Pure Awesomeness!

We went for memorable this year when we planned our summer vacation...and it was! We started planning for this vacation about 6 months ahead of time and it evolved into 3 families going together. We had some left over tickets into the theme park from our last trip, so we decided to add that onto our trip as well. The cruise, by far, was everyone's favorite part of the trip and if I had to do it again I would have ended with the cruise instead of the parks. It was really hard to go from being completely pampered to fending for ourselves. The cruise had plenty of activities to keep us busy and plenty of food at our fingertips whenever the hunger pains struck. I think what made it so fun was that the kids and us adults were there with friends. The older kids had a ball having free reign of the ship to go wherever they wanted whenever they wanted to go. We get so used to being able to talk to each other whenever and wherever we want via cell phone, and there is no svc on the boat. We had to wing it old school style. Absolutely no communication with the kids except for designated times and places or just by hunting them down. The smaller kids were given electronic id bracelets and we were given a pager so if they needed us their activities counselor would send us a text. We really spent a lot of time together doing some pretty awesome things. There are so many more pictures of some really fun stuff we did, but other people in our party were taking them, so as soon as I get a hold of them I will share. :)

MJ's 13th Bday

My first born turned 13 this past month. This was a pretty exciting bday for sure. MJ got to stay home from school in the morning because we had made a Dr appointment for her to get some vaccinations that she needed to register for school. I know, getting shots on your bday stinks, but it was a perfect excuse to get an excused absence from school. I put a very pretty tiara on my little girl's head and off we went for her special day. She doesn't enjoy drawing attention to herself as much as I do, but she was a good sport and wore it until it hurt her head. Anyway, after the dreaded 4 shots we went to the mall. MJ was having a hard time coming up with something that she wanted for her bday and we finally decided on getting a makeover so that she could properly learn how to apply makeup since she hadn't been allowed to wear it up until then. She probably would have gone another year without wearing makeup if I hadn't suggested it but, her sister Jordyn, on the other hand, doesn't understand why she can't wear it now too. The lady at my favorite makeup store did a really nice job and I think she looks beautiful. I can't believe how grown up she looks. Because MJ shares her bday with her parents anniversary we met Nate for lunch but let her pick the place. We had mine and MJ's very good friend, C, along for the entire bday experience because she makes things more fun and she doesn't get to do any girls stuff with four boys. We had a very yummy lunch and Daddy showed up with the most spoiled girl bday present ever for his pretty princess. We were so busy with end of the year stuff that we didn't have a birthday cake for her until a few days later. Not a bad way to spend a birthday if I do say so myself.......and I think she would say so too :o)

J's Graduation

It's official. My kids insist on growing up and I just keep getting older. I successfully got another kid off to middle school this year and high school is just around the corner. I'm not the biggest fan of graduation ceremonies because people seem to pontificate far too long at these things, but that itself provides a certain amount of entertainment. So, all is not bad. I was pleasantly surprised when J got the pres award for his GPA this year. J is in "gifted" but his sister always gets better grades than him, so I really wasn't expecting it and neither was he, so we celebrated extra. Besides, who wouldn't want an award from our most "favorite" President ever? lol This year the school was holding a bbq afterward and we decided to ditch having nasty cafeteria style bbq and headed to our fav burger joint. I've been doing a bit of ditching school this year with the kids and it has been a blast. After we ate our most juicilly delicious burgers we headed back over to the school for the kids to finish out the day. Best of all J got to celebrate with his brother from anotha motha which made the day that much more memorable.

The Fun Part

After my fun little rant about all that is wrong with the world, I thought I would do a post about the fun we had on the field trip. This last year has been so much fun for me as a Mom. With Jordy in kindergarten all day I was able to actually go on field trips and help out in classrooms this year. This particular field trip was an all day excursion complete with a "fancy" bus that played movies and a stop at McD for lunch. We left at 9:30 am and didn't get back home until 5:30 that evening. You should have seen the chaos that we created in this tiny little town at the McD's trying to feed the entire 5th grade population of our school. I just stood at the drink station filling cup after cup of soda for the kids. It was a beautiful day and Jdog was pretty happy that his Mom was on the field trip with him. I feel so bad because I didn't really have many times that I was in his classroom (with the exception of maybe the 2nd grade) because I was having babies and it was just too difficult. I truly feel lucky and blessed that I am able to go on field trips and help out in the classroom and be an active part of my kids lives. The end of this school year was the first time I have been wishing for summer to get here faster instead of dreading it. The older the kids get and the more activities they are in and the more teachers want help on field trips the busier and more hectic life seems to get. I could really use a clone! Time management and prioritizing the activities that I will attend has become critical. Time goes by so fast and we've only got one shot at this time in our kids lives and as crazy as it sounds right now, I know that I will miss this time, of what feels like chaos, when the kids are grown and out of the house.

Things that make you say hmmmm.....

On an end of the year field trip with J's 5th grade class we went to a national monument here in NM. This is a place where hundreds of years ago people came because there was a bit of water to rest on their way to somewhere else. It has big rock formations and there are hundreds of people's names carved into the stone. What I find interesting is this sign....

Here is a sampling of the signatures we saw on the rock faces. This was by far the fanciest of them. Most were just scratched in names on the surface of all the rock there. The rain also naturally erodes these signatures away (darn that global warming) and so they have to re-carve them every so often. To do this they have to sand a smooth surface to make the viewing of the signatures easier to see and then they set about carving away even more of the rock.
I really shouldn't be taken anywhere because I have a big mouth especially when people say ridiculous things. There was a PAVED trail through the rocks and one of the teachers from our school told us that we needed to stay on the trail because if we didn't it would take 1,000 years for the ground to regenerate. REALLY? Wow, that's some intense statistics there. I'm surprised my backyard isn't a sink hole by now with all the walking that is done on it everyday! Never mind the bulldozers that came in and ripped up the ground to pour the concrete covering up any remaining indigenous tobacco spittle that may have been still on the ground to revere. So, when the unthinkable happened by one of the kids stepping off of the paved trail I blurted out "oh no, that's 1,000 years bad luck!" It was one of those moments where I realized too late that it was actually coming out of my mouth and I was pleasantly surprised when the other adults around me started laughing. Whew, you never know what kind of environmentally passionate kind of people may be around. Anyway, I also found it amusing that a couple of years ago some visitors to the monument scratched their name into the rocks and the monuments solution???? Sand blast the side of the mountain. So now you can look at a scratched up rock mountain rather than signatures that looked like all the rest. I'm a little bummed too that my signature is considered graffiti and someones from a couple hundred years ago is history. Wont mine be history in a few hundred years too? I could end up being a pretty important person. Just sayin'. The final thing that cracked me up is that there is a large portion of the monument where you are walking on large smooth rocks and still they wanted you to stay within a marked trail. How did they accomplish this? By taking a circular saw and grinding into the rock a marked path. Impressive solutions for preserving rock. Sometimes I just marvel at how completely ridiculous we as a society have become full of mixed messages and just complete lunacy. :)
Why a post devoted to this you ask? 'Cause this is the kind of stuff I think about all the time. I love history and love historical sites where important things happened. This particular one though I found humorous. I will leave you with the official description of the monument.
" A reliable waterhole hidden at the base of a sandstone bluff made El Morro (the headland) a popular campsite. Ancestral Puebloans and Spanish and American travelers carved over 2,000 signatures, dates, messages, and petroglyphs for hundreds of years. We invite you to make El Morro a stopping point during your travels."

Blond

This is while in the process of dying his hair and the color we were hoping to achieve. I was pretty nervous because as you can see, J got his Dad's very large eyebrows and they are very dark. J, on the other hand, was so excited to see what it was going to look like when we were done and was giving no thought to the contrast between his hair and eyebrows.
Jared has been feeling like the odd man out being the only kid in the family with brown hair. He was hopeful when Jordyn was born with a head full of jet black hair, but it didn't last and soon it was a light brown/ dark blond. Last summer I let Emma die her hair from blond to dark brown so Jared thought he should be able to go blond. I am of the opinion that "it's only hair" so I was on board. I think that it's fun to experiment with your style on this journey we all find ourselves on for self discovery. It didn't turn out quite as blond as we would have hoped and it took 2 times to get it to even resemble blond, but he seems happy and it wasn't too big of a shock to look at him with his new hair color. Now that it has been a couple of weeks we will probably try again so that we can hopefully achieve the look he is going for- the color that is on the box. Summer seems to be the perfect time to try out new looks to see if any of them fit.

Is this wise?

This is one of the scariest things I think I have ever done! I actually had to pay around 35 bucks for Emma and I to have a near death experience. It is something that I have always wanted to see if I would have enough guts to do especially considering my paralyzing fear of heights. Emma is always up for anything and was very eager to give it a try and I couldn't look like a total baby in front of her or my friend so I signed up. I'm the kind of person that thinks you can literally be scared to death because your heart will just stop beating and if it were gonna happen to anyone, surely it would be me! We of course had to ask the unmentionable question....has anyone ever died on this ride before? Why yes, 2 people in fact. Oh how lovely. Next question, has anyone ever not pulled the rip cord and had how do you get back down if you don't? Nope, never has happened because the friend will reach over and pull the cord. "Alrighty then, well, I guess it's as good a day as any to plunge to my death, let's do this thing!"
The most frightening thing is probably the ride up to the top and knowing that you HAVE to come back down. We were also seriously over jagged rocks to boot. I honestly to this day do not know how in the world I managed to pull the rip cord that sent us free falling to the ground. Hey, that reminds me of a song.....and I'm free, free fallin'. It WAS a pretty freeing experience. There is something incredibly freeing about pushing through a fear and coming out the other side unscathed.
Will I ever do it again? Once is enough for me! I do however want to give skydiving a try next! Who's with me? :)

Ms Undastood

I have recently been seen letting my crazy out in public... and quite often at that. This particular time was while I was in Denver on a show choir field trip with Emma. I look like a very responsible and respectable chaperon in this picture, don't I? lol It had been a very long day at a ride park where I took my plunge of death earlier in the day. This was the end of the day and we were in the park's auditorium waiting for the awards ceremony to begin. There was loud music playing that was just too hard not to dance to......so C and I decided to try out our "Elaine" moves. Now in all fairness to myself and C there were lots of people dancing in the stands around us. There were also several enactments of "roller coaster rides" so, it's not like we were the only ones (but perhaps the oldest)! Although, if I must say, we were extremely entertaining to everyone around us! In fact, so much so, that another mother snapped a picture of us in all our dancing glory. Seriously every time I look at this picture I can't stop laughing. It is sooooo not flattering, but so enjoyable at the same time. In fact, C and I loved this picture so much that we scanned the copy the mother gave us and printed them out on transfer paper to make into t-shirts for girls camp. I named my picture Ms Undastood and C's was Ms Represent. To make the shirt more girl's camp appropriate we added a "count your blessings" transfer in fanciful tattoo style on the back. Lovely!
My theory is this. Life can be pretty crappy and hard most of the time. So, make your own fun and don't care what other people think about you.
Life's good (even when it's not), enjoy it! :o)

Where does the time go?

I can't believe that I haven't posted anything since April! I guess I must have been busy. There have been so many things going on that I will have to play major catch up. Hopefully I can get to them all. There have been field trips, advancement ceremonies, a trip to Denver, a Disney Cruise, girls' camp, 2 birthdays and an anniversary since my last post. I have never been more busy in my life and with that I have found that I have never been happier. I can truly say that amidst the ever increasing moral chaos this country is facing....life is good. I have an awesome reading schedule for this summer and there is much to be grateful for.