FIREWORKS FOR GAGE

We spent the 4th of July weekend in Pinetop with The LaDuke clan, minus a few. We all stayed together in this big cabin that backed up to the National Forest. It was beautiful and the weather was perfect - even a bit chilly at night!

Sadly, we started the weekend on the 3rd, with my 35th birthday. 35???? Really??? I still think and feel like I'm 26. (I may not LOOK 26, but let's just not talk about that!) It was a great day that was celebrated by yummy hobo stew and delicious chocolaty chocolate cake! We also made s'mores at the fire and danced and sang camp songs with the kids.

Gage's birthday was on the 4th and he turned 5!! We spent the day at Hawley Lake, fishing and catching crawdads. It was the perfect, most beautiful spot that we had to ourselves.

We celebrated Jacob LaDuke turning 1 on July 2nd, Gage turning 5 on the 4th, and Lily LaDuke turning 10 on the 6th with cake and silliness. That night we drove into Show Low for their fireworks. They put on a great show and we had so much fun.

On our way home, we went into Lakeside, a place where we spent a lot of time when we were little. My Grandma Schuck (maternal) lived there in a cabin and owned acres and acres of land, much of which was lakefront on Rainbow Lake. Lakeside was homesteaded in part by her father, Joseph Peterson, and she inherited priceless land. She loved Lakeside and that passed on to my mom and to all of us. Sadly, we no longer own the cabin or any of the land (a painful subject). How I wish I could take my children there to do the things we did there: fishing, catching hornytoads, frogs, snakes, grasshoppers, dragonflies and having a circus with these unsuspecting animals, playing cupball in the cinder rocks, going out in Grandma's aluminum boat, going for walks in the forest, counting between thunder and lightning in the grand storms that once struck a tree right outside the cabin, and so on. Grandma passed away this same time of year 23 years ago, and yet my memories of her are still so vivid. We first drove by the cabin, which looks much the same, however the surroundings are depressing. Where trees once stood as far as you could see down to the lake are now at least 10 cabins. The front forest is gone too, taken over by a large aluminum garage and some more cabins and trailers. We then visited her grave in the old Lakeside cemetary, as well as the graves of some of our ancestors.

It was a great weekend and we're already talking about doing it again next year!

Some things I want to write down that don't have much to do with 4th of July, but if I don't I'll forget: Paisley is growing more and more frustrated not being able to keep up with all the kids. So...I ask her, "Why don't you start walking and you can play and do the things that they are doing???? Hmmmm????" Forget what I said about being ok with her not walking yet. It's not true anymore. I REALLY want her to walk!! She is taking two, maybe three wobbly steps at time if we force her to.

Bella is quite the girly-girly, in spite of my protests and gentle attempts at guiding her to more tom-boyish things. She LOVES princesses, even though she's never even seen a Princess movie. She talks about princesses All.The.Time. She is always carrying around one of her dolls and pretending she's the mommy. She also loves to carry around a purse, which she calls her "person", with an irresistible heavy lisp. Best of all, she LOVES to sing. She is always singing; real songs, made-up songs, nonsense songs (as Gage calls them). And she sings with this vibrato in her voice. I have no idea where she learned that or heard it (certainly not from me), but it is hiliarious. She even sings the Alphabet Song in vibrato.

Gage asked when we were moving to a new house. I curiously asked him why and he said he wanted to move to Montana to live next to his cousin, Braden. The other night at dinner he asked me if he could go swimming after we ate. I said, "Sure!" and he replied, "Wow!! I've never known a mom who listens to her kids!! Moms and Dads don't listen to kids!! Thanks!!"