San Gregorio Lake Campout

It has been a long time since we have gone camping with our kids. It was the summer before Marianne was born, to be exact. If you think you're noticing a trend of "before Marianne's" you are probably right. It just goes to show what an impact she has had on our lives. And what a blow she was to our bravado as "super parents who can do everything." Now we're "super parents who know we can't do everything," which in my opinion means we've obtained a higher level...

Anyway. 

We went camping. Nothing to it.

Rus spent weeks fixing up the pop up trailer. It wasn't of the best quality to start, and time and use had taken their toll. But my man can fix anything, as he repeatedly proves, and so this trailer makeover was nothing but 20 hours over several weeks and a bunch of parts and a few swear words and some general neglect of his spouse.

We took it out for an overnight trip to work the bugs out. We headed up to San Gregorio lake, one of Rus' favorite spots, and the kids enjoyed hearing all of the tales from his good ol' boy scout days. We got up there in the afternoon with plenty of time to set everything up, play a challenging round of "ultimate cricket", play some catch, hike to the lake, whip up some fajitas, and indulge in some campfire smoke and smores. The next day we hiked up a two mile trail to a creek and played there for at least an hour before some thunderheads convinced us to hike back out. We got back to the campsite, packed up our things, and headed home.

And now in slightly more detail:

Here was our campsite:

I saw a great pin on pinterest a few days before our trip for bug catcher necklaces using the little containers that come out of toy vending machines. I gathered the supplies for the necklaces and took them on the trip so that the kids could each make their own and then mercilessly torture examine every bug in a 10 foot radius. Here is Marianne making her necklace:

Beau was extremely proud of the ant that he caught:
 I called the game of cricket "challenging" and "ultimate" because it was over rough ground and apparently - to my children at least - a barely entertaining form of torture. Rus even showed them the granny shot version of hitting the balls and still every shot seemed fated to go the wrong way over a bump and ricochet off of every rock in the wrong direction. I thought it was great. But that could be because I won. Perhaps if they had employed the "tongue out" technique Rus displayed here...

 Jacob remembered right before the trip his undying love for playing catch. So he brought a ball and several gloves, and begged to play every spare second. Or not spare second - like the ones where we were setting up the pop up ("can you throw to me?") or making dinner ("hey mom can you play catch now?") or eating dinner ("so you ready now?")...And while the nagging was painful, when we actually did have time to play, we had a terrific time. He'd throw it ten feet the wrong direction and miss four out of five throws and smile and laugh the whole time, happy as...well as a boy playing catch.

 And I just love this picture. Beau the Hiker. Super prepared. Hat, camelpack, bug catching necklace. Such a cool kid.

 Jacob found old man's beard hanging on the trees and had to do his own old man impression. Stoned old man impression.

 The hike into San Gregorio lake was relatively short and painless, and the lake was beautiful. I think Bekah walked straight into the water from the trail, barely slowing to remove her shoes and socks and hike her shorts up as high as possible.

 And this shot was taken just minutes before Bekah climbed up on that stump (to the left of her in the pic) and then fell in the water getting everything soaked and negating the whole "hike up the shorts" thing. The kids loved playing in the water until they found a water snake in it...fascinating...from the shore. Colonel was in heaven - a true water dog.

That night, after the fajitas and catch and smores, we put the kids to bed all nicely lined up in the pop up beds. Except for Jacob, who insisted that he sleep outside. He's his father's son. I thought he would wimp out, but he lasted all night and said that he slept great! Awesome.

Rus and I slept great too. I'm lying. But we made it through, and the morning was bright and cheery and everyone woke up happy. We ate and then loaded up to go find a trail head that would take us to another small creek. Here's a happy Bug, ready for her version of a hike - the kind where you lounge on dad's back and snooze every now and then and demand that your siblings bring you flowers and rocks on a whim.

I love aspens. And I love this shot with the aspen and the moon.

The hike was hard, uphill for most of the way, but the kids did well. When we got to the creek they wearily threw down their camel packs with sighs worthy of pioneers, ravaged the snacks we had packed, and then set out to find extraordinary rocks and bugs. When Marianne (or was it Beau? Jacob?) desperately needed to find a bug, we finally thought to overturn the rocks in the stream bed and unearth dozens of worms just waiting for capture. All of the kids got in on it. So did Rus and I. For at least 30 minutes we all collected worms. It was one of those rhythmic and mindless activities, and it proved to be incredibly relaxing.

Yes, that angelic look of love on Bekah's dirty face is aimed at the mess of worms she is holding in her hand...

Aw. Happy Bug with her prisoner worm. She held on to the poor little guy for much longer than the other kids and I'm sure she shortened his already brief life expectancy...

Aw, I love this dirty brood. It is so fun to go on adventures with them and get wrapped up in their amazement of the beautiful (and slimy) things in nature!

Thank you Rus for teaching our family how to love (and survive in) the great outdoors!

Giant Barnwood Squid

Meet the makers of the Giant Squid:

Jacob the super stapler, stapling barn wood boards onto a plywood base,

With his sidekick Beau

Also a super stapler...

After the boards were nailed on, we flipped the whole thing over so we could see the squid drawing on the backside. I cut using a jigsaw while Jacob put more staples in the squid's tentacles and Beau watched for any dropping pieces. A few hours later we had the squid cut out and had pieced back together all of his missing parts that the staple gun and the glue had missed. And then we hung it on the wall in their room where it can look awesome forever...

Father Sons, Mother Daughters

A month ago our ward did their yearly Father & Sons campout, and Rus was happy to attend because it wasn't 20 minutes away at the over-used Cedro Peak...it was up in the beautiful, not over-populated Jemez.

My dad had fallen in love with the Jemez back in September at the first annual Chones expedition and so he jumped at the chance to go back there with Rus and the boys. Rus loves having him come along because he makes terrific dutch oven food! They were spoiled Saturday morning with eggs, hashbrowns, bacon, spam, and pancakes!

That morning they went on a hike into the Jemez box canyon. The weather was nice but the water was COLD! Rus said the boys were miserable whenever they got wet.

Beau's favorite memory was being able to use his knife.

Jacob loved going to the river.

"Oh, me too!" said Beau.

 I encourage Beau to wear that florescent shirt whenever we are in the wild or in a crowd...you can't loose him!

 The boys also really liked the bridges over the river. Rus said the logs seemed freshly cut, there was even sawdust still on the ground where the forest service had recently put in some stairs!

I have a favorite picture of Beau from this trip that I am waiting for Rus to email me... Rus said he asked Beau to go stand in the water for a good picture. He took the picture, thinking that Beau was smiling and happy, but when he looked up from the camera, he was actually crying! The water was just so cold!

Meanwhile...the girls were enjoying a different kind of socializing. On Friday night, Bekah and I went to my SIL DeAnn's baby shower. I had to restrain Bekah from wanting (and voicing it loudly) to win every game, but after she calmed down we had a great time.
My mom stayed at home with Marianne and spent the night with us. The next morning we had a whole bunch of women over for Mother & Daughter breakfast. We provided waffles and buttermilk syrup and asked everyone else to bring a dish to share, and we had a fantastic time! Girls of all ages enjoyed our zip line (Go Kristine!), and playing with the turtle while the moms sat and visited. The morning was beautiful and the company was terrific...oh and the food...oh yum. One of the husbands told me the next day that his wife and daughters enjoyed themselves so much, he's considering ditching the men next year and just coming to our house. I told him he wasn't invited. :)

Here were two of our happiest participants:

Don't be deceived, Marianne did get dressed that morning...this was her outfit of choice. And who wouldn't want to lounge in silky pjs?
I'm grateful for a chance to have some girl time, and for a husband who enjoys taking our boys out for an adventure.

Custom Smile

Beau was not to be outdone by his two older siblings, or the majority of his kindergarten class. He was determined to loose a tooth by the end of the school year. He noticed his bottom tooth getting loose at the beginning of May and spent a couple of weeks nursing it really loose. I think his game plan was to wiggle it until it would just fall out all by itself without any coercion. And it did get super loose, but what we didn't know was that the root had a little hook on it and it would need a good yank to get it out. 

Beau tried to follow in the steps of his brother and pull it out with the string-tied-to-a-doorknob method, but we couldn't get the string to stay on the tooth. So Rus took him to the garage, situated him with a pair of pliers, and Beau yanked that tooth out himself.

Voila.

He's such an awesome kid. And now he can suck on a straw or a lollipop with his teeth clenched shut. So cool.

Hiking the Borrego Trail

Rus and I used to be great hikers. Adventurers, really. There was a time when we owned TWO kelty packs. We created the NM Adventures 101 blog. We gave tips on how to hike with your children. 

Then I got pregnant with Marianne. 

We haven't hiked in a really long time. We've been reduced from "avid hikers" to "sporadic walkers" who tote around scooters and helmets and leave our dog at home because we have too many children.

But no more. 

This is the year that we emerge from our self-made cocoons as even more adventurous adventurers. This is the year that our children become super hikers themselves and the only one we have to tote around is the Bug. 

We began to enforce this resolution with an ambitious four mile loop on the road to the Santa Fe ski area. We took the Borrego trail to the Windsor trail to the Bear Wallow trail, which took us back to our van.

 In an effort to reduce the number of rocks that perch on my window sills and under the beds of each of my children and show up in the wash on a regular basis, I created "The Rock Collection." It's a big shadow box with the best of the best, and each rock is labeled with it's date and location of acquisition. On this hike I made a rule that we could only adopt the extraordinary rocks, and we still came home with a dozen. The kids really enjoyed the hunt, though!
Here they are crossing one of the bridges: Colonel was the only one who ventured into the water. Did I mention it was SO COLD? We were dressed for a high of 70 and as such, had to hike briskly so that we could warm up in the 48 degree weather.

 This was near the meadow that we had lunch in. I would have showed you the picture of us eating lunch, but Rus caught me mid-bite and I don't feel the need to share that with the rest of you.

 It really was a cool environment where we hiked. It was downright moist. There was moss and old man's beard growing on the trees. There was fungi! Jacob loved the fungi. We had to go home and watch Ferngully after I told him how the fairies in that movie would perch on fungi like the ones on this log.

 And another bridge:
Bekah was easily the best hiker. She is so full of energy. She quite literally bounded most of the way. Jacob also did well. He complained of tired legs on the last mile and Rus told him how he would need to be strong if he were to go backpacking with dad later this summer. I told him how animal experts have to walk long distances in the wild. None of that seemed to help him forget his tired legs...
Beau also had tired legs near the end, but his legs are so little, I wasn't surprised. He did really well. And Marianne was happy to sit in the backpack the whole time...

 We had a great time. I would count the experience as a success, with room for improvement. Hooray for adventures!

(Did I mention Marianne peed in the woods? We are SO on our way to establishing our little troop of hikers!)

Happy Mother's Day!

I had a terrific Mother's Day. I usually do, thanks to Rus. Even the year Bekah made me pancakes and used 1/2 cup of salt instead of a 1/2 teaspoon... I get adorable homemade cards with cute drawings of me and my children and corny poems (that totally make me melt), like "Roses are red, with long thorny stems, but I know you love to eat M&Ms" This year Rus had the genius idea to combine my favorite "roses are red" poems and candy bar letters into "roses are red" candy bar cards from each of the kids. I got white kit kats, reeses peanut butter cups, peanut butter m&ms and 100 grand. I ate all of them, mostly by myself, in one day, and only felt guilty for a minute.

The kids each picked out a potted flower for me that I could plant, and they made me pancakes and let me sleep in and Rus even fixed dinner (out of leftovers I'd made the night before...) Bekah made me a sweet shrink-a-dink magnet at school and wrote a poem for me. Beau made me a sunflower out of clay (just like the one Jacob made me two years ago). I have a beautiful collection of sunflower art, actually, and just recently decided to display it on a wall in my house (using push pins because the idea that I'll hang it when it's framed never seems to pan out).

And now for the best gift I received:
On our way to church we pass a little park. On Mother's Day as we were passing the park, we saw a man get out of his car, pick something up out of the middle of the road, and leave it in the parking lot of the park. As we passed right by him and got a better look, I saw that the thing he was relocating was a turtle! I exclaimed this to our kids and they insisted that we turn around and check it out. We did and I have to admit that I was right there along with the kids, asking Rus if we could take it home and "rescue" it.
 


So we did. We used a cage that is normally reserved for protecting our veggies from rabbits, gave the turtle little bowls of food and water, and left him there so we could resume our drive to church.
I think that after three hours of church, everyone knew that we had rescued a turtle from sure death. I have never had my children assemble so quickly after church. They were anxious, worried that he had somehow escaped his enclosure. (And after talking to a few people myself at church and learning that turtles are impressive escape artists, I was a little worried myself.)

It was the best Mother's day present because my children spent hours following that little turtle around my backyard...they were happily entertained and they didn't even fight!

When they weren't stalking the turtle (who proved to be surprisingly fast and well camouflaged), they were researching desert box turtles...like what they eat and how big they get and what type of home they like. Oh, and how to tell if it's a boy or a girl turtle. (Boy.) Within a few days I had planned a little turtle paradise for this guy, who the kids (after much debate), named "Rocky Sarge Mr. Wiggles." I emailed the local turtle and tortoise club (not kidding, there really is one), and received even more information, like that Rocky was probably not a formerly wild turtle but rather an escaped or released pet and that we'd be doing them a favor to keep him and care for him.
By the next weekend, we had erected the "Rocky Sanctuary," [Side note here: I purchased all of the supplies to build this enclosure with Marianne and her friend Noelle in tow. I felt a little superhuman purchasing four 2x10x10' boards (heavy!), two cinderblocks, a big bag of peat moss, medium bark, a water dish and a flat of flowers with two TWO YEAR OLDS "helping" me. Noelle was an angel. My child was running off, playing in the fountains, scaring onlookers by almost running into the parking lot twice, and to top it off, hiding my debit card in my wallet so that I couldn't find it when it was time to pay. Oh such a horrible child...(I type with great love and also great residual resentment)]
I planted most of my Mother's day plants in it, along with impatiens which turtles reportedly love to eat.

...complete with a hibernation pit. (The cinderblock in that far right corner leads to a covered pit where Rocky likes to hide and sleep.) Here is an up close view of that pit...

Again, it was an awesome day. I'm so grateful for Rus and the way he supports me and teaches our kids to respect the role of all mothers.
And I'm enjoying the turtle. Maybe if we keep him secure and alive for a year we can adopt a friend for Rocky. :)

Rus the Lumberjack at 36

Rus had a birthday last week, and lucky for him, it fell on his Friday off. Even luckier, my mom and dad volunteered to keep Marianne overnight Thursday night so that Rus and I could enjoy Friday together while the big kids were at school. 

Earlier that week my neighbor hired a guy to come cut down her huge ponderosa pine tree because it was dying. He came and asked me if I'd like the wood for fire wood, I said yes, and hours later there was a ponderosa pine tree in my side yard...It was cut into smaller bits and thankfully he restrained himself from giving me the needles and tiny branches, but still! It was a huge pile o'wood! I was dismayed at the thought of cutting it into appropriate sized logs for fire wood, but Rus seemed energized by the opportunity to try out a chainsaw a friend had given him. 

So on his birthday I left to teach an art class at the school and he busted out his chainsaw (with newly sharpened blade), and went to work reducing the daunting pile of wood into manageable bits. When I came home an hour and a half later he had made a significant dent in the load...I was amazed at my man's lumberjack skills. If you need an earful, just call Rus and ask him how his little chainsaw worked cutting up those logs...he was happily surprised by how well it worked.

We went to lunch and then to buy his birthday gift (thank you tax returns!): an air powered pellet rifle. It's a 22 caliber and Rus can shoot it in the backyard and the pellets are easily attainable and dirt cheap (compared to regular ammo). (Can you hear Rus's reasoning for needing it coming out here?)

Rus seemed eager to prove that his 36-year-old body could do a 20-year-old amount of work and so he continued working in the yard that afternoon. We purchased some split rail fencing for the rear part of our yard, so while I stacked firewood, he put up the fence.

That night we had dinner with my parents (who bought him a wheelbarrow, can you see the yard work theme we have going on?), and the boys enjoyed shooting the bb gun and pellet gun.

It was a great day. Rus worked super hard and got super spoiled. I'm so grateful for him and his ability to do hard work, to be able to fix anything, and to rock a pair of work-worn carharts.

Here he is sighting in his scope on his pellet gun.

 Oh how Jacob loves his BB gun!! And he's not too bad of a shot!

 Grandpa was Jacob's spotter here...

 Here is the fencing Rus put up. If your'e confused by this view it's because there used to be a hill here...we leveled it a few weeks ago.

 A tribute to Grams here: A bearded iris blossom from the irises she planted years ago.

 So I think we're set for firewood...

The end.