Fourth Fun in Lordsburg!

We were happy to spend the fourth of July in Lordsburg with almost all of Rus' family. (Katie "fourthed" in Hawaii). Here are a few highlights of the weekend:

Emilee and Chip are homeless right now, getting ready to move to Utah for school in a few weeks. So their pet hedgehog Gypsy (who I call Chipsy), was able to entertain all the kids for just a little while. I think this was Gypsy's first time on grass.

Marianne hopes to be as fashionable as Emilee when she grows up, I'm sure. She's almost there, to be truthful...

Marianne has the special talent of wrapping anyone around her little finger with her cuteness and talkative sociability. Chip is especially susceptible to her charms.

I brought a little craft for the kids to do - "stained glass" stars. We made salt dough stars with cookie cutters and then filled the hole in the middle with clear pony beads and cooked them in the oven. They turned out pretty dark but the kids were happy with them.

Here are my kids with their coordinating shirts. Each family had a shirt color and ours was white. I let the kids pick out an animal, cut out a stencil on my silhouette, and then let them paint theirs with red, white, and blue paint. Bekah made hers a hedgehog just for Emilee. Mine was a gazelle (because that's what Rus calls me when I go on runs), and Rus had an eagle.

One of my favorite things about Lordsburg is the pool. The slide is the very best thing. It's not too big or scary, so all of the kids except Marianne can go down by themselves. Jacob kept track and said he thought he went down about 42 times! DeAnn coerced the adults into an underwater handstand contest and a round of chicken fighting. We spent hours there and everyone got plenty of fun and sun!

The women had a craft too. We did these simple pallet-like stars. I really like the navy one in the middle, Louise's. Mine is the red one next to the flag. Carla got creative and painted the flag on hers!

Emilee was awesome - she had games prepared for everyone to do. One night we played family feud, just the adults, boys vs. girls. The boys were terrible sports so it was even more irritating that they won. She also planned for the whole family to play human hungry hippos! It was hilarious! I really liked when they made Roger be the hungry hippo...and he overloaded the wheels on the cart so he couldn't go!

I painted all of the kids' faces and then all the moms got a turn too! Fireworks! We even somehow got all of the men to have a star on their faces - under duress, of course.

This is where we watched the fireworks from. It was a big dirt lot, but it was front and center for both the sunset and an amazing fireworks show! Roger and Louise must have had two dozen packages of buns, and they tried to invite enough people to come eat with us to use those all up. 

Here's another sibling shot from the next day after church. Who is that mountain man on the left?!

It was a great Fourth! God bless America!!

Summer happenings

Just a few random things this summer:

We made baby pies! Beau and Jacob picked cherries and wanted to use them, while I had a bunch of blueberries I wanted to use up. Mmm. I love pie.

The Monday after girl's camp Louise and Carla and DeAnn all came over with their kids and we sewed skirts for the older girls. Here is Bekah in the skirt we sewed.

Bekah wanted to do a lemonade stand and Beau wanted to sell brownies. The lemonade was fresh squeezed and so good, and we enjoyed visiting with our neighbors who stopped by.

My friend and neighbor Jen had been wanting to make strawberry jam and finally the strawberries went on sale. We were surprisingly successful at getting all of the kids to help us chop up all the strawberries, and then they went off and played while we finished the jam. I love talking and hanging out with Jen!

Yay for random summer fun!

Backpacking in the Pecos

Rus has had the dream of taking all of his children backpacking ever since they were in diapers. Yes, in some ways he is an optimist.

This year we finally collected enough gear to give an over-nighter a try. We headed up to the Pecos and set out on a three mile hike to our destination - Mora Flats.

 Three miles was quite ambitious and there were a few tears close to the end. Jacob and Bekah were super strong, Beau was diligent and Marianne lasted much longer than we thought. She carried her bag for a little while, and then I carried it, and then Rus carried her. The trail was so beautiful with a lot of aspens and pine trees and blooming wild flowers.

When we got to the Pecos river the kids immediately wanted to fish. Beau was the only successful one that night, although it was just a little guy so we let him go.

Our campsite was beautiful and secluded. It would have been perfect if there weren't millions of little flesh eating bugs that feasted on us that night.

The next morning we fished a little bit more. Jacob was disappointed that he didn't catch one, Bekah was thrilled that she caught one, and the hundreds of bugs that ate me were sad that they had to share.

The cutest thing happened on the hike out...We were trying to motivate Marianne to keep hiking, so Jacob would pick flowers for her and then yell for her to come and get them. Marianne surprised Jacob by giving him a flower one time. Here she is holding it behind her back...and Jacob was holding one behind his back too.

All in all the hike was a success. Next time we will not hike so far for just an overnighter and we'll pack more bug spray and a better breakfast (oatmeal was not filling).

Welcome Leo Dewey Dries!!

Amy had the audacity to birth her fifth child while I was out of town, unconnected, at girls camp with my stake. She said she hoped that the unknown-gendered child would come on Mikey's birthday, and if not then, then on Father's day. He (yep! a BOY!) came the night of Mikey's birthday. Amy is a labor machine - super fast, no drugs, and her make up always looks great. 

I got back from girls camp on Saturday afternoon and on Sunday morning at 5:30 I was in my parent's truck with Bekah in tow.

We were so happy to just spend a few hours hugging and kissing the adorable Leo Dewey (Mikey picked his middle name, after "Malcom in the Middle").

This is my favorite picture of Leo! My mom was showing Sarah (aka "Momma Bear") how to swaddle Leo tightly and I'm not sure he liked it.

I had to get a picture like this because I have similar ones with Joshua, Luke, Sarah and Mikey. Gotta keep tradition!

We made some lunch and cookies and even a cake, I think, and then by 4pm we were back on the road, headed back to ABQ. It was super fast, but completely worth it!

Hasta la Vista Elementary School!

I broke my "commencement ceremonies are lame unless you're graduating from high school" rule to attend Bekah's fifth grade commencement ceremony. I dragged Cutesy and Grandad along because they enjoy monumental events like this one...and they are a good distraction for Marianne. 

Bekah was dressed and ready for the pool party that was to follow the ceremony. She is so cute and so grown up. She was incredibly excited to get flowers from her grandma..."I've never gotten flowers before!"

Great job Bekah! You were an excellent fifth grader and I am sure you'll blow sixth grade out of the water!

Emilee and Chip's BIG Reveal!

In May our family was delighted to attend Emilee and Chip's Graduation Party and Grad School Reveal. Note that we did not actually attend the graduation ceremony because that would have been tedious and tortuous. But the party was super fun! Emilee worked so hard planning everything, coordinating food, buying a dozen 3-foot long sandwiches (which fed us all weekend long), decorating with her collection of globes, and adding adorable touches like mini paper airplanes in the cupcakes. Everyone that came got to guess what school they might be going to next, and they revealed it at the end with dramatic flair - they simultaneously pulled school shirts out of gift bags that said UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY! They even had giant candy bars to reward the people who guessed correctly. (Not me. I think I guessed Washington state.)

One HUGE surprise for the weekend was that Katie came to visit from Alaska! Emilee had NO idea, and truthfully the video of Emilee seeing Katie right after the graduation ceremony is PRICELESS. (Think visible disbelief to excitement to joyful exclamation to hugs to scrunched up face crying.) Another funny story is of how Rus and Jacob (his brother) and Carla went to the Tucson airport to pick up Katie. Rus and Jacob knew that they were going to get Katie but Carla didn't know at all. So the brothers spun an elaborate lie of how they had to pick up a special kind of fabric for their dad that was export-regulated and thus could only be delivered in person at the airport. Even when Rus was hugging Katie, Carla was still trying to see how her brother hugging this strange woman was part of the mission to pick up special regulated fabric...

Marianne instantly took to Katie and they were buddies the whole night. 

See that tiny picture by Katie's shoulder? It's a print I made of Emilee and Chip, kind of pop-art style. I wish I had a better picture of it.

Oh Payne sibling photos. Yes, Carla is protecting her butt from her brothers because they are trying to pinch her. Jake is the main culprit here and Rus is about to retaliate. Katie is in on the action and Emilee is mentally disowning her siblings...

...Until it all spins out of control and Emilee is openly disowning her siblings, Carla's "big sister" voice is trying to regulate, and the competitive spirit of the other three has taken over and left them senseless to the scene they are creating. Good times!

I brought my face paints so I could work my magic on all the little kids' faces. Bekah wanted to be a unicorn just for her aunt. (Emilee loves unicorns.)

Also that weekend: The kids made bug boxes and then had a great time decorating them and catching inhabitants for them.

We also made dream catchers. Aren't these earrings amazing on DeAnn?

I love my other family! They bring light and joy to my life and I am so grateful for the blessing they are to me! I'm going to miss Emilee and Chip being in New Mexico, but I am so excited for their new adventure!

Sedona with the Dries kids

A beginning-of-summer trip at the end of May took us to Flagstaff. Amy was only weeks away from having a baby, but she was still working, and her kids had just gotten out of school. We headed over to provide entertainment, food, and transportation. We enjoyed watching American Ninja Warrior (Dries-Style - exercising for the duration of each commercial), fell in love with Mike's pizza from his recently built outdoor adobe pizza oven (Mmm...), made cookie bars and no bake cookies and enchiladas, went swimming at the Aquaplex...

The most exciting part of the week was when we went to Red River Crossing in Sedona. It was a beautiful, BEAUTIFUL place, with enough crawdads inhabiting the river to completely occupy our half-day visit.

Here is Bekah with her first catch:

Luke and Joshua were definitely the experts.

The river in this spot was shallow, with red rock at the base, making for smooth, easy traversing and playing. Look at that scenery! It felt a little like paradise!

After a while we moved a little farther up river to a spot that was much deeper. There was still a lot of crawdad hunting in addition to swimming and sea shell collecting.

The highlight of Joshua's day was when he successfully found, tracked, and caught this snake! It was, and I quote, "the best day of my life," according to Joshua.

The whole crew a few minutes before we left. The bucket Jacob is holding contained a few choice crawdads that the kids were determined to take home and cook. Which we did. They did not "scream" like lobster, (Bekah was disappointed), and only a few kids were brave enough to actually try them. (I think it was just me, Luke, and Joshua.)