Merry Christmas!

We hope you all had a marvelous day (we did and I swear I will post all the pictures and videos and stories from this holiday season as soon as I have a spare minute!!)!

Love to all!

Music Box and Ornament Exchange

Madison has recently decided that she wants to be a princess, and her friend Brittlee shares her passion… as you can imagine, this leads to some pretty fun play dates! Last week I gave Madison my old jewelry box from when I was younger. It’s one of those that wind up and when you open it, the ballerina spins to “I could have danced all night”. Those girls were SO excited to play with it! They were actually really great about taking turns too; I never heard a single argument out of them over it (which if you know these girls is pretty hard to believe!!)! Since that day Madison is rarely without her new music box. She keeps it on her nightstand so she can listen to it when she goes to sleep and play with it first thing when she wakes up. Too funny!

This weekend we traveled back to visit family again, this time for an ornament exchange with our cousins. My ornaments turned out dang cute but were SUCH A PAIN TO MAKE!! Next year I'll go with a MUCH simpler idea! :0) It was a great evening (great food, great fun, great games, great ornaments, great prizes, great dessert… just you know, great!). I’m excited to keep the tradition up! Everyone’s ornaments turned out SO COOL! It was really fun seeing what everyone brought, and well, seeing everyone! We never get the chance to see that side of my family so that in itself was a treat!

Now knowing that Ryan is giving us his car, I paid close attention to it when we drove it! I know, I’m such a dork but I’m SO EXCITED!! Less than a month! WOOHOO!!

And finally, I took the time to capture Madison playing outside in the wind today and the pictures turned out so fun I wanted to share them. Enjoy!

Halloween, New Furniture, and other fun stories…

I know I know I know! I’ll try to be better at posting!!

That said, now I can get on with catching up!! :) Every year on the Sunday before Halloween, we go to Russell and Jonnet’s house and carve pumpkins. EVERY YEAR I mess mine up and it is SO frustrating! This year I chose my pattern VERY carefully and FINALLY broke the mold! Mine is the owl and he looked AWESOME!! Clint’s is the melting face (his name was Pat E. Melt) and Madison’s was the flag with the stars. Next year I’ll learn and just have one pumpkin for Maddie and I to share because I’m always the last one at the table carving!

So we took the pumpkins outside to light them and Madison yells, “Cool pumpkins Mom!” and her echo yelled back. She paused… and looked around… and said, “Mom! There are friends out here!” Then she started yelling all kinds of things to her “friend”. When she was ready to come inside she yelled to her “friend” that she was going home. Of course, her friend yelled back the same thing and Maddie turned to me and said, “Mom, my friend is going home too!” She was SO funny!

For Halloween Madison decided she wanted to be Jasmine. She is going through this major Jasmine phase right now (intermingled with Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty), and we just happened to have a Jasmine costume from my sister Yvette that her daughter Braquel wore when she was 3 (she just turned 13)! We got SO many compliments on it and Maddie was the only Jasmine we saw. She loved her costume and had a blast at the Trunk-or-Treat and the Football game that night.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Madison went to her best friend Brittlee’s 3rd birthday party a few weeks ago and the whole thing was Princess themed. It was SO DANG CUTE! I stayed to help Michele and it was so much fun for those little princesses! They decorated foam crowns, learned how to dance like princesses, opened presents and had a piece of a castle cake, complete with Cinderella on the steps! Michele made it and I thought it turned out pretty darn cool!

Madison got a dollhouse from Jonnet and has amazed me at how mature her level of play is with it. She set up all the furniture so it formed a wall and sat all the dolls in chairs and faced them to different things, like the Dad was petting the dog and the daughter was watching TV and the Mom was in the bathtub and the baby was standing on a step stool looking at herself in the mirror while Maddie said, “Can you see yourself? You’re so pretty!” She is so smart it amazes me everyday… These random pictures are Clint showing his Rough Rider Pride, the cool moon we had the other night, and Madison chillin’ in Mom and Dad’s bed watching Lion King!

Now for the REALLY fun stuff! This last weekend we went to visit my family and to watch our local high school state football game (we lost, it was a really sad game). My sister Yvette and her husband Troy called us earlier in the week and gave us some pretty drop-your-jaw kind of news: they decided to give us a couch and chaise lounge set! These are NICE NICE NICE!! They are SO comfortable and so pretty and still look brand new – they’re the micro fiber or durapella fabric that lasts like a million years and still looks perfect. We are SO excited cuz the furniture we’ve had since we got married were hand-me-downs (a white pleather couch that my parents bought when I was in first grade and a pink chair my uncle gave us that was probably from the 70’s) that I had re-covered and were starting to look pretty shabby. And the chaise has been sat in more by Clint than by anyone in their family, so he’s super excited to have that here! Here are the pics of our NEW furniture!! WE LOVE THEM!!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

While we were visiting, Yvette and Tawnya’s community had an HOA sponsored Fall Festival at one of their parks. Everything was free and everything was SO MUCH FUN! They had a Sponge Bob blow-up jumping/ball castle that Madison spent an hour playing in, a blow-up obstacle course that Clint totally cheated and beat me in (in the video, right after I fall – SO embarrassing by the way! – I turn around and tell the poor girl behind me “There’s some crazy lady on this thing! Look out!”), and a contest thing that is hard to describe, so just watch the video! It was so much fun! On the second try in that thing, Clint and I both hurt our heads, you can see us both reach up to rub them! But I beat him that round!! Then Madison got to ride a Shetland Pony named Charm. She thought she was SO big!

That night my poor sister Tawnya let slip a surprise 2 years in the making… My brother Ryan loves to give a "WOW!!" Christmas present every year, and this year he is giving us his car for Christmas! It’s a 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid… I know!! This car gets like 40 mpg and is SO pretty! I had NO IDEA and she accidently let it slip. I feel bad for her, and SO BAD for Ryan that his freakin’ AWESOME surprise got ruined. He was going to wrap up the key and give it to me when we go down the weekend before Christmas for our family party, and when I opened it and had that, “What the heck?” look on my face, he was going to tell me to look outside and have a big red bow on the car! How COOL would that have been? He said that when he bought the car he got it with the intent to give it to me when he moved back here from California. I’m really sad the cat’s out of the bag, but I’m super excited for my new car! His actual original plan was to give our car to my nephew Brad (who is turning 16) and have him open up our car keys, and when I was like “Hey! Aren’t those MY car keys?” then he’d give me the box. But our car is having problems, we just had to put $700 into it a few weeks ago. So Ryan didn’t want to give Brad a car that would cost more in repairs than it’s worth. Plus my dad just gave him a beater truck that he loves so now he doesn’t need the Malibu. SO, we’re going to sell the Malibu and use the money for Christmas or Clint’s truck or Adoption or whatever! We are SO EXCITED and I CANNOT wait for Christmas just that much more!!

I seriously have the most awesome family on the planet, don’t you agree?!

This is too funny!

I'm sorry, but I just heard the best joke ever and I had to share it!!

Shrek, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are all eating dinner together. Shrek tells the other two "I wish I knew if I was the strongest creature alive!" Brad shares a similar sentiment by stating, "I wish I knew if I was the most handsome man alive!" "That's so strange!" Angelina says. "I was just thinking about how I wish I knew if I was the most beautiful woman alive!" A waitress overhears this conversation and tells them they should go see the magic mirror on the wall. They decide this is a great idea and go their separate ways for the night.

The next morning they meet together to eat breakfast at the same restaurant. Shrek slaps Brad on the back and says proudly, "I was right!! I AM the strongest creature alive!" Brad laughs and says, "And I'm the handsomest man alive!" They both turn to Angelina Jolie and see that she's glaring at her plate. "What did the mirror tell you?" Shrek asks...

Her response - "Who the hell is this Tiffany chick?!"

Ha ha! I thought that was pretty great!

Family Photos

Our family is TOO DANG CUTE!! We spent about an hour last Wednesday taking pictures. Our friend Michele did an awesome job capturing the sweetness, tenderness and goofiness that adds up to US! Maddie wasn’t exactly in the mood to smile at first, but as she got comfortable with the whole thing, she was all grins, but all energy too and would NOT HOLD STILL!! It was a lot of fun and I’m so excited that we got so many good pics. Here they are for your enjoyment!

On a side note, Madison is doing GREAT potty training! She was doing ok in Pull-Ups and I was getting frustrated because we weren’t making any real progress… So I took a gamble and put her in panties. You know, sometimes gambles pay off! She HATES being wet or dirty and takes after her Mom when it comes to messes (this kid is already straightening the kitchen towel on the oven handle and smoothing out the rugs on the floor…) so I figured that the feel of water, well, pee would drive her crazy and I was SO RIGHT!! I don’t know what upset her more, the fact that SHE was a mess or that the FLOOR was a mess! That first day we went through 4 pairs of panties (each accident was smaller and smaller until she literally started squeaking when a teaspoon-full amount came out!), the second we went through 2, and she’s been fabulous ever since! I still put her in Pull-Ups when she sleeps or travels, but she’s awesome about asking to go potty even when we’re out and sometimes wakes up to pee then goes back to sleep. She’s had two days about a week apart that almost kicked my butt, but I’m learning patience and she’s probably getting cavities from all the M-n-m’s she’s been earning! She still hasn’t mastered the whole poop in the potty thing, but she tries really hard! I think we’ll have it down in a few weeks.

Another reason to be excited - starting in January, the $ that we were spending on diapers will start going toward dance class! Maddie and her best friend will be starting next semester and I am SO looking forward to all the little costumes and recitals… Can this all really be starting ALREADY? Where did my baby go? When did my toddler turn into a little girl… I mean a big girl! :0) All of you with babies, enjoy it while you can because one day you’ll suddenly look at your baby and find you have what I have… an independent, self-sufficient (with a stool), curious, mind-boggling, awesome KID running around in princess panties, eating at the table like Mommy and Daddy, dressing herself (except the buttons), and remembering EVERY LITTLE THING or even worse REPEATING EVERY LITTLE THING!! Trust me, it’s gone before you know it, but I’ve loved EVERY MINUTE!!!

Playing Catch-Up

So much has happened over the last few weeks and I have been so busy that it has sadly passed by without being posted here for all you avid readers of our blog. So terribly sorry! :0) Madison is asleep so we will see how far I can get on this catching up spree…

Make a Smilebox slideshow

August 23rd (the Saturday after our Havasupai excitement) was a great day for adventure, or so Clint and his friends thought! They decided to ride mountain bikes down the mountain, which probably would not have been a problem, except they took a wrong turn at one point and ended up on a trail that isn’t so much a biking trail as it is metal stuck into a giant cliff face with rocks piled on it pretending to be a trail! THEN, to top that off when they did make it back to the trail, two of the guys riding in front of Clint bumped a beehive and royally ticked off all the bees! Clint starts yelling “Bees! Bees! AAAAAAH!” and takes off. Our friend Parker is in front of him and starts pedaling as fast as he can, but can hear Clint gaining on him. He starts wondering why Clint’s bike isn’t catching his back tire when Clint zooms past him… on FOOT! THEN Clint outstrips the guy on the bike in front of Parker and keeps going! He had a helmet on and the bees were up inside stinging his head so he thought the whole swarm was still surrounding him! I can’t believe that he outran two guys pedaling DOWNHILL on bikes! My little gazelle! All in all, they ditched 3 bikes and averaged 15 stings each. Owie! (Poor Andy, it was his birthday!) Later they had to return to get the bikes, luckily the bees were MIA, but the truck broke down. It was definitely exciting!

Make a Smilebox postcard

Some friends of ours came into possession of an extra twin bed and dinette set so guess who got to enjoy the riches? Yeehaw! We did some switching around and ended up with Andy and Michele’s old dinette set (which is BEAUTIFUL!) and put our old one on the corner – it disappeared overnight! Maddie was pretty excited for her “BIG big girl bed” and Mommy had to make her a new bed set. I picked out one I liked from Pottery Barn and with Clint’s aunt’s help figured out the design and size for it and got all the fabric on a Wednesday. The following Wednesday it was finished! It was SO MUCH WORK! But so worth it! I cut out flowers and birds and ironed them onto the squares, then did decorative stitches around each one. For the stems I sewed on some scrapbooking fuzzy string, and for the legs on the birds I used ricrac. Then I quilted around each square and each bird and flower. (That was the hardest part!) I did a pillowcase and a throw pillow to go with it, and it matches what she had in there before so I can still use those throw pillows too! It was a fun project and I’m glad I did it, but I don’t think I’ll do anything as involved for a LOOONG time!!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Labor Day Weekend was fun, we did our traditional trek up the mountain. This time we were joined by all of Clint’s family and that was great! There were only 2 drawbacks, our campsite was far away from everything else and so was kind of isolated, and it rained pretty much the WHOLE TIME. That was miserable! Everyone went up a day before I did because I was sick (I think that blanket tried to do me in!) and the night that I missed was horrible! Everything got wet, the storm kept waking everyone up, and then it was so muddy and cloudy that the morning wasn’t much fun either. We had a birthday party for Clint’s nephew, and Jonnet gave him Moon Sand, which Madison and he loved! They made the biggest mess! Good thing they only opened one bag! It was almost Russell’s birthday and Clint’s sister Missy had got him a present too, a cool beans flashlight that is magnetic on the bottom! The boys and Missy played Frisbee since no one had a football, which is always a joy to watch! :0) Madison and I came home Sunday morning because her runny nose had turned into a chest cold and we were both feeling pretty gross. Monday the sun finally came out and dried up all the rain (any one else singing about spiders?) and Clint’s brothers thought it would be great fun to ride down the hill on Tonka trucks! I’m sad I missed that! Too fun.

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Thursday was Clint’s birthday (27 years old! I told him that 26 is still young but 27 is OLD!) and we had a party for him Friday night. Any chance we have to get together with our friends, eat pizza, play games, eat brownies and ice cream… we are SO there! You’d NEVER be able to tell what this kid likes to do based on what he got; a backpacking tent, 2 boxes of shotgun shells, a quail call, and a new day pack for hiking. See what I mean? :0) We had a lot of fun with the quail call, Parker’s was the best, followed by Madison! Maddie got him some candy and I got him new blades for his electric razor. (I know, exciting eh? But he needed them and they are expensive, so that’s what he got!)

I believe I should be pretty much caught up at this point… if not I’ll post more later! Hasta!

I'm a canner!

I had every intention of waking up early this morning to start canning an array of apple products... Madison slept in until 7:20 and "spoiled" all my plans! (Oh, it was HEAVENLY!) :0)

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

We started off by washing all the apples, which we bought for only $12 a box because they were the "left overs" and so were kinda scary lookin', but we didn't mind, you cut off and out all the scariness anyway! Then we stuck 'em on the apple peeler doohicky and twist the handle and voila! You have yourself not only a peeled apple but a cored one as well! At this point, we took a break and fed the peels to Russell's cows. That was pretty fun watching them run eachother over trying to get to those apples first! Madison even tried to feed a calf part of an apple, brave little girl! So, back to the apples... now you finish de-scarying them, boil them and add all the spices. Next, carefully put the apple goop in the prepared jars, put the lids on, steam 'em, and let them seal. I have to tell you, the "pop" sound they make is the best sound in the world to hear when you're canning! We made 13 quarts of apple pie filling, 9 pints of apple sauce and have a crock pot of apple butter simmering overnight that (I think) will make 6 pints. And guess what?! They all sealed (so far)!! Yeehaw! I am definately pround of myself today.

Disclaimer: Just FYI, we aren't keeping all of this apple stuff! Most of it will be Christmas presents!

Havasupai: Boom Di Ada!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

WOW! What a weekend! We had a pretty uneventful drive until we got to the turn off to the hilltop, and then we saw 5 bull elk! The one we actually stopped and took a picture of was at least a 5 pointer! They were all huge and beautiful. We got to the top at 12:30ish and decided to try to catch some Z’s before starting the hike in. The mosquitoes were so loud and obnoxious we pulled our blankets over our heads and tried to sleep anyway. Clint had had a Monster to keep him awake while driving, and I was so excited to start that neither of us slept very well. Finally, at 3 we packed up and started down. We were worried about my knees hurting with all the jarring and the constant downward angle, but they actually felt great, our shoulders on the other hand… OWIE! We were a little worried about not having enough water on the way out, so we hid 2 liter bottles up under a rock overhang and hoped they would still be there when we came back through. I was wearing a headlamp and 2 bats kept circling me! They were eating all the bugs, but kept getting closer and closer to my hands! It was a little freaky! Most of the hike was really quiet, but about ¾ mile from the village, we started to hear a small trickle of water. We had to cross it at one point, but it was so small we just hopped over. After that, we took a rest on a HUGE rock. The hike in wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, we only had to take 3 breaks and averaged 2 mph. We made the 6 miles to the village in 3 hours and then had to wait until about 7:30 for the office to open. It was so funny, there were LDS kids EVERYWHERE! We ran into our best friend’s cousin (small world!) and his new wife. Once we got our passes, (the lady misread Clint’s handwriting, so we were Mr. and Mrs. Woody for the weekend!) we headed down to the campgrounds. This part of the hike was awful! 2 more miles of soft, soft sand all down, down hill! We crossed over 2 bridges, a cliff you could look down and see a small stream at the bottom, and the wall on the other side was rocks and trees, and water was pouring out of the trees down the rocks. It was so pretty! Then we passed a cemetery, Havasu Falls, a mule corral, and the porta potties. My brother Aaryn was there waiting for the new potties to be brought in by helicopter, “The potties from heaven”. We hugged him and journeyed on to the campgrounds to meet my sister Tawnya and her husband John.

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

After setting up our tent and getting some breakfast, we hiked an additional mile and a half to Moody Falls and had to scale the cliff with the help of a chain secured to the cliff face. There were a few caves you had to crawl through too, and that was the only way up OR down so there were a few hold ups along the way (like a girl who got all the way down to the first ladder and then had a break down and wouldn’t go any further!). The pool wasn’t as big at this fall as at the other ones, so the water was a lot more choppy, and COLD! Everyone swam over to the actual fall, and I tried and then needed rescuing by John (I’m SO not a strong swimmer and I could NOT breathe in that cold water!) There were a few smaller pools and a fall with a rope swing we played on, but Tawnya’s hip was killing her so we hiked back to camp and played there for a while. There was a campsite that had 2 rope swings on opposite sides of the bank, and the boys took turns playing chicken! Aaryn developed what I lovingly deemed “fairy feet”, he would swing out on the water, and then “run” along the top… he seriously looked just like a fairy! Clint found a nickel, and threw it to me, but it landed in the water. So he dives down and FOUND IT! It was so funny!

Make a Smilebox photobook

Then we trekked over to the “wall”, a cliff along the creek you can climb and jump off, and there were 2 rope swings. We spent hours there! A group of guys joined us and added to the amusement. Clint started a competition by doing a back flip off one of the rope swings, and everyone got involved! He got on the smaller swing and flipped up so he was facing backwards with his feet up over his hands, and swung back and kissed me. I thought it was cute! There was a girl at that campsite who scaled the rocks with Clint and did a flip off with him. It was pretty cool! The rope swings were SO FUN! I ended up with blisters on my hands from playing on them so much (one burst and so that sucked, but Aaryn doctored me up with hand sanitizer and super glue)! And we all tried out our “fairy feet”! We were all pretty exhausted at that point, so we headed back to camp and crashed for the night. We, well, our packs got attacked by squirrels in the night and they feasted on my crackers and golden grahams! We set mousetraps for them, but somehow they were able to get the food without setting off the trap. Grr!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Saturday morning we hiked up to Navajo Falls. You have to hike down into that small river we saw on the way in, by the cliffs with the trees, and then go through a cave. Navajo was SO pretty! By far the most beautiful. We climbed up the cliff and jumped off the waterfall, well, the boys jumped off (Clint did a back flip and he and Aaryn dove off!) the high part of the fall, I jumped off the little part! It was still fun though! I was so impressed at how fearless the guys were. They climbed up the rocks like monkeys! Crazy boys! Then we hiked down to Havasu Falls. Andy and Michele had told us about a mine in a side canyon they had explored, so we found it, but had forgotten our headlamps, so didn’t go in as far as we would have liked. Once back to the falls, the boys swam over to the cliff and climbed up behind the waterfall and jumped out through the fall. The wind started to pick up and it started to rain, so after they all had a second turn, we packed up and headed back to camp. We waited out the rain and had a late lunch. A native came walking through the campgrounds telling everyone a flash flood was coming in an hour and to move all our camping gear to the higher areas. Clint and I were planning on hiking out that night, so we packed up all our stuff and moved Tawnya’s tent to the higher spot where ours was. Around 4, 2 more natives came running through saying it was coming quick and to be ready. The “flash flood” that came at that point was only about 6 inches of muddy water, so no one was really worried.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Clint and I started our hike out at 5 and when we reached Havasu Falls, we saw that the water was coming in from the side canyon we had explored the mine in earlier that day. We continued on and stopped to eat dinner and get bottled water in the village. At 6:30 we left the village and at 6:45 it started pouring on us. We found a tree and made a shelter with Clint’s tarp to wait out the storm. By 7 it was mainly just a drizzle so we packed up and headed out again. We kept hearing water rushing and so we kept a lookout for high ground in case a flash flood came at us. At 7:15 we came around a corner and out of some brush in time to look up and see a 6-inch wall of water charging toward us. We were at that huge rock we had rested at Friday morning on the hike in, so we ran to that and scrambled up on it. Clint got our camera out and took an awesome video of the water overtaking the rock and rushing past us to fill up the entire wash with knee-deep water, but you can only see it on our camera because it’s so dark. Aaryn is going to try and clean it up for us, so maybe we’ll post it later. Anyway, the water completely surrounded our rock and left us stranded for over an hour. Our rock was roughly 10 feet wide and 12 feet long, 2 feet tall at the bottom and about 6 or 7 feet tall at the top. The water was almost breaking over the bottom of the rock at its highest point! It was pretty steady for about 30 minutes, and then looked like it was maybe going down so Clint jumped off the back of the rock to some dry ground and made a marker at the water’s edge so we could measure what was going on. We really didn’t want to have to stay the night there, and were almost resigned to set up our tent and call it a night when about 15 minutes later we saw a bunch of bobbing headlamps coming upstream toward us. A group of 7 or so hikers had reached the trail when it was already under water and since half their group had left earlier in the day and were waiting for them, they figured they didn’t have much of a choice but to put on their water shoes and tough it out! After they made it around the bend ahead of us, we knew that if they could do it, so could we! We packed up and started back up the trail, jumping from rock to rock, sandbar to sandbar, climbing through holes and crannies that we really shouldn’t have been able to fit through, all the while with a prayer in our hearts and a Big and Rich song stuck in our heads (Boom Di Ada! Sky is fallin’! Boom Di Ada! Stars are callin’! Boom Di Ada Yada Yada-oo!). That small trickle of water we hopped over on the way in was now a HUGE rushing river that we had to very carefully navigate our way across, and instead of only being able to hear it about ¾ of a mile out from the village, we were still crossing and dodging it for probably an additional 3 miles. Insane! Clint kept hearing things off to the side of the trail and so when we came around a corner and saw two eyes glowing in the trail ahead of us, we had a good scare… that calf had a good laugh! We finally made it to the 2-mile marker, and knew the switchbacks were near. We reached the rock overhang and our water bottles were still there! It was a good thing cuz we were starting to run low and definitely needed it for the switchbacks. Those were killer!!! I thought I was doing so well at this whole hiking thing, but man alive! I wanted to fall over and cry! We took 3 breaks on those alone! At one point, some kids on the trail ahead of us started rolling rocks down the mountain, and we don’t know how high up they were but everyone on the trail at that point started cussing them out – they were very quiet after that! We had guessed it would take us 6 hours to reach the top from the village, and even with our 15-minute rain break and our hour plus flood break we still made it in 6 hours! We reached the top at 12:15 and I seriously almost cried for joy when I saw our car! We drove for about 30 minutes and then decided to crash on the side of the road. We pitched our tent and snuggled up for 4 hours off and on… there was a pack of coyotes off in the distance that kept howling and calling and waking us up. It was pretty creepy! We were back on the road by 6 and home by 2. That was the end of OUR adventure, but just the beginning of Tawnya, John and Aaryn’s…

A quick sum up of theirs: they woke up around 12:30 (just after we made it out safely) surrounded by water, and by the time they had packed up and started moving to higher ground they were in water about 3 feet deep. They were told to keep moving higher and higher and watched as the water kept rising to meet them. Finally they made it to the village and were told they would be air-evacuated out, but all the stranded people were brought to the village first, then they started to actual evacuation. After a few hours of waiting to be rescued, they were told to wait and the VILLAGERS were evacuated instead!! About 100 hikers were left STRANDED in the village, some with no food, no shoes, no gear, no clothes, no money… nothing, and the natives who all had homes, food, fridges, and knew the area were taken to safety. Bunch of CRAP if you ask me! And then the news reported it that they volunteered to stay, RIGHT! Anyway, they had to stay the night in the gym and weren’t rescued until Monday afternoon. While they were waiting they hiked back down to see the damage and were amazed at how different everything looks. Navajo Falls is gone. That river that was running at the edge of that cliff, now a HUGE raging river with a new water fall up stream from it (where flat ground used to be!). Those bridges we crossed, gone. All the places we played on the rope swings, under water. Havasu Falls now has about 10 times the amount of water flowing over it, and all the places we played in just a few days ago are all wiped out. We are so interested to go back and see how much is permanent damage and how much has really changed. My sister is writing up a detailed account of their experience and creating a blog to post it on. I’ll put the link here as soon as it’s up and running and I HIGHLY recommend checking it out and reading it because their story is far more exciting and scary than ours is!

All in all, it was a fun weekend. We got to swim, made some friends, ate lots of snacks and got some great exercise (25 miles total in 2 days!). We’re so glad that once again we were watched over and protected instead of left to drown in a series of flash floods! As far as we know, no one was killed or hurt too terribly, so thank heavens for that! It’s sad to realize that we are among the last people who will ever see Havasupai as it was, but are thankful we were able to enjoy it one last time.

We're OK!

For those of you who are watching the news and may be freaking out that Clint and I died in a flash flood or were one of the ones who were stranded in a tree... we're ok! Yes, we were caught in a flash flood in the bottom of the main canyon, but we were able to wait out the brunt of it on a great big rock and then managed to hike out, well... more like climb, jump over smaller parts of the flood and scramble through places that people with monsterous packs usually don't even pretend they can fit through! All in all, it was SO FUN! (Freaky, yes. Scary, yes. But it made us feel adventurous, you know?) :) We were able to get a video of the flood coming at us, and a lot of great pictures, so I'll post them hopefully tomorrow, depending on when I can get my sister's pictures from her. She, her husband and my brother WERE stuck down in the canyon at the village and had to be helicoptered out. Clint is SO jealous! :) Anyway, more as soon as I can manage! Just wanted to let you all know that we are home safe and sound!

Fun In Our Own Front Yard

2 weeks ago we got a phone call from Jonnet (Clint’s mom) asking for advice on crawdad fishing. Evidently, there were 3 neighborhood girls there who were too shy to ask Clint, so they had Jonnet do it for them! A few minutes later, the 3 giggly girls showed up on our doorstep asking for help.

So we took a trek out to the ditch in front of out house and he started to show them how it’s done. He didn’t think there would actually be any, but they got a nibble on their first hot dog in the water! Clint got down on his belly, slowly pulled the bait up and quickly snatched the crawdad and flung him on the bank! (Scared the wazoos out of those girls!) First, “You mean we have to TOUCH it?! Gross!!!” Then, “We caught one! We caught one!” They had a bucket ready for their new pet and even though we got a few more bites, in the end they all had to share the one crawdad. (Not for a lack of trying! They came back every day for a week!) Madison found more pleasure in throwing rocks in the water and making it splash, too cute!

We’ve also been having a lot of windstorms lately, and our poor beautiful elm tree out front is not handling it very well! We’ve lost 2 HUGE branches so far, and a lot of little ones. What’s amazing is that both times the wind was blowing away from our house so the branches were blown away from us instead of on us. To add to that, when the first branch fell we had been washing Jonnet’s car and still had to do the inside. She had taken it home and so we finished it up there instead of bringing it back to our house. The first branch landed exactly where her car had been parked (and probably would have hurt Maddie and me)! The second branch fell where Madison and I had been playing just 5 minutes before, but had gone inside to get a drink! Talk about guardian angels! I guess we’re doing SOMETHING right! :) Madison was so funny helping Clint pull the second branch out of our grass, she was grunting like it was SO strenuous! I was dying laughing! What a drama queen!

I got the funniest thing in the mail yesterday. Back in high school, our seminary teacher had us write letters to ourselves in 5 years. We did it every year and I swear, I’m just as big a dork now as I was then! It was hilarious reading those letters with Clint! I’m just SO glad I didn’t go off on idiotic tangents about who I was “so in love with” at the time I wrote each letter! They weren’t nearly as ridiculous as I thought they would be, just funny as all get out. Some letters had notes from friends written on there and made it so fun to remember the good ole days at my alma mater.

We are leaving for Havasupai tomorrow! I am SO nervous! We’ll pack today when Clint gets home and I saved all my cleaning for tomorrow so I don’t go crazy waiting for him to get off work! I’m a little anxious to leave Madison, we’ve left her so many times this summer and it gets harder each time instead of easier! I’m afraid she might really freak out this time! I guess we’ll see. We’ll post pictures when I’m able to move my muscles again! Until then, pray we don’t hike off a cliff or drown in a flash flood! Toodles!

What a STINKY, DIRTY, FUN, FUN, FUN weekend!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Sunday morning was like any other until Clint and Madison built a castle out of legos for her horseys. Daddy made sure it had guns for proper defense, while Maddie made sure it had a door so that when the horseys said “Knock knock”, they could come in. When it was all finished there was a small battle, but no fatalities. When the smoke cleared, all was well and both horseys rested in their castle, safe and sound!

The next part of our weekend actually started off on Saturday with Russell (Clint’s dad) giving us a HUGE MONGUS tent, (it has 2 rooms AND a screened in porch!) so we were like “Oooo! We should go camping on the mountain Sunday night and try out our new tent!” Since no one could go with us, we had our first ever Family Campout!

Let me let you in on a little secret… setting up a giant pole tent with the help of someone who really knows what they’re doing (and with 3 adults instead of 2) makes a great big difference! It didn’t go up NEARLY as easy for Clint and I as it did back at Russell’s! The wind was blowing, the ground was uneven, and there was a cranky kid running amuck with our two dogs! It was definitely an experience! Even though the size was really great, I think we’ve decided to stick to our little dome tent for now because it is SO MUCH EASIER to set up! Maybe someday we will save our pennies and buy a great big dome tent when we have more than 3 people sleeping in it!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Madison thought Clint’s flashlight was the coolest and would shine it up on all the tree branches above, until he taught her to shine it on her face and go “Bru ha ha ha!” in a scary voice…

Later that night, Riley (Clint’s little brother) and some friends drove up and joined us for smores, and were chased away by a skunk that our dog, M.J., had scared! Lovely, eh?

For breakfast, we made biscuits in Clint’s Dutch oven and gravy on his backpacking stove. While waiting for them to cook, Clint got bored and decided to try an experiment. He skewered a raw biscuit and slow roasted it over the fire! Guess what? It actually cooked and was (burned, but) good!

So, we spent that night camping on the mountain, bundled up and roughin’ it. We came home Monday morning and spent the day on the lake, in bathing suits and sun bathing! It was SO FUN! I have to say that I love where we live – we are so close to so many different climates that we are able to DO that! (And not spend all day driving to do it either!) Seth and Courtney had promised Logan that he could ride on Andy’s boat so we all spent the day playing in the water (and in the shade!)

Make a Smilebox slideshow

We came home stinky, dirty, exhausted… but we had SO MUCH FUN!!

Drum Roll Please, Everybody Freeze...

WE ARE FINALLY CERTIFIED TO ADOPT!!!!! It has been a long, sometimes hard, sometimes obnoxious, but always exciting road, and we are unbelievably overjoyed to actually say that we are ready to adopt! Please let everyone know and please check out our profile under "Sites that we like"! What else can we say but "YAY!"?!

Happy 24th of July Everyone!!

We live in one of 3 towns clustered together in a valley at the base of a beautiful mountain. Every year the 24th of July celebrations pass from one town to the next, but they are always on the weekend before the actual 24th of July, that way everyone who leaves home knows exactly when all the festivities are. That is why this weekend, instead of next, we celebrated our Pioneer ancestors.



Our family started things off right with Madison sleeping in until 7!!! (She’s been getting up between 6 – 6:30, gag!) At 9 we wandered around the corner to work on our ward float, and Madison found a bicycle that she thought was the coolest thing ever! Daddy took her for a short ride, but it was too hot so Maddie and I walked over to Clint’s Grandparents’ home for a visit.



Papa Jerry tried on her shoes, shared chocolate, got her a drink, some crackers… basically wrapped himself around her pinky finger and begged to be left there. She thought it was great, and thoroughly enjoyed being treated like a princess!



She even lied down on the couch for a “Night night” and he covered her with a blanket.


Grandma Leona enjoyed all the activity and expressed her delight with an occasional chuckle from her chair.


We made our way back over to the float, but it was even hotter now and so Clint gave us a couple bucks for some ice cream. So, we were off again to get our baby cones and, Maddie did a better job than I did at this one, make a vanilla-sticky mess all over our faces and hands!

The girls left the Daddies with the kids and went to lunch with was fabulous!! I had a Kauai (sp?) Quesadilla that, let’s face it, made me happy! :) It had chicken, bell peppers, onions and pineapple with a tangy teriyaki sauce and sour cream… need I say more? Then we stopped in at Wal Mart to look at things that husbands quake and tremble when we look at – fabric and scrapbooking supplies! I was so excited when I saw that they FINLLY carry vinyl for Cricuts! I got one for Mother’s Day and didn’t want to pay internet prices for the vinyl, so I’ve been waiting patiently and hooray! It paid off! I’d like to start making those vinyl signs and selling them for extra $, we’ll see if it goes anywhere or not… Then we stopped at the local scrapbooking store and believe it or not, I didn’t spend any money in there! I’m proud of me if no one else is (aside from Clint!)

After our much-needed break, my friend Marie cut my hair. Maddie woke up at that point and Clint brought her over. When she walked in, she wasn’t all the way awake yet and was a little scared to see me covered in a weird looking cape, my hair all slicked down with Marie holding a razor to my head… It didn’t help that Clint walked by and whispered, “Mommy looks like a witch, huh?” (I can just see her describing this scene years from now to a therapist!!) After she woke up a little more, she wandered back over and thought I was pretty funny looking (thankfully) and even consented to getting her hair cut too! She didn’t wear the cape, and then freaked out about all the “gross hair” that kept falling all over her, but at least all the fuzzy-frizz is off now and it’s just beautiful, healthy curls left!!


At 5 the parade started. It was raining, so people were getting pretty inventive figuring out how to stay dry.


We (Clint) even made a tent with a tarp strung between two trucks, but he did end up very dirty by the end of the construction…


Madison loved the parade! She would yell, “Hi truck! Hi car! Hi tractor! Hi horsey! Hi friends!”






There were a couple 4-wheelers dressed up like oxen or horses, even a motorcycle tried to be a horse! Since we’re getting a Temple soon, a lot of the floats portrayed Temples and groundbreaking and the like. It was so cool to see so many people that excited about the Temple!

We didn’t stay for the dinner booths, but did brave the rain for the fireworks. They took a LONG time to get going, but once started were worth it!







Madison did NOT agree! She’s never really been one for loud noises, and wanted nothing to do with the bright lights in the sky because they were loud! She curled up on my chest and fell asleep while I took some awesome pictures of the fireworks. When we got back to the car, my arms were nearly dead from holding her for so long and we all crashed the moment our heads touched our pillows!

It was a great day and a great celebration! Happy 24th everyone!