Is It Naptime Yet

For Memorial Day weekend we went up to Pine Valley with Sam, Britta, Matilda, and Grandpa Gary. We decide Memorial Day weekend because I’ll be traveling a lot in the month of July, Jon will be staying home sadly, and June is off limits with the play. So August would have been the soonest we could go unless we went this past weekend. We didn’t have play practise due to the holiday, so we seized the weekend and went on a trip.

(It might be noted that I almost stayed home to sew, but Jon didn’t think that would be very nice since the girls were looking forward to our weekend in Pine Valley for weeks. So instead I sewed while up there, though I also sat around and chatted with Sam a lot, but I proved her wrong that I would only sit around and talk to her, and not sew.)

We went up Saturday Morning and mostly hung out and let the girls play. We had smores Saturday night, and I totally want smores again. Jon and I perfected how to make smores over an electric stove. I roasted the marshmallows on a fork over the hot coil, he melted the chocolate by placing the graham crackers and chocolate on a metal spatula and holding it over the hot coil. It was fun and they were delicious.

Sunday we attended church in Pine Valley, kinda. We all went to Sacrament meeting, but Grandpa Gary took the girls back to the house for Sunday School, and Sam and I came home after Sunday School because we didn’t want to strand Grandpa Gary for too long with three little girls and one baby.

Jon took a long hike Sunday so I dropped him off on his hike around 9:00, before we went to church, and then I picked him up a little after 3, though he was finished at 2:30, he read to occupy his time. Gary gave him a pistol to take with him on the hike in case he saw any cougars, just to shot in the air to scare them away. He showed me this before the hike and it did not make me any more easy to let him go off by himself. He was prepared with his GPS and a map, but I didn’t want him being attacked by come some crazy cougar! Luckily, it was a well traveled trail and Jon saw no cougars. Gary often goes off the beaten path for his hikes or less known ones, and so I think he runs into cougars a lot more often.

We enjoyed a nice Sunday afternoon and Sam baked up a storm in the kitchen while I sewed. She also entertained the girls a lot by playing games with them, or supervising games, and I sewed. We had birthday cake to celebrate my birthday, which I had last week, and we watched Ponyo that evening.

Sunday afternoon Gary also brought out some little kid bikes, that were around 35 years old, and gave them to Jon and I. I wasn’t too hot on this, but they were free. The bigger bike is still a little too small for Lilah, more Eden’s size, and the small bike is more a 3 year old size, but they work. The small one has training wells and the bigger one does not, so Lilah pushes herself along and tries to find her balance. Maybe we’ll get Lilah a bike that fits her better later this year if she learns. The one problem being we won’t let the girls ride them anywhere but the backyard or a park, and it’s getting them to the park so the have a wide open space that is my dilemma and why I didn’t want the bikes…. Jon packed them in the trunk to see how long it would take me to notice them, very quickly since I put something in the trunk before we left. I hadn’t decided to take them, but he wanted them.

Monday morning we went on a hike with Britta and the girls. It was a perfect day for the hike and the girls seemed to have fun. Our destination was a creek Jon had passed by on his hike the day before. They were tired before we got to the creek, but then wanted to go farther once there. I’m not sure how far we traveled, but the girls had fun following the creek and Lilah loved to get muddy, something I wasn’t too hot about.

We left Monday afternoon to come back home, then the girls and I went to a BBQ at my parents. Andrea, Brien, and Zarina were in town so it was nice to see them briefly Monday night. Jon stayed home since he had driven the whole way and was tired of being in the car.

Hopefully we can plan another trip for the Fall to lovely Pine Valley. The blackberries should be in season then and Gary said we could come pick some, that is if he hasn’t picked them all himself and the weather stabilizes so they can grow. I must say with the triple digits finally coming, I envy Sam and the time her and her family will be able to spend in the cooler mountain air this summer.

Yay for small weekend get-a-ways!

So this weekend we did something we’ve yet to do as a family.

We went to Disneyland!

And we had lots of fun, so much that Jon is considering going back, in 3-4 years rather than…… never.

We also went to the beach and the girls saw the ocean for the first time! They also played in it because it was a nice windy day with a high of 70 and freezing water. I did not go in, except my feet a couple times, so thankfully Jon went in with them and they had lots of fun until the tide started coming in.

I also did not go to church on Mother’s Day. I’m a little bummed about it, but only because Eden has yet to sing me my Mother’s Day song, Lilah has sung to me many times.

I just wanted to let you know what we were up to this weekend. I’ll have to upload the pictures and do a full post later.

Just know it was lots of fun. Carolyn spent 99% of her money on food, the girls only bought candy as souvenirs, and Jon has a nice Tinkerbell mug for work.

Here are the pictures from our visit to Valley of Fire on the 21st. For some reason photo editing has been overwhelming to me since there are so many pictures to look through and post, so I’m starting out small.

Lilah in a cave by the visitors center.

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Eden by the same cave, while Lilah ate lunch behind her.
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On our way to mouses tank.
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Petroglyphs you see along the trail.

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I’m the King of the world.

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The girls sharing a hug by some corner we found off the beaten path.

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A bighorn sheep we saw when leaving the park. This is the first time we’ve seen one while at the Valley of Fire.

Here are the pictures to go with my detailed posted of what we did in Pine Valley.

Saturday, September 5, 2009.

Getting ready to feed the Koi.

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Watching Gary so they can pick blackberries.

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Lilah showing off a blackberry and Britta trying to put it back in the bowl.

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The pond.

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This is the first picture of many of the girls on the swings.

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Eden swinging an singing by herself later in the day.

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Closeup.

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They were on the swings a lot.

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Silly Eden.

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Sunday, September 6, 2009.

The girls outside the church. It’s really hard to take a nice picture of three girls when they’re being silly.

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Eden was the most cooperative.

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The girls were pushing the four-wheeler.

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The view from Gary’s nephew’s cabin.

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Hanging out by the pond.

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pretty peaches

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wild turkeys

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Monday, September 7, 2009

crate on a pulley

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The girls liked “helping” to pull one another up in the crate.

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Pretty flowers that were in the yard.

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Britta twisting Eden up in the swing. Eden was the only one who enjoyed this because Lilah got hurt at one point and Britta was just too scared.

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There she goes!

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And she’s done, and so our are my pictures of the girls on the swings.

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The redneck trampoline, AKA an old box spring. It was fun to jump on it. Sam tried it out and then made me.

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They had fun jumping on it.

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Eden in the pup tent.

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Britta and Lilah in the pup tent.

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All the girls.

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Lilah being silly.

This concludes the picture portion of our Pine Valley trip. I just wish I had one taken with Sam, or had been fast enough to catch her jumping on the redneck trampoline.

While in June we visited The Old Mormon Fort. I believe it was Friday June 19th that we went. Jon had taken time off for part of the play and since he needed to, and that Friday we didn’t perform due to the library the theater was in being closed.

The Mormon Fort was our first official stop on our State Parks tour. After we were at Cathedral Gorge Jon and I decided that it would be fun to visit all/ as many as we get to, Nevada State Parks. I think it’ll be fun and hopefully we can accomplish most of them over time.

We mostly just walked around and then we sat and ate our lunch. The workers started turning up soil in the stream so it started to smell terrible around there. We did get to enjoy the pond a little bit before we finally headed over to the  Natural History Museum for just a quick visit.

One worker asked if he could take a family picture and we said we were OK. Then a little bit later another one offered, though his hands were covered with the smelly soil, so we opted out of that one too.

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So here are the anticipated pictures from our Ely trip. Well, maybe not anticipated, but fun.

Friday at Ely

The girls were blowing bubbles outside.

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Lilah was playing fetch with Jack.

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Zarina wanted to wear a backpack like Lilah.

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It was pretty chilly as night settled.

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Carolyn must have had the camera.

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Saturday at Ely and Cave Lake

How many Blake’s can you fit into a sleeping bag?

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Brien and Andrea taking the girls out for the first time.

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Some ducks I noticed while waiting for them.

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They decided to come up on the shore near me.

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This was later in the day. The girls started putting their hands in the water.

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Sunday at Leeman’s Cave inside Great Basin National Park

Lilah crawling through the hole that was about the size Mr. Leeman crawled through and then discovered the caves.

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Jonathan was a good sport and was the first adult to crawl through.

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Us a the beginning of the tour, soon after we were separated and the girls were up front with the ranger/guide.

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Aunt Carolyn with me and the girls.

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Lilah was taking pictures of Carolyn as we walked out.

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The girls with the cave cadet pins they earned.

Ely Trip 2009

So this year there almost wasn’t an Ely trip since we went camping in Caliente with Andrea and Brien in May. Jon was going to consider that our “Ely trip” since we traveled two-thirds of the way to Ely and saw Andrea and Brien, but since we were unable to make it to the family reunion this year and I was bummed that I wasn’t going to be able to see Andrea and Brien and have our girls go to the Hoggle Zoo together or have any awesome sisterly fun driving to the reunion with Carolyn, he felt bad and said we could go to Ely. I thought he meant just me, Carolyn, and the girls, but he came along too and it was lots of fun.

We went up on Friday the 7th of August and did the normal visiting thing, except there was lots of teasing Lacey this trip, and it all started Friday night. Andrea and Brien made us dinner, though I can’t remember what we had this night. Brien made kinda an upside down cake, but with apricots he picked off his neighbors tree. Don’t worry the old lady neighbor said they could pick as many apricots as they wanted and it was also the first summer in like 20 years that it was summer long enough for the apricot trees to produce apricots in Ely. The cake was delicious, and made even more delicious by ice cream, something I asked if they had to go with it earlier, but was told  “Jeez, do you think we’re a buffet?”, though this was also after I said apricot cobbler would be good but Brien was just making a spice cake with apricots in the bottom. So Brien baked the cake and then tasted it and decided it needed ice cream, so he then went and bought some and might I add I would have eaten it without ice cream, but he really wanted it and it did help with the tartness of the apricots.

Saturday we went canoeing at Cave Lake. We made a sandwich stop at Subway and enjoyed the fresh air as we ate. I left our state parks passes in our suitcase at Andrea and Brien’s so we did not get them stamped, though we didn’t really see anywhere to have them stamped, so we’re still gonna just check that off. We will probably go there again because canoeing was so much fun, despite my dislike of natural bodies of water, and Brien was also trying to talk Jon into getting a canoe. I’m just happy to know that we have a long list of other saving projects before this can ever even remotely become a reality.

Brien and Andrea took the girls out first on the Lake. Jon and I went out alone so we could practice in the canoe. It was my second time canoeing, with the first being about 12 years ago at girls camp one year. Lilah would say that I needed to put my paddle into the water more, but this was something she heard from Brien as he made fun/ teased me some more.

After our practice run we  took the girls out on the water with us. We then switched back and forth, with Zarina only going out once since she didn’t like her life jacket and Carolyn also avoiding it till the last run. She doesn’t like natural bodies of water either, but thought it would be fun to let my girls play in the water and get a little muddy and wet. This was while Jon and I went out our last time. Of course when we returned they said the fun was over to the girls since Mommy was back and it took a lot of will power to let them continue to get wet and muddy. I know I can be a little uptight about dirt and messes, so I was trying to relax since the damage had already been done.

We then headed home and after some naps and showers had a delicious turkey dinner that Brien and Andrea made.

Sunday on our way home we decided to take a little, but long, detour to Great Basin National Park and take the Leeman’s Cave Tour. We’ve been to Great Basin twice, but had yet to take the tour. I called the week before to purchase the tickets in advance, something I recommend so you don’t have to wait an hour if a tour is full and ours was. Since Eden is only 4 we went on the shorter 60 minute tour and someday may go on the longer 90 minute one which includes one or two more caverns.

Before we entered the caves the ranger/ tour guide gave the challenge to crawl through a cement hole that was about the size of the hole the 70 or 80 year old Mr. Leeman had to crawl through to find the caves. It was a part of becoming a cave cadet. The girls both went through and the other children, then he gave the challenge to the adults and I challenged Jon to go through since he was the slimest adult. He did and since he went through so easily the guide challenged another adult and one other man did.

We started off the tour together, but as it got narrower, the guide had the children up front with him, and we were in the back, so I have no idea what happened after we were separated.  We had areas that he was able to talk to us directly, and then at other times it was just through the grapevine. The girls seemed to have a lot of fun from what we could tell at the end and we entertained ourselves with them gone. It was a cool tour and I recommend it to anyone who might pass by Great Basin National Park.

After the tour we enjoyed some of the yummy homemade ice cream the cafe makes and then hit the road to return to Vegas.

We all loved seeing the Park’s and getting to see Zarina. They grow so fast and it’s so hard when you don’t get to see the small children often enough.

It was a fun little trip and the girls enjoyed Aunt Carolyn’s company. I also enjoyed talking with her and being able to chat.

This will be the fourth year we’ve made a trip to Ely and I hope we continue the tradition as long as Andrea and Brien live there. Brien said we could come back anytime after it snows, but I don’t see us visiting till after it melts away next year.

We just returned home from visiting my sister Andrea and her family in Ely. My sister Carolyn came also came with us.

So here are my five things I’m thankful for that happened on the trip

1. Jon had to sit in the back seat because his hips were the smallest ones out of the three adults, and were the only ones who could fit in between the two booster seats. I’m so thankful he was willing to sit back there with squished legs and hips and put up with two silly girls who kept putting the toy snakes they bought in his ears.

2. Andrea and Brien for letting us invade their home all weekend.

3. Andrea and Brien for cooking such delicious food, even if they didn’t have everything a buffet would have.  😉

4. The beautiful outdoors. We went canoeing and it was absolutely beautiful, even if I felt like I was going through menopause because the weather couldn’t make up it’s mind. It was windy and cold, then calm and hot, windy and cold, than calm and hot, etc.

5. Carolyn who came with us and drove when I was sleepy. She also helped with all the children and I hope had fun with my silly family.

Since it was so long ago that I posted the details of Day One and Day Two of our trip to Cathedral Gorge and the pictures for Day one, you can go back to the links I just provided to refresh your memory or  just enjoy Day two of our Memorial Weekend Trip.

Friday Morning: Our hike to the caves.

Zarina hand in hand with Lilah, which was very common the whole trip.

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Eden stayed back with us, though I think she’s running a little bit to catch up with the Parks and Lilah.

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The girls, Lilah, Zarina, and Eden.

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The Blake’s. (We were hiking, I’m not trying to look fashionable.)

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Entrance to one of the “caves”.

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The girls with Jon. The “caves” were really passage ways that had been created from the silt being worn down by water and wind after the prehistoric lake dried up. So they were open on the top and at least ten degrees cooler than outside in the open desert.

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There were a lot of narrow winding spaces.

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Eden had fun fitting in one…

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…so did Jon.

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This is the view from higher up. We went climbing after we hiked in the caves.

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Eden looking up at Mommy.

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I took a rest and Jon took the girls climbing. He had a lot of patience and was the perfect teacher.

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Lilah holding her Daddy’s hand after a hard climb down. Eden was just chilling at the bottom waiting for them, she had climbed down earlier.

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Jon offering his hand to a worried Eden. (I just loved the previous two pictures. I love seeing Jon helping his children, something he is always willing to do. )

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Friday Evening: On our way to dinner.

The sky in one direction. It was very ominous.

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180 degrees the other way it looked like this. (This was at a gazebo that had been built when it became a park in the 1930’s.)

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Lilah and Jon discovered the gazebo on their hike.

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Some antelope we encountered between Caliente and Lund on our drive home Saturday.

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We thought they were cool.

This concludes our camping trip with Andrea, Brien, and Zarina. It only took me over a month to post the pictures of our second half.  We plan on seeing them once more this summer and we can’t wait!

Friday

After some morning hiking we all decided to hike to the caves not far from camp. Lilah at first stayed with Andrea and Brien, mostly to be with Zarina and Eden stayed back with Jon and I, or we stayed back with her. The gorge was a prehistoric lake that has dried and the caves are within silt hills. Jon had lots of fun squeezing into tight places and it was nice and cool within the caves and passage ways.

Lilah also became very adventurous and was mountain climbing. She saw Uncle Brien climb up high and wanted to climb also. Both Lilah and Eden did  great on climbing but were a little more nervous at coming down the hill side. Jon was a very patient daddy and helped the girls down through their many cries and pleas for help. I know I would have just grabbed them and taken them down, but he helped them slowly yet surely down the side of the hills, very slowly at times.

After lots of exploring Eden and I were getting tired, but Lilah and Jon wanted to hike some more, so we left them for camp and Jon and Lilah went on a much longer hike to a lookout at the top of the silt cliffs. Eden and I ate lunchand hung out with the Parks. Jon and Lilah eventually returned and we all took afternoon hikes.

For dinner we went to a restaurant in Panaca. It was delicious and nice to not cook. While there a storm developed so it was very windy as we sat around the fire Friday night. It looked like it might rain so I opted to sleep in the car. The storm died down for the night and it did not rain, but I’m still happy I choose the car, though I wouldn’t want to do it again anytime soon.

We packed up and went home Saturday morning. I immediately put the girls in a bath while Jon and I unpacked and put away our camping gear. I then took a shower to wash away all the dirt and sand.

It was a fun weekend and we loved camping with Andrea’s family. We hope they decided to go again before Zarina turns 4, we know Zarina can be a grumpy camper, really sleeper, but it’s so much fun during the day to let our girls explore and be together.

Summary of Day One
Pictures from Day One