2010-It was a good year!

First day of school in January @ our new school in Scottsdale.

Spending the evening in Gold Canyon with my parents.

Mom and I tore up the joint with our piano duets!

Camping in Payson, AZ

Family Pictures at my Grandparents Ranch.

It's a century farm now and I LOVE that place!

Wedding in Wyoming = Great road trip across the west!

Celebrating 15 years of marriage.

Not too shabby for two young kids!

Dad teaching me how to make prickly pear jam and syrup!

He's amazing!

Grant playing Pop Warner Football.

Starting weight 85 pounds.

With milk shakes,

french fries,

rice and

protein shakes we got him all the way up to 105 pounds.

Two weeks after he finished his season, he was back down to 90 pounds.

The last swim...closing a chapter on our lives in Arizona.

Bittersweet for sure!

Moving...again!

I know 10 addresses in 15 years is a lot of change!

How lucky we are to have kids that have handled our adventurous spirits.

Halloween 7 days into a new neighborhood.

We met lots of neighbors and really saw how really great our new pad is!

(Billie is a vampire princess,

James is a Ninja Warrier

and

Grant was too cool to go Trick-or-Treating this year,

so he was our military escort)

My parents were able to come spend Thanksgiving with us.

We fried our turkey and everything else we made was totally delish!

It was fun to have Bill's grandma (and his parents) spend Christmas with us.

We finished this puzzle in 2 days and it was really hard!

Dad and the kids headed to a Bronco game.

They actually won.

I guess my family is a good luck charm for others too!

Ending the year with a nice yummy snow storm!

This is an omen of good things to come.

Adjustment

We have been in our new place for 3 weeks. Parts of the house are totally unpacked and parts of the house are still filled with boxes. I set my goal to be unpacked before Thanksgiving. I will definitely reach it in the areas that are important to eat a meal! :-)

Lots of people have asked how the kids are adjusting and I have to say that at this point it appears to be the best adjustment we have had. The kids have had a lot of changes in the last 3 years. We were not happy with our first neighborhood school in AZ so after 2 years we found a wonderful charter school 20 miles in town that we commuted them to. They left all their neighborhood friends and had to make great new ones. Then we made the decision to leave our far west valley home and move closer to work so we could have dad home more often (his commute was 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours one way). Once again we decided to pull them from the Charter school we loved and put them in our neighborhood school. The kids made more great friends their and we loved that we lived in the same neighborhood as most of them, so we had lots of play dates and walk home companions.

We are 2 weeks into school here, Billie and James had 3 days of school before they went off track but so far Billie has been on the phone with one of her new friends everyday and they have all made friends with a couple of the neighborhood kids. I had parent/teacher conferences with Grant's teachers and he is doing okay too. We have some things to work on, but for the most part he is making friends and jumping right in.

I don't think it is ever easy to make changes in life. Changes make you reach, stretch and grow. About 2 years into our time in Arizona we started talking about moving back north near our families and snow and the mountains. We wanted to make the change before the kids were in jr high so that this could be our "last" change. And here we are (4 1 /2 years later) and this change is good. The kids will do more than survive, they will thrive. We have been able to visit with family and friends. And it is so nice to be within 6-8 hours of our families. Because really when it comes down to it, that is what it important in our lives.

Life is an adventure just waiting to happen.

You can either be the driver of your own adventure

or you can take a back seat

and let someone else do the driving.

Our first snow!

Snowing on the house!

I have some pretty excited people at my house.

Soup is simmering on the stove.

Biscuits are baking in the oven.

I know it is crazy to be excited to be cold,

but after 6.5 years in the blasted heat,

this is definitely a welcome change.

And I am sure that

our mountain view will return

tomorrow.

After the snow shoveling lessons have been given!

Relocating....Again

I just know that somewhere in my genealogy there was a gypsy.

A beautiful, colorful spirited gal who roamed the earth.

In our short 15 years of marriage, we have had 10 addresses.

Sweet!

I must be channelling her in my dreams, because we are once again "relocated."

This time, my life has brought me full circle.

Back to my birth-country Colorado.

We have been here 1 week and already it is home.

I am loving turning on the fire place first thing in the morning, sipping my warm beverage letting the day warm up around me.

We live in a lovely hilly neighborhood where we have a view of the snow topped rocky mountains right off the front porch.

I told Bill that I find it incredible to have to go to the grocery store and see the mountains. :-)

If I am channelling my gypsy ancestor,

I hope that she will be settled here.

Because we plan to call this place home for some time!

Summer Road Trip Part II

On the second part of our road trip, we drove a little north through Idaho and then back into Wyoming. We had to make a little stop by the side of the road...no one vomitted BUT a few of us had to get out of the car and get some fresh air. It was worth the stop for the scenery how ever.
We continued on and met up with some of Bill's family who are "summering" in Star Valley. We had a lovely lunch visit with Cindy and Scott and Taylor. We just love you guys to pieces. Thanks for letting us invade your camper space for the afternoon!

As we drove through the teton Mountains we just looked and looked and looked. We kept telling the kids, this is what "real" mountains look like. This was by far our most favorite part of our scenic road trip. How can you not love that! We sure do.

Beauty!

We decided to drive through Dubois Wyoming and get a quick bite to eat. Over $100 later we experienced a shack by the creek, hot cocoa and tea, and very exquisite Wyoming Cuisine. I think everyone will remember freezing our trashes off at that restaurant by the creek.

What's a late night road trip with out some throwback sodas and peanut m&m's.

We visited the natural hot spring in Thermopolis, WY. Right next door they have a bison grazing area that you can drive through and see the big beasts. We only saw a couple of bison and I missed the picture. But my favorite part was this little corner where all this metal is stashed. It's kind of a where's waldo of aging cars and misc metal things. I thought it was so cool!

We took a pit stop in the small "blink and you'll miss it" town of Kirby Wyomng.
The new home to Wyoming Whiskey.
This is the first legal distillery in Wyoming.
The master distiller was gracious enough to take us on a tour and show us the process.

Here the mixture is in a 2500 gal tank. The yeast keeps it mixing and brewing.
The whole place smelled like fresh bread.
So yummy!

Here are the first barrels...taking their time with the aging process.
Wyoming Wisky has a beautiful facility in a beautiful part of the country!
It was a very education experience for all.

Summer Road Trip Part I

We decided to escape the terrible triples of an AZ July and road trip north. We drove through northern Arizona, southern UT, up the scenic highway 87 on the eastern side of UT Grandma & Grandpa S's place in northern UT.

~We played road trip bingo,

~ did brain teasers,

~listen to our ipods,

~had "poem hour"

(I read random poems every hour or sometimes 2 if we missed an hour because I was napping)

~took naps,

~~~

At Grandma and Grandpa's we:

tested out the boat on the river

Received tractor driving lessons

Used up every single band-aid Grandma stashed on the business of scootering. I was sympathetic for about 10 minutes and then I decided "someone" needed a lesson in toughen-up-cookie.

Summer Loving

Summer has been in full swing around this house for quite some time.

"look serious please"

It hit me the other day that I am a mother of kids!

No more babies, no more toddlers and no more little kids.

Big kids.

Wowzer!!

Our amazing attempt at a group photo.

How did I get so lucky?! Everyday it amazes me!

My Peoples

People will forget what you said,

People will forget what you did,

but

People will never forget how you made them feel.

Maya Angelou

The kids eating while we were camping up in Payson.

It got down to 29 degrees and was snowing when we left.

Brrr.

^^^^^

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These are my peoples.

I really hope that one day they can forget that I tend to be a yeller.

I hope that they never forget what my hugs felt like when they were having a bad day!

I hope that they remember what it felt like when others were unkind

and they try to be nice just because there aren't enough nice people in the world.

Sweet Little Library

This is our new library!

I love it!!!

I have always loved the library.

I wish I could check out every book.

I have made going to the library one of my main priorities with the kiddos this hot summer.

The best part is they have kids activities in the afternoon!

Hottest part of the day at the cool library, sign us up!

Last week they had a wii and a rock band set up on the projection screens.

This week the kids watched Where the Wild Things Are on the big screen.

Put this on the list of things I am learning to love about Desert Living!

Strawberries

I love spring

Even living here in Arizona,

I love the warm days and still cool nights.

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I love that I remember to stop

and

look around at all the beautiful flowers

and

trees and shrubs that seem to be in full bloom right now.

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I love that I can go to the local grocer

and

find stacks and stacks of strawberries for a steal.

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I love washing them.

I love taking my little pairing knife

and

cutting off just the greens like my dad taught me.

(You poke your knife in and cut in a little circle around the leaves.)

We don't waste any of that strawberry goodness.

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I love pureeing them in my blender

so they are just the right texture

for perfect freezer jam or smoothies.

I was able to make 5 batches of strawberry freezer jam

and two ice cube trays of strawberry puree,

perfect for summer smoothies.

(I like to puree fruit and freeze it into ice cube trays. When it is frozen I pop them out into freezer bags and I can mix and match with a little bit of yogurt and honey to make the perfect fruity smoothy without any chunks.)

Women

"Women! I just don't get them. WO-men!"

~James, age 8

What do you do with fallen fruit?

Pick it up and have a grapefruit war, of course!

Scheduled to death with signs posted

Due to “work circumstances”, I *got* to be a solo parent for a little span of time.

The timing is not exactly what I hoped for, but it is what it is.

I have been thinking and contemplating it for weeks.

Trying to rack my brain to make everything the easiest that I could.

I have always considered myself a strict scheduler. When the kids were little we ate breakfast at 8 am, park at 10 am, lunch at 12, naps til 2 (or later if their little bodies slept).

This lasted until they each entered kindergarten and

then I still continued this with the remaining at home kids.

Then we would eat dinner at 5:30, have baths and bedtime at 7 SHARP.

There are still days when the kids are in their beds reading at 7.

But now we don’t push lights out until 8.

Yep even today 8 o’clock is our bedtime.

My personality type tells me that I thrive being scheduled. The times in my life when I am out of control is when I let the schedule go. So in an effort to keep myself in control while we are going through this “work circumstance” I got to scheduling. (Kind of funny considering that my husband is a professional scheduler! But believe me it doesn’t work to delegate this schedule to him. I need to be the one in control.) So schedule I did.

I scheduled our meals. (Kraft Foods)

This is the easiest meal planning I have ever done.

And most if it is in my pantry bought very cheaply with coupons.

Because I know the kids are easy, then I too scheduled out my meals.

Healthy meals make it a piece of cake to get myself ready for work everyday.

The next thing I scheduled was our after school hours. With kids in 3 different grades, our homework loads vary. I can’t necessarily schedule this time out by the minute. But I can divide out their chores and then after their chores are done it is outside to play and enjoy the down right gorgeous Arizona weather we are experiencing. Because at our house we have to rotate the boring chores among the kids. This is what I came up with.

Chore Charts. They rotate certain boring things every week.

My favorite part…helping with Moms chores.

I have to admit that one of the “perks” I find about being a working mom (full or part) is that EVERYONE has to pitch in to keep the house as clean and as organized and tidy as it took mom to do while everyone else worked and attended school. You know, the kids think the magic elf came in and cleaned up their room while they were away. I have realized what a dis-service this is to everyone. No one appreciates mom, kids get lazy, mom gets frustrated, complains to dad, dad gets frustrated and it makes for a not so happy home. So chore charts we have.

My next favorite part is the chalkboard message area at the very bottom.

This is the area that anyone can write little notes to the kids telling them what a great job they did with their chores. Everyone loves a little positive feedback.

The next thing I realized in my pondering, the more I write things down, the less I have to yell. Hence this was created. No more repeating, I just have to put my mommy eyes on and point. Seems to work rather well.

(I covered the ugly brown frame with this cute duct tape. Perfect for spring and summer!)

So here we are, skating through this experience scheduled to death with signs posted.