San Diego

The first time I met my future husband, he was with his cousin Tom. They had just moved up to Flagstaff to go to NAU as transfer students from Eastern Arizona College in Safford and were living with Tom's parents, Clay and Mary (my third parents after my own and Rus'). I thought, "now there's a scruffy redneck, but his cousin is cute..." I soon fell in love with and married that scruffy redneck, of course, but Tom has always held a tender place in my heart, too...I think because he likes my cooking so much. He's the type of person to "mmm" through an entire meal, not just after the initial bite. And he loves our kids, joining his place right next to their actual uncles as Uncle Tom. And he still makes trips to visit us, even after our numbers have increased and our sanity has plummeted. And he reads my blog. And he calls me for recipes. And he lets us visit.
Anyway, marriage has been a long time coming for Tom, a fact which Bekah remarked on several times after she learned he was engaged. "You and dad got married ten years ago! Why did it take Tom so long?" Well, luckily his new bride Suzy loved him enough to go to the San Diego temple to be married to him for forever.
We were so happy to be able to go to their wedding and enjoy beautiful San Diego at the same time. So after that lengthy intro, here are the details of our trip:
We left Albuquerque on Tuesday night. I had felt rotten for the previous two days and I was just praying to feel better before we reached San Diego. We drove that night to Rus' parent's home in Lordsburg and stayed in their trailer because the inn was full. It was a space meant for four and we crammed in six, which meant we slept horribly but were just grateful for a roof and bed. On Wednesday we hung out (me and the kids), napped (Rus), and then decided late in the day to go swimming at the Lordsburg public pool.
Now Lordsburg may not have much going for it, but the pool is awesome! It isn't huge, but it has a beach entrance on one side and a fun slide on another. The slide is probably two stories tall with a couple of turns and it empties into a four foot pool. Bekah was instantly a pro at the slide. Jacob took a little bit of encouragement, but before too long he was going down by himself and swimming underwater to the side. Beau wanted to go down but thought he needed to be on someone's lap. So Grandpa took him down the slide. I was at the bottom, waiting for him to make his big splash and I thought that maybe they were taking a little longer than normal. I tried to look past the curve of the slide and heard some squeaking - skin on plastic kind of squeaking - and then finally saw Grandpa's feet and legs and then his hands, pushing on both sides of the slide to help lurch him and Beau a little farther down the slide. It turned out the Grandpa and Beau put together were a little too much for the trickle of water that was supposed to carry the willing down into the pool. They inched forward, little by little until they finally made their clumsy plop into the water. Of course I thought this was hilarious!
A little while later, Grandpa finally convinced Beau that he could go down the slide by himself as long as Grandpa was there to catch him, and he did, everytime, and Beau would yell, "AGAIN!" and run back up the stairs to slide again.
Then Grandpa decided to try the slide again, by himself. He stood at the top and used the bar across the top to swing himself onto the slide with a little momentum behind him. Again I was in the pool watching, and this time I saw the water splash out of each curve of the pool and knew exactly where Grandpa was as he was making his speedy descent. We warned the kids to back up, knowing that Grandpa's reentry would come with a splash. He came out the bottom of that slide like a torpedo, making some serious tidal waves that grandkids and grown ups alike enjoyed!
I neglected to mention that we were the only ones at the pool that day, for some reason, and we thoroughly enjoyed having the whole thing to ourselves.
The next day we headed to San Diego, early in the morning, after having another rough night in the trailer because of a freak storm that had me convinced we were going to be struck by lightning. (It did hit pretty close at least once). The drive was looong. The kind of long that you only understand if you have traveled with four children, one of which looses her ability to speak in any octave lower than that of a screaming banshee for the entire nine hours.
We arrived in San Diego, found our hotel, moved into our hotel room (it felt like that, at least, with all the luggage and food we were carrying), and then immediately changed and made our way to the pool. Driving that close to Mexico (in a crazy dust storm) just makes a good clean pool sound inviting.
Later that night we headed out to Suzy's parents house for a fourth of July barbecue/wedding celebration. One awesome thing about Tom and Suzy is that they are both so laid back, and all they really wanted to do was be married, without all the stress and craziness of formal gatherings. So they had a barbeque and it was perfect. All of Tom's family was there (he's one of seven), and most of Suzy's family was there (she's one of nine, I think). Clint and Nicole came and it was so fun to see them and have our kids play together. And I got to hug and love their baby Maverick.
We watched fireworks that night at an elementary school and then headed back to our hotel, late.
We slept GREAT that night, everyone with their own bed!
Friday was the wedding! My uncle Bill and his wife Jeanne actually lived about five minutes from our hotel, and we conned them (actually "him", his wife was at work), into watching our kids while we went to the sealing. The San Diego temple is stunningly beautiful, both inside and out.

My favorite part of the whole thing was seeing Tom and Suzy kneel across the altar from each other...a close second was seeing all of Tom's family in the temple. Two of his siblings had just been married to their wives within the last four months.
Here are "the boys"

Some of the girls:

 

The Hartman Family:

Three perfect heads (that's why they aren't covered in hair...)

The happy couple: (I loved Suzy's dress!) Sorry, Suzy for your candid expression, it was either this one or another picture with half of someone else's camera in it...

Later, after all the pictures had been taken and we had picked up our kids (intact!) from Uncle Bill, we packed a lunch and headed to THE BEACH! I LOVED the beach! I had no idea the effect it would have on me, I thought I'd just be content to sit and play in the sand. But it turned out that the water was cool but inviting and the waves were delightful to dive and roll and wade through. Bekah and I, and Clint and Nicole's daughter Marcy were champions of the waves. Bekah hated how the water was so salty, but she enjoyed everything else about it. Beau and Marianne stuck to the beach. Beau was scared of sharks, and no amount of encouragement would convince him that our beach was shark-free. Jacob tried it out for a little while, but the water was a little too cold so he took to the warm sand for the rest of the afternoon.



Here are all of the kids, Hartmans, Mortensens and Paynes:

Hours later we were back at the hotel enjoying pizza and conversation with Clint and Nicole and the Hartmans. I love how the Hartmans can talk and talk and laugh and share stories...
The next day was Saturday, Beau's birthday, and suddenly we were on the "descent" part of our vacation. We checked out of our hotel and met up with Clint and Nicole, Dave and Stacey, Clay and Mary and Clay's brother Kern at IHOP for breakfast. Beau was turning five, so he ordered breakfast with five silver dollar pancakes and a side of strawberries and whipped cream. Bekah, my completely unadventurous eater, is not really a breakfast person (where did she come from?!), so she had chicken fingers. Our waitress knew it was Beau's birthday and so she brought him some ice cream and then she and and a bunch of other waitresses sang "happy birthday" to him while he hid under the table, embarrassed. We spent the rest of the day telling everyone within arm's reach that it was Beau's birthday, and he loved that.
After breakfast we said our goodbyes and then headed down to the harbor for a sailing adventure! I had found a place online, the Maritime Museum, that had a tall sailing ship, the Californian, that sailed out the San Diego bay every weekend on a four hour adventure...And I signed our family up.
This is actually not our ship...:

But this is:

Now here I must confess that I know the exact moment where our delightful family vacation went a little sour: I gave all my kids, and myself, a dramamine pill, completely forgetting the "noticable drowsiness may occur" and just wanting to avoid any sea sickness. And thus it was that I had four zombie children who only wanted to nap on our four hour sailing adventure. I felt okay, just a little tired, and Bekah actually enjoyed herself, and Marianne actually napped, which was great, but the boys kept trying to lie down like rag dolls. Rus loved every minute of it, thank goodness. He didn't take a dramamine pill, and he loved seeing how different parts of the ship were made and talking to the crew about various sailing subjects.
We don't actually look too bad here:

Beau got to help our very stern captain steer the ship:

Marianne coloring on the deck:

When we finished our adventure and buckled ourselves in the van we had four little sleeping angels within the first mile. We were headed the general direction of home, with hopes to make it at least halfway before holing up in a hotel somewhere.
And telling about the rest of the trip would be like watching the credits roll - boring and tedious. So we'll leave it at that...I'll just say that it's times like this - having survived a long horrible drive that really revealed my true character - I am so grateful that my husband still loves me!

May, June, July

Oh my, I might be setting a new record for myself with "days between posting" adding up and up... It has been a very busy summer so far! Here's what we've been up to since May:

May was a mad rush to finish a comic book that was commissioned by my friend Melanie as a gift to her husband for Father's Day. It was consuming, stressful, and made for many late nights, but it turned out awesome. Epic, even. His comment upon receiving it was "this is pretty frickin' awesome," which I guess is quite a compliment. This is a blurry picture, but you get the idea...

It was fifteen pages, including the cover, and the first panel of each page had Richard (a cow veterinarian), talking to the back end of a cow. I colored it with Copic markers, a new experience for me that I really enjoyed. I had it published at a local company called Subia. I love them - I gave them my finished drawings on Tuesday and had a proof by Friday (Father's day was Sunday).
In June I went to girls camp for a week as an assistant second year leader. I loved every minute of it. Except for being cold. But the girls were wonderful, as were the other leaders. My favorite parts were the zip line, archery, nephite/lamanite battle with pvc bows and arrows, the yummy food, and painting my youth leaders faces to look injured and sick for a first aid mock emergency. When I came home on Friday night, I seriously could have slept straight to Monday. You can imagine how my abandoned husband and kids made sure that didn't happen.
On the Tuesday after I got home from girls camp, Rus left for twelve days away at Philmont, a Boy Scout camp. I decided months ago not to mope and mourn through his long absence, and I planned a trip with my mother and mother in law to Pagosa Springs. And I posted already how amazing it was!
Rus came home on a Saturday and the next week and a half was filled with fun normal things like swimming, doing a woodworking project with DeAnn, and playing with kids.
The week of the Fourth of July we left for San Diego for Rus's cousin Tom's wedding to the beautiful Suzy. We left on the night of the second and spent two nights at Rus's parent's house in Lordsburg. Then we drove the long lovely drive on I-10 to San Diego. The kids really liked seeing Mexico from the road. They wanted to stick their arms through the fence. We were happy to finally arrive at our hotel and see numerous Hartmans. Beau said a couple months ago that he wanted to go on a trip for his birthday, so we said that he could go anywhere he wanted as long as it was to the beach. So Beau had his birthday in San Diego, at the beach, the day after Tom and Suzy's wedding.
Truly, the trip requires its very own post, so let me just say now that it was wonderful to see Tom and Suzy sealed in the San Diego temple.

We got home from that trip on a Sunday night and my sister Amy and her kids and my mom came to visit the following Tuesday. We played the whole week, going swimming, celebrating Bekah's birthday at Cliffs amusement park, and making a longboard with Joshua.

 

Joshua designed, cut out, and painted that longboard himself. He did an AWESOME job! He got home on Saturday night, and by Sunday afternoon he was riding it - that's how excited he was about getting it done!
When Amy left on Saturday she only took Joshua with her. I kept her other three kids for the next six days. We went swimming...and I would like to add here that swimming with seven children, four of which can't actually swim, and not having any of them drown, is in my opinion quite an accomplishment. We also visited the Rattlesnake museum and their dozens of live rattlesnakes, went bowling, went for a hike, made homemade ice cream, attended Apple camp (at the Apple store), made Luke and Bekah castles out of scrap wood, and did lots of lizard catching in the back yard.
Here are the kids in front of the Rattlesnake museum:

It was actually really fun to have seven kids for a week. We went to Target, just for fun, and got a couple odd looks...One older gentleman actually stopped and said, "I'm sorry, I just have to ask..." and I finished for him by saying, "No, these aren't all my children." (I figured out I could have actually had all of them, although three of them are just nine months apart and Luke was born a few weeks before I got married...)
And all of that brings us to this week, where I am finding that teaching paper making to seven children is a wet and messy experience. It's really fun too, but I've learned the hard way that deckles and molds are stronger when the wood is cut with the grain and the screen is a plastic pet screen and not an aluminum wire screen. And set-up and clean-up take a long time. And paper takes a long time to dry, which is not ideal for my back to back three day class. But the kids (ranging in age from seven to thirteen), have had a great time, and that's what's important! Here is our garage full of drying papers:

On Saturday I was able to volunteer as a face painter for Smilefest - an awesome celebration for families with at least one child who has a cleft lip. The woman who organizes it works all year to get a venue and coordinate volunteers and procure donations, so that the families are able to just attend and have a good time, free of charge. This is the second year I have been able to attend as a face painter and I LOVE it! Here is some of my handiwork:

Now it's one week of relaxing fun, one week of St. George, and then school starts!! AAAHHH!!! I'm not ready to be back on a schedule, but angels will be singing when I don't have to take all of my kids grocery shopping anymore!!