Pine, AZ where Blake’s grandfather owns a cabin. It took us about 10.5 hours, but the drive was well worth it. Along the way we stopped near Albequrque to look at a house Blake’s sister was considering to buy—they we moving there soon. The house had been vacant for over four years so all sorts of little critters had started to make a home there including a lizard that Blake caught as soon as walked in the door. Luckily Kelsey had brought the bug home she got for Easter to have somewhere for the lizard to go. So he/she came with us to Pine. We arrived on a Saturday meeting up with Blake’s brother Trent and his wife Emily and kids Heidi and Nathan; Blake’s sister Monica and her husband Matt and kids Oakley and Payton; and Matt and Monica’s friends also came up with their two little girls—one of them was named Miley like our Mylee. In fact Mylee started calling her My Miley. We had such a wonderful time. We had a wonderful dinner and enjoyed visiting into the night. It was so nice to stay up and enjoying playing games with adults and enjoying adult conversation. It was almost like therapy for me!
The next morning we went to church, but only stayed for sacrament meeting because our girls weren’t feeling well due to lack of sleep. It was a nice Sunday. We enjoyed visiting with one another and again staying up late playing games. Trent and Emily left that evening to go back home.
The next morning we went to Tonto Natural Bridge State Park, about 15 to 20 minutes away from Grandpa’s cabin. Before we left though, my brother-in-law Matt pulled out his workout video insanity. Me, Blake and Kelsey did it with him that morning. It was so cute to see Kelsey try to do all the different moves.
When we finally made it over to the state park, we ate a sack lunch and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. The park features a rock bridge that had formed over the years due to erosion. We all hiked down a carefully carved out path to see underneath the bridge below. The bridge formation was beautiful. It even had a tiny stream of water that cascaded over the top of the bridge creating a beautiful little waterfall. Everything below the water was covered with green moss and plants. There were all sorts of neat caverns and pools of water underneath the bridge. We all really enjoyed it. Eventually we made it back up the trail—it was a lot easier going down!! I’m glad Blake was carrying Lanaea on his back and not me! We found another short little hike that led to another small waterfall on the other side of the park. We all then went back to the cabin to enjoy a campfire, smores, a yummy dinner, and of course talking and board games through the night. I should note that our girls were on cloud nine, including Lanaea. They loved playing on the giant swings, playing in the woods and enjoying nature. Each night we also kept warm from a pot belly stove that Blake and Matt kept stocked with wood.
The next day Blake’s Grandma and Grandpa showed up to visit and be with us for a while. That morning we had planned to go shooting with Grandpa. Grandpa had been to a spot to shoot but couldn’t remember where it was exactly. We took a couple of wrong turns and never ended up finding the spot he remembered, but we eventually found a spot that was open enough to shoot. This was manly time!! Blake even got me out there to shoot—only my second time ever. I shot a 22 and a hand gun (I’m sure it has a name, but I couldn’t tell it to ya). I mostly enjoyed seeing Kelsey interact with her Great-Grandfather—it was so precious. Monica and her friend had stayed back at the cabin with the rest of the kids. We mostly relaxed the rest of the day and all of our company left for home that evening. It was nice to have a quite evening together with just our family.
The next day we went hiking up the mountain that backed Grandpa’s cabin. The terrain was a little rough, but we eventually made it to the top and back down. We then hiked to what was left of a little creek and let the girls play in the water for a while. We spent most of the rest of the day relaxing and enjoying nature. Blake even caught another lizard that day which Kelsey was thrilled about! The next morning we left for home. Stopping at a Navajo Indian Jewelry store along the way where Blake got me a really pretty coral ring for Mother’s Day. We hope to make a trip to Pine at least once a year while we are still living in Lubbock.
On May 26th, Kelsey had her end of school party. All the kindergarten teachers had planned the event. The kids had coke floats, but had sent Kelsey with rootbeer so she could have rootbeer instead of coke. I was so proud of her that she even asked for rootbeer before I arrived at the party. She knew she wasn’t supposed to drink coke. Don’t ask me why they wanted to give coke to 5 and 6 year olds! The kids were also given spray bottles and had a full blown water fight. It was really cute seeing the teachers get involved. Kelsey had a great time. Mylee eventually got into the fun too and borrowed Kelsey’s spray bottle for a while. I had to crack up though when I found Kelsey a couple of times tending to a little garden she had created in the rocks and dirt!! All the kids had a really fun time. 
Mylee getting into the action.
This is SOOO Kelsey!!
Kelsey getting Mrs. Addison--one of her teacher's aids
On May 20th, Kelsey’s school had their annual field day which they called “Buddy Fun Day”. Kelsey had all of her activities in the morning which unfortunately happened to be freezing that day!! I arrived at her activities a little late, but thought it might be a good idea to bring a change of clothes because a paper had mentioned the kids would get wet. When I arrived they had a jumper set up with a pool of water at the end. Kelsey and her little buddy had gone down and were soaked. Kelsey was freezing and shivering uncontrollably. I was a little upset that they would continue to have such an activity for these small children on such a cold day. I had Kelsey go into the bathroom and change into the clothes I had brought her and had her wear her jacket. Things went a lot better from then on. She went to a station where she had to keep a fire ball candy in her mouth and who ever kept it in the longest won—she won, but mostly because she didn’t realize she could spit it out—I had taught her good manners!! She also played a game where she had to a roll a tire, jump in a potato bag and get pulled on a little cart. It was a really fun day, just cold.
As a family we celebrate the Easter bunny on Saturday in an effort to focus on the Savior and His Resurrection on Sunday. I had gathered a bunch of candy and small prices with my couponing for the holiday. This all the items that would typically go in an Easter basket were hidden around our yard and our girls searched for all the items together with one large Easter basket that they were to share. They had a lot of fun. Some of their favorite treasures were battery operated princess toothbrushes, a bug home, lady bug binoculars and the ultimate favorite, the movie “Tangled”. That movie is now our favorite Disney movie. I LOVE it as do the girls!!! I didn’t have any Easter dresses for the girls this year, but they still looked beautiful in some dresses that were handed down from my little sisters. For dinner we had Prime Rib and had resurrection rolls which are dinner rolls rolled over a large marshmallow. When you back the roll, the marshmallow melts and leaves a hole inside the roll. The marshmallow of course represents Christ, the dough represents the cave he was buried in and the melted marshmallow and the resulting hole in the roll represents Christ’s resurrection. The girls LOVED this! It’s now going to be a yearly tradition for us.
On April 8, some friends from work invited us to go to Palo Duro Canyon near Amarillo, Texas. We were thrilled to have a change of pace and get our camping gear out for the first time since moving to Texas. Last year was mostly spent helping Blake get better—I’m happy to report he is doing extremely well!! The drive to Palo Duro took us about 1.5 hours—the bad part—our air conditioner had broken a couple of days before!! We managed to survive though. The girls LOVED our tent and thought it was so cool!! I brought hot dogs and cut up veggies for dinner. Lanaea devoured it up—as you can see she didn’t stay clean very long LOL!! We spent the rest of the evening calming Mylee down because she was scared of our friend’s dog, going on a short hike and enjoying the experience of camping. Lanaea was probably the most fun to watch. She handled camping so much better and flawlessly then I ever expected her to. She was lovin’ life!! She enjoyed playing in the dirt and pointing out all the ants to us. Nighttime wasn’t as seamless as I would have hoped because Lanaea got cold and ended up sleeping with me through the night which meant little to no sleep for me. Kelsey and Mylee did great and slept the night through.
We thought the drive to camp was bad, the drive was 10 times worse going back when we had been in the heat of the day with no relief from our car air conditioner. We ended up stopping at a gas station to get the girls icee’s to cool off. Then they eventually got cool enough to fall asleep. Sweet little girls! After our trip, Blake got all the supplies he needed to fix our AC. He ended up replacing our compressor and re-doing the whole AC system. He was so proud that he had figured out how to fix it. Our mechanic had quoted us at least $1,000 and we didn’t pay nearly that much for Blake to fix it himself.
Both Lanaea and Kelsey are my fearless children. Lanaea has not concept of fear or her limitations. She’s constantly climbing on everything, chairs being her latest favorite. It scares me to death, but this seems to egg her on even more. As I come running her way she’ll stand up on her little chair and let go of her hands an clap as though she saying, “Ha, ha, look at me Mom!!”.
Lanaea with a purse, a hand mirror, and work goggles around her neck--it's a typical day. 