chocolate
Play games
Bike ride
Treats
Smell something like roses
Craft
Science Center
See Grandpa

I think she had the right idea of what a fun week should be like with Grandma. Not things like grocery shopping, highlighting hair, etc. :) What a sweet girl!

Tonto National Monument

When my mom visited us in February we wanted to do a day trip somewhere on the Saturday she was here. We decided to go to Tonto National Monument. It is really amazing to me that people could exist down here in times before air conditioning. I am such a wuss.

Seriously though, I am not used to doing longer drives anymore. Our lives used to be such that we would casually drive an hour and 15 minutes up to visit family. Now this two hour drive felt like kind of a trial. On the positive, I really love driving out of the Phoenix valley and getting into the mountains in AZ. So beautiful and surprisingly diverse scenery. On the negative, I am pregnant and got car sick and didn't pack sufficient snacks. Those types of things make me grumpy. :)

We really did enjoy it though. We had to hike up to the cave where the cliff dwellings are, which was a humbling experience. I think I am in pretty good shape...until I try hiking somewhere. There are definitely different types of conditioning, and I am not conditioned to that type of exercise. My 6 year old on the other hand, did awesome!

The Native Americans that built and inhabited these ruins were Salados. They lived about 700 years ago. It is pretty amazing to me that these ruins have lasted so well. This is also the type of thing that reminds me how young our country really is.

Can you tell which child is more compliant with getting her picture taken? She loves to do a little posing.

The beautiful valley. See how far I hiked up?!

Miriam and Ellie want to help me write this post. Miriam says to write, "I love toys, and going camping."

Ellie says, "I love the hike. It was fun to go see the canyon all around us."

Miriam says, "We love to go camping because it is so fun, but we like to go to the playground, because that is even funner. We like to go swimming because it is fun."

Ellie says, "I liked going to that ruin because I like playing in the rooms and jumping off the stairs. It was really cool that they built it a long time ago."

Miriam says, "We like playing in the dirt because it was so fun. We love going to the park because it is fun. We made a chicky, and it has wings and legs and a mouth and eye balls, but the wing broke off. It's okay. We can glue it back on."

Ellie says. "I liked the walls of ruins, and it was especially fun because the guy there let me put my fingers on the walls where there were finger marks. My finger marks were just the same size, but the finger marks were a little bigger."

Miriam says, "It was so fun jumping off the steps that we couldn't even stop."

Turns out that the six year old is better at staying on topic than the three year old. :)

We took our new camera on the hike and had fun with the rapid shot feature.

I love hearing how my kids describe things. Although, it can be a bit discouraging sometimes, especially when they don't remember something that we put a lot of effort into for them.

Sometimes though I wish we had a recording of all of the funny things that they say. The other day while we were shopping Eliza told me that she had just pulled a shopping cart out of some rocks so someone wouldn't have to deal with that later. "I just can't help doing these little acts of service and being kind." The best part of this was her little self-satisfied tone. Oh what a girl!

Miriam is hilarious! Her favorite topic of conversation is all things about the gospel, but especially about Jesus and speculation about him. After I drop Ellie off at school most days I head to the gym which is about a 10 minute drive. During this drive to and from school, Miriam likes to talk about Jesus. I wish I could have recorded all of her questions. They are so funny.

"Mommy, can we talk about sharing the gospel?" "I can share the gospel by giving daddy a hug and a kissy goodbye in the morning."
"How did Jesus make the power lines? "
"Where was Jesus when he made the mountains?" (She wanted to know an exact location!)
"How did Jesus make the roads and the buildings?"
She was on a creation theme for a while. It still comes up pretty regularly.
"Did Jesus make our new baby?"

She gets so mad at me when I don't answer her questions to her satisfaction. Tonight at dinner she asked when Mary (the mother of Jesus) died. She also asked if Mary had taken off her clothes. (What the...?)

Miriam also talks about death a lot. It is a little morbid. There was a young mother in our ward that unexpectedly died, and she wanted to know all of the nitty-gritty details, including how the body was positioned and where she actually died. She prays pretty regularly that we will die and see Jesus again. Her prayers really are adorable though. It is like she knows all of the right phrases, but doesn't understand them well enough to use them in the right context.

What funny girls! I love my little family!

We only like to endanger their lives slightly by taking cool pictures of them. :)

One of my favorite little parts of this day trip was that the vegetation on the hike was pretty varied. They also had little labels for the types of plants posted, which my mom loved. What I learned (fortunately not from personal experience) is that Teddy Bear Cholla is awful, awful to get stuck on!

I liked looking through the new lens on our camera at the upper cliff dwelling that we didn't hike to, but is visible from the highway.

Pretty good zoom!

Arizona really can be beautiful!

6 Years Old

Oh this girl. I can't believe it has been 6 years since she was born! She is such a huge blessing in my life. Honestly I can't imagine life without her. She is so good. Not saying she always makes the very best choices, but she is deep-down good. She is kind and wants to make people happy. She is silly, goofy, and smart. I can't really describe how much I love her. 

I was talking to a friend about how we have astronomical expectations for our oldest children. That is so true for me. Eliza has always been so verbal, sensitive, and kind, that I just assume she is more mature than she really is. She is also so smart. She picks up things really quick and just wants to keep learning. I feel like my main regret with her is pushing her too hard on academics and behavior. Fortunately I feel like this last little while we have come to a better place with that.

She really does love learning though. She is constantly talking to me about numbers. "Mom, you only have 72 more years until you will be 100 years old." Thanks, kid.  "Mom, this equation is easy, peasy, lemon, squeezy."

She loves, loves, loves, to read. We often go to the library, and she brags to people that she can read five chapter books in one day. She complains to me often that I am always interrupting her reading...which is true. When you are reading every spare second of every day, your mom is going to interrupt you all the time. She gets in trouble pretty regularly for hiding somewhere and reading rather than doing what she is supposed to be doing (like getting ready to go to school). I realized the other day that I had become the stereotypical evil mother when I threatened to take away her books if she kept sneaking off to read rather than doing what she needed to do.

She still reads pretty small and simple books, with her favorite topics being magic, fairies, and mermaids. Recently she has really enjoyed reading the Chronicles of Narnia books, but I put a halt to it and am forcing her to listen to me read them to her. She was going through them so quickly that I was concerned she was missing a lot of it. I have really enjoyed reading them to her. I am surprised how much she understands of the plot.

Ellie says that her biggest wish is that magic would be real. :) She says that she is always thinking up stories in her head, but they are too long to write down. "It would probably take two whole pages of writing." :) Recently though she has started writing them down for her Kindergarten homework. So fun.

Her first story was about a leprechaun. I will leave her spelling errors. We are instructed as the parents to resist helping them spell words and just let use their sounds to figure out how to spell things.

Willy the Leprcon wolked throo the grass to the rainbow. As he wolked he nodist the rainbow culrd flower. The pot of gold wntid to be at the end of the rainbow. Willy was helping the pot of gold get ther. And they fownd the rainbow. Willy set the pot at the end of the rainbow. The rainbow yelld, "Hey what are you doing?" "Puting the pot of gold at the end of you." They strtid rguing becuze the rainbow wontid the flower ther. Willy finlly sed, "Let's do ene mne mini mo." So they did. The flower won so the rainbow won. The end. 

I told her to pose as she wanted to, so this is what she came up with. Love her. :)

When did she start looking so grown up? I took these picture on her birthday. Little Miriam had just woken up from a nap. :)

Best friends. :)

Shortly after this, she lost her two front, top teeth. So sad. Obviously she looks adorable both ways, but I am just mourning the loss of my little girl. Why does she have to grow up so fast?!

Ellie had big expectations for her birthday. On her New Year's interview this year she said the thing she was looking forward to the most this year was her birthday. She wanted the cake to be just so.

It was fun to have my dad here to celebrate with us. For her birthday we gave her princess Barbies and Legos. Miriam gave her Play-doh. And my dad gave her a collection of items from the local Savers. She loved it all!

I am thankful for this girl everyday! Happy birthday Ellie!