An Adventure with Ivan

A really good friend of ours, Ivan Marshall, came to visit back in October. He was one of Jake's groomsmen and has visited us several times. On his last day Jake had to works and we were trying to find something to do. I looked up somethings on the internet and we decided we'd go try and find a ghost town to explore. There are several of them around here, most are within 20-30 minutes of sierra vista. The San Pedro river used to be a busy trade route, but over-irrigation has turned it into a small creek and it hasn't been used as a trade route for a very long time. There are several ghost towns along ther river. Also there are a number of old mining communities that were shut down 100 years ago and are now ghost towns. Anyways, we set out to find Charleston, AZ. We drove to the river (only about 10 minutes from town) and tried to find a trail to follow. We learned that most of these towns aren't touristy ghost towns that are easily found, we tried to take our best guess at where we thought it would be based on the crude maps that we saw on the internet. After awhile of sloshing through the river we went up and started treking, but it was hard going and I had Jaxon strapped to my chest in a baby carrier. I wasn't expecting it to be as much of a hike as it was. The brush and growth was very thick and thorny so we had to give up. I just had capris on, because I really was expecting there to be some sort of trail or something, so both Ivan and I had cuts all over our legs. We headed back and just let Jaxon go crazy in the river crawling around and I snapped a few photos. I did some more research at home and just for curiosity sake looked it up on google maps. If you look at the satelite imagery part of it you can see some ruins of buildings, they are about a mile or so away from where google says the town is supposed to be, but it is the only thing that looks town like in the area. I plan to go back sometime with Jake to see if we can find it again.

This is a link to the google map of it: http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&q=charleston,+az&ll=31.635735,-110.176365&spn=0.002727,0.004726&t=h&z=18&iwloc=addr

Jake's Flying Lessons

A guy that Jake works with is a flight instructor and has opened a business teaching flying lessons on the side. Jake has been wanting to get his pilot's license for a long time. We really look at it as an investment because it makes him more valuable and versatile to his company. It also makes it easier for him to get positions working on other aircraft. So we knew this was something we wanted to do. He started a few weeks ago and has been doing great so far. We went out last Saturday to watch him fly. It was fun, but the girls were really disappointed that they didn't get to ride in the plane. I am not so disappointed because he is training on a light-weight aircraft that gets tossed around in the slightest wind. I am already a white-knuckled flier on big jets and I don't know if I could handle one of those things. He is doing realy well, on his third flight he did the entire take-off without any intervention from the instructor. Flying is something that seems to come very easily to Jake, so it makes sense for us to continue to have him develope those skills. I am happy for him and proud of how good he is doing. I just thought I'd show him off a little bit.

Mother's Immunity

I don't have it. My mom seemed to have an immunity to whatever disease we were carrying, and a very strong resistance to her gag reflex so that she could clean up whatever disgusting mess we made. I think it is assumed that since you are the mom you never get sick from your kids, and you are able to clean up everything. I usually do OK, but Jaxon started throwing up on Friday and has had terrible diarrhea all weekend. It has been gross. Then this morning Lyla woke me up very very early to say that she threw up. It was all over her bed. covered. I don't know how she had that much in her. I almost threw up when I was taking her sheets off, and had to take a break and go outside. I just couldn't handle it. Does that make me a bad mom? The fact that I have a gag reflex? Then Jaxon woke up with diarrhea running down his legs and all over his bed. Jake came home from work feeling awful and has been sleeping all day. It looks like we are gearing up for a fun week. I have been a little woozie and really tired, but no stomach problems yet. Let's hope my "motherly immunity" kicks in soon.

Crazy Costumes

We just went to the trunk or treat at the church this year and then stopped by a few friends houses to say hi and show off costumes. I was going to take the kids around the neighborhood a little bit just so that I would have a chance to meet some of the neighbors, but our neighborhood was dark. Almost no one had their lights one, which means that we shouldn't go to the houses. We didn't get a single trick-or-treater ourselves. We had decorated and put pumpkins out, and for fun I thought we could put a black lightbulb in our porch light. It wasn't until after that I realized that people probably couldn't see it from the street because our house is pretty far back, so they probably assumed we weren't participating. The kids did get loads of candy from the tunk-or-treat, plus we had tons of candy leftover due to the lack of trick-or-treaters.
Jake never dresses up for Halloween. But this year I did get him to put on the cheap mullet wig that I picked up at Walmart. He at least wore it long enough for me to snap some pictures.
He is trying to look hick-ish, too bad we don't have any flannel shirts.

I just got a t-shirt and a wig. I pinned on the picture of the skeleton to represent the baby. Almost no one got it though.

Lyla was an astronaut and Mckayla was bat girl. We just bought costumes this year for simplicity. Plus, they are starting to get really particular about what they want to be and how they want to look. Lyla knew she wanted to be an astronaut about 3 months ago. We went to the space center in Houston in May and she has been excited about space related things ever since. I'm not sure what made Mckayla want to be Bat Girl, but she decided that about a month ago as well.

Jaxon got stuck with the traditional pumpkin costume. I thought he looked adorable even though it isn't very original. He hated the hat. He kept pulling it off and trying to hide it.

Halloween Pictures

I am finally writing about our halloween. We had a pretty good halloween this year, there were so many activities going on that we had to choose what we wanted to do. Below is Mckayla and Lyla being goofy next to all of the pumpkins we got. Jake got really creative with his this year and it turned out really cool. I had the girls draw a face on a piece of paper and I tried to make that work on their pumpkin. They also painted mine and Jaxon's pumpkins for us. It was fun.
I spent most of Halloween day with Lyla's class, but I did sneak into Mckayla's for a little bit to take a picture or two. They had a party with their third grade buddies, they bobbed for apples and made cookies and listened to scary stories.

Lyla's class made pumpkin ice cream for a treat. They made them in groups of two. They put all of the ingredients in little cans, and shook them up then put the little cans inside larger cans that they filled with ice and rock salt. The teacher took time making it a science experiment and talking about salt and all of that. Then they went outside and rolled the cans back and forth with their buddy for 30 minutes or so. They all seemed to have a lot of fun with it. Then of course, we ate it and they played outside for a little while. I was skeptical, but it was actually really good. It was like eating a frozen pumpkin pie.

We don't have any nearby pumpkin patches, but there is a lot that is used for various commercial things. They put up a "pumpkin patch" and that is where we went to buy our pumpkins. The girls still had fun choosing the perfect pumpkin for everybody. Here's Jaxon exploring the pumpkins.

This is the girls with the pumpkins they chose.

Chore Charts

Shortly after moving in I decided it was time for the girls to really do their share of the work around here. They always help when I ask them to, and have learned to do many different things; but I thought it was time to make it official. I made up chore charts for them and everytime they do a chore they get to put a sticker next to that particular thing on their chart. The things they do are- cleaning the bathroom, cleaning their room, setting the table, emptying the dishwasher, and folding and putting away laundry. They don't do these things everyday, but they at least do one chore a day depending on what needs to get done. When the chart is full of stickers we get to go out and get a prize for them.

I don't want to always get them big prizes for doing chores, but we have been wanting to get them bikes. We have never gotten them real bikes and when we went up to my sister's for the 4th of July it was sad to see them try to ride a bike with training wheels and they couldn't hardly peddle it at all. Meanwhile, their 5-year-old cousin Megan was already riding a 2-wheeler without training wheels! We are pretty behind on teaching them that skill. We had gotten them plastic hot-wheel type bikes when they were 2, and they never really rode them so we never got them new bikes. Though kids bike from walmart aren't that expensive, it is a big deal to get a bike. But we didn't want to wait until Christmas because they'll only get to ride a few times before it is too cold. So we made them do steady chores for a couple of months so they could earn the bikes. About 3 weeks ago was when we decided to get them. We had a FHE on the importance of hard work, and then went out bike shopping. They were so excited. They are getting better at riding their bikes, though they still want mom or dad right behind them just in case (even though they do have training wheels). It is going to take some practice though because they just don't seem to have much natural skill in this area. We'll get it though.

Our 6th Wedding Anniversary

I can not believe that Jake and I have been married for 6 years already. Time sure flies when you're having fun! I love Jake so much and I am so grateful for a loving husband and a good, happy marriage. I feel like that is something that I take for granted sometimes, but the other day I was at Safeway and there was a couple completely screaming at each other in the store. Everyone was trying to look away and get away from them, and the manager had to ask them to be quiet or leave. I thought, "if it's this bad in public, I don't want to know what your home life is like." It made me so grateful for my husband and our happy family. We have our arguments, but we always refrain from yelling at each other and take a step back if we need to. We have always been able to work things out and compromise with each other. I am so grateful for that.
Anyways, I decided it was my turn to plan out our anniversary, and I thought that we had to get out for an over-nighter because we haven't be able to do that in years, and next year we'll have a small baby again. I was nervous though, because we have never left Jaxon overnight before. A couple of awesome, brave friends of ours, Kyle & Joey, watched the kids for the weekend.
We went first to an observatory on Kitt Peak. It is on top of a mountain and in the middle of an Indian reservation. It was a beautiful place. We got up there at about 4:00 and after a little intro went out for a sunset presentation:

We felt like we were on the top of the world, because this mountain was taller than anything that you could see and it was neat to be able to see so far. After sunset the big group split into little groups and we spent the next several hours looking at the stars and different things through huge telescopes. It was romantic, but also very very educational. I have never seen so many stars. There were lots of telescopes on the different tops, and they were being used by astronomers all over the world.
This is just a really pretty view from the mountain top.
This is us at sunset. It got really cold up there, and we were told to dress warm. Jake made fun of me for bringing hats, gloves, and scarves, but he was glad I brought them in the end. I wish I could have somehow taken a picture of the stars from that night, but that isn't possible, I don't think, with our type of camera. It was a great night.
The next day we just hung out in Tucson. We just did some leisurely shopping and ate out and saw a few things. That night we went to a little french restaurant that was super romantic and really nice. When they brought out the dessert Jake had had them put my present on the plate. A new wedding ring! I guess he said that he always felt bad that he had gotten me a super cheap wedding ring because we didn't want to go into debt and we had no money as privates in the army. So he bought me a really nice wedding ring. I neglected to take any pictures of it, but I'll post some when I get it back. I had to send it in to get resized and soughtered. I can't wait to start wearing it! It was an awesome anniversary. I love my husband!!!

Our Trip to Oregon

I tried making a slideshow because there were so many good pictures I couldn't choose which ones I wanted to use. We had a lot of fun on our trip. We left on a early Saturday morning and came back the following early Saturday morning. We really love Oregon, it is such a beautiful place. It was so nice to enjoy some fall weather, however we neglected to think about that until about 2 days before the trip. We realized at that point that we had no warm clothes for our kids. We had to go on a major shopping spree before we left, and I am so glad we did. It was cold! But it was nice to get some cold weather for a little while.
We had so much fun with Benita and Mark. They live in Welches, OR which is a tiny town (only on local maps) at the base of Mt. Hood and about an hour from Portland. We went to Portland a few times. We went to a huge open air market to buy crafts and we ate Portland-y restaurants. I tried oysters for the first time in my life. They weren't too bad, but I'd never order it for myself. We also went to the OMSI. It is a huge science museam that has exhibits for both adults and kids. We spent all of our time in the huge children's museam area and didn't see everything. One of our favorite things was going to Mark's park. Mark works for the BLM and manages several parks in the area. The most awesome one is in Welches and all of the nature pictures in the slideshow are from our visit to that park. We mostly loved just spending time with Jake's mom, Mark, and Markie. We played games every night after the kids were in bed and just enjoyed visiting and catching up. It has been too long since we had seen them. I won't be offended if you don't look at all of the pictures, there are a ton!

Catching Up

The other two blogs I stole my words from our family message board, because I realized I had wanted to write the same thing in the blog. So, my family doesn't need to read them. I am going to list the things I want to blog about now that I've finally gotten the pictures loaded onto my computer. I know it bugs people to be a serial poster, but I am way behind and this is the only sort of family memory book or journaling that I do whatsoever. So even if no one reads it, it is important to write it down.
1. our Oregon trip
2. our anniversary
3. the girls chore thing
4. halloween

Election Results

I had mixed feelings about the election results. I think that Obama's victory is something that our country needs right now. I think it is neat to see so many people getting involved that have never been politically active before, and the passion that Obama has created is really great. I feel like it is waking up the "American Spirit" and it will be good for our country to see so many foreigners that are going to gain confidence in the country and so many people "be proud to be American" again. McCain had some passionate supporters, but most republicans would not be crying and hugging in the streets if he had won. That is why he didn't win I suppose. I think it is great to have a president that people are so excited about, and that hasn't happened in a VERY long time. Most people say not since JFK. That is something we needed.
BUT I am really scared of what the fallout will be with the democrats in complete control. It is scary when a government has no checks or balances. I wouldn't want the republicans in complete control either -by the way- I think it is good when the parties can keep each other in check so things passed can be relatively in the middle. I personally am worried that the drastic increases in social spending will mean either lots more taxes or lots more debt for our country and that scares me. I don't think we need either of those things right now. Only time will tell on that as well.
We also had some heated local elections that I was excited about. We had a ballot measure on making marriage between one man and one woman part of the state constitution that passed. It was on the ballot 2 years ago and failed. But they simplified it and took a lot of things out and it passed this time. I am glad for that. I was disappointed that we didn't get an override passed for our school budget. I don't feel like this community is very supportive of the school system. This really could mean the loss of the Art, Music, and PE classes. They are taught as separate classes by different teachers right now, and they are usually the first thing to go when there is a funding problem. But the state still expects the kids to meet certain standards in those areas and it puts an additional burden on the teachers.
I thought it was also neat that the marriage proposition in CA looks like it will pass, though they haven't officially called it yet. CA is in a weird situation now though, because they have lots of people who are already married, so what will they do if the ban passes? Take away all of those existing marriage licenses? Though I do not support gay marriage I think that that particular situation is very hard to figure out, and very sad for those people whose lives hang in the balance at the mercy of CA voters.

Results

We had our ultrasound yesterday and the result was....... nothing. I am afraid that this election result is coming from Florida. We aren't going to know anything for several months as to be decided in the courts of the delivery room. The doctor's exact words were, "I think it looks like a girl, but don't go and paint the room or anything." That was about as definative as we had with Jaxon. Both Jake and I swear we saw something boyish right before he said that, and now we are left in the unknown. Plus, Gordon's cousin Lisa who lives around here said that this doctor is notorious in her ward for being wrong about genders. She said that he had told 6 women in her ward that they were having girls and 5 of the 6 had boys. We really are happy either way, but I was really hoping to KNOW this time one way or the other so I could get ready. I am glad that we didn't get anything ready for Jaxon, because the doctor was wrong in that case. But this race is officially too close to call, and time will only tell. I did include a cute picture of the baby sucking his or her thumb from yesterday.