The Beach

The kids first time at the beach did not turn out the way I hoped. A few minute into it, R went to far, got swept away, lost her boot to the wave, was freezing, and didn’t want to come out of the RV after that. S was scared to go near the water after seeing Sissy washed away, so he went back to the RV also. P was thrilled with the beach though. So the two of us spent some time playing in the sand, chasing sea gulls, and finding shells. She was on cloud nine. At least one of the children really enjoyed the experience .  I also got to take some pics. of the sunset.    

The New RV

Here it is!

Jeff and I sleep on the queen size bed above the cab.

The Kitchen and couch wall slide out to make it much more roomy than you see here.

The girls bunks.

The bunks and back bedroom wall slide out also (very nice living space).

The back room is S’s (he sleeps in the porta crib). It also doubles as a playroom/storage room. There are cabinets above the porta crib (not shown), so there’s plenty of storage.

Maybe some other time I will put up pics. of it with the slides out. But for now you can see what a blessing this is to us. And we plan to use it to the fullest; for the good of our family. Remember there is a long road trip coming up in March! I’ll have lots of stories to tell then .

Montezuma’s Well

We have a new RV! I will post pics of it in another post. But for now we took our maiden voyage in it. This trip we decided, on one of the days, to visit Montezuma’s Well.

The girls are really starting to enjoy these educational trips. They ask questions, read the plaques, and explore. They are now truly interested for themselves. It is no longer us trying to excite them about the history or significance of a certain place.

Here are some pics:

In March we are going to go on our longest RV trip yet. We will be visiting the fine States of California and Oregon. We plan on being gone for 2 months! We’re take a break from our normal History and Science curriculum and instead we’ll be learning it through the  many different places we visit, on the road. The girls are going to learn sooo much. We are all very EXCITED!!! 

Camping Trip by the Stream

The camp sight:

 Fun by the stream:

 My kiddos and I:

 S helps Dada make the hot dogs:

 Sweet Pea wants some hot dogs:

 Cookin’ in my home away from home:

 A mud pie from my son (yum):

 Playing with walky talkies:

 As you can see we had a blast!  I got to read, relax, ahhhh. R (got filthy), collected bugs and butterflies the whole time, and yes cried when we had to leave them. P (got filthy), created elaborate stories about the “Wizard of Oz” (I had just finished reading it to them before we left ). She made everyone in the family a different character in the story. S (got filthy, filthy, filthy ), helped daddy do the male things, like hammer, collect fire wood, and love the freedom of the outdoors. Jeff was in HEAVEN, he loves every little thing about a camping trip. Sweet Pea (got filthy), “Woof, Woof this is where I was meant to be!”

Well we’re going again, for a short trip, this coming weekend. Life is good .

Attack of the Squirrels

Yikes! The squirrels at the Grand Canyon are fearless. The Rangers warn people about these dangerous creatures. I sat there in disbelief that this little guy was soooo close to us. I now realize that I should have been quicker in moving my son. However, I am grateful he did not bite S.

Turns out this is what the rascal was after:

(Ice cream )

Fossil Walk

The Fossil Walk was a lot of fun. We had to educate the girls before hand on how all these aquatic fossils really got on the very top of the Grand Canyons cliffs. However the ranger was right when she said the whole thing used to be under water, her explanation of how it all happened and where all the water went is what was lacking .  It was awesome for the girls to hunt, find and touch real fossils. Here is the paper that the ranger gave us, so that we could recognize the different ones:

(we stuck this in our Lapbook also)

Here are some of the fossils we found:

(Bryozoan)

(crinoid)

(brachiopod)

Here are a few that we didn’t find but that the ranger showed us:

The ranger helped us identify them correctly. Literally fossils were all around us. Once she showed us what to look for we were amazed at how they were everywhere we looked in this small area of the fossil hunt. We later talked about how fossils are made and what they can show us, a very cool day.

We also did a lot more hiking, here’s some pics:

(people as specks)

Our First Walk Around the Rim

It was a cold day but a good day. To see the girls eyes as they came around the corner was priceless. They both kept mentioning, in P’s words “God is amazing with His creations, isn’t He.”

This was the sight they saw:

They also had gotten their Junior Ranger books (we place this in their Lap books ); and were hard at work with their first assignment, trying to find different kinds of rocks.

We were blessed by a man who offered to take a pic. of the whole family:

Father and Son (We love our hiker pack, and so does S . This Made it easy to go where we wanted without worrying if a stroller could go there too. I can’t tell you how much we have used this thing.):

More Mule Deer:

Views of the Rim:

Hope you enjoyed our first walk as much as we did.

Having Fun Doing Laundry?

 Back to the Grand Canyon saga. Sorry it has  been so long between posts.

Well I forgot to tell you, on the day we arrived at the GC we had to do some laundry(interesting right, just wait). This worked out great because it was raining on and off and we couldn’t do much anyway. As you moms can imagine I was thrilled to be doing laundry on vacation (it is the curse that follows me everywhere).

This time however the Lord blessed me and gave me some awesome entertainment while hauling loads back and forth. Mule Deer, were there to greet me at the door! I had so much fun being so close to them; I snapped a lot of pics. Here are just a few:

God is so good, to give me a break from the same old same old. Plus it was a great experience for the girls. I love His creation and that I’m part of it!

Grand Canyon part 1

On our way to the Grand Canyon we started our first lapbook ever. Here ‘s our first projects (used “In the Hands of a Child” pack). -

We made the vocabulary pocket and started with some of the first vocabulary words: 

( my hand writing is awful because the ride was very bumpy )

Then we talked about Noah and the flood and how it was the cause of the Grand Canyon,  then they did their LB project:

 Ark opens up and has this inside:

The first place we visited late that Friday afternoon was the Desert View Tower at the easternmost end of the National Park. It was a very windy and cold day but the view was still wonderful. The girls enjoyed climbing to the top of the tower.

Girls on the lookout deck of tower:

Jeff and the kids:

Girls and I:

Rain’s a comin’:

When it started to look stormy and the shops were closing we had a race back to the RV, ( the girls won ). We warmed up with some hot coco then ate our Mac & Cheese dinner  ( end of the first day).

On Our Way to the Grand Canyon

We decided to break up the drive so we made a few stops along the way to the Grand Canyon (remember we live in a small town were it takes about 10 min. to get from one side to the other so we are not used to long drives ). On Wednesday, we drove for awhile then pulled off to the side of the road in the RV, ate and then went to sleep.

Thursday morning we headed to Flagstaff picked up a few things at Safeway and Savers, which was right next store( I can’t pass up a good thrift store, or garage sale), while Jeff did some work in the RV. From there we headed onto Sunset Crater, camped at the Bonito Campground, and checked out the surroundings. That afternoon we visited the Crater. P fell twice on the slippery rocks and badly scraped her knee, however she was still up for and asking us to read all the info at each station along the trail. She picked up a big Basalt rock and wanted to bring it home, but she couldn’t . She did however  later find a smaller rock at our camp sight that she could take. We sat in the Crater parking lot the rest of the day Jeff worked, kids played, and I read. Come evening, back at the campground I made dinner, While Jeff and the girls made a fire and roasted some mellows. That’s right we let them have dessert before dinner, all’s fair on vacation .

Here is our Bonito campsite:

Girls and I outside the visitors center :

Jeff and the kids next to a Spatter Cone (where lava used to explode out of the ground) :

Friday we drove to Wupatki National Monument ruins (very cool):

Girl in the ruins game arena:

Lunch in the RV:

Later Friday we headed to the Grand Canyon! I’ll write about it in the next post. I hope you have the stamina to hear about our whole trip. I’ll break it up into segments. This might take a while .