COUSINS

We have been lucky to spend some extra time with my nieces, Callie and Avery lately. Their mom, Addie, experienced a major medical emergency involving her pregnancy that nearly took her life. I felt helpless, but was happy to have the girls over. My kids were thrilled! When I asked Callie who it was in the picture she painted, she replied, "It's Michael Jackson!". Hilarious!

VISIT WITH PAPA POWERS

We went to see Papa Powers on Sunday, our usual visiting time with him. Uncle Terry was there too. Papa loves to see his little grandchildren and indulges them in whatever they want. It's funny to hear Rob talk about how strict he was when he was little, because there is no hint of that now. Rob and his brother, Mike, are taking him to Laughlin for his 81st birthday in a couple of weeks. That used to be his and Grandma Powers' favorite getaway. He is so excited about it! The funny thing is, he told me he can't really remember specifically his trips there with her (his long-term memory is really struggling lately), he just knows that they used to go all the time. For some reason though, he still has quite a good mind for money. Rob teases him good-naturedly that on his deathbed he won't remember who Rob is, but he WILL remember that he owes him ten dollars and fifty-six cents. This gives him quite a laugh.

PLASMA CARS

These little cars are the best invention. They are self-propelled by turning the steering wheel back and forth, so even Paisley can do it. But she still prefers to be Gage's passenger. They whip around the whole main floor (which is tile) on these things and then crash into the floor pillows that are against the wall. It provides hours of entertainment!

PAISLEY'S NURSERY

This is Paisley's new nursery, courtesy of my sister, Courtney. She is so talented. She made the crib fringe, curtains and the rug and then pulled together some of her stuff with mine to complete the look. She decided to branch out from the nursing covers she is already making and selling. I decided she took all of the creative/artsy/crafty genes from my mom, who makes quilts into art. Seriously, they are amazing. Someday, I'll get pictures of all of them and put them here.

THE LIZARD WHISPERER

Gage's lifelong mission is to catch lizards. We have tons of them all over, but they're fast and slippery little suckers. He puts lots of thought and care into catching them. When he is able to catch them, he thinks he is a lizard whisperer. He ALWAYS wants to keep them, but I tell him that their mothers must surely be missing them and to put them back exactly where he finds them. This one is teeny tiny.

(This is pretty much his wardrobe for the better part of every day: underwear and an eye patch)

SAN DIEGO

We went to San Diego with our friends, the Schmitts, right after our weekend in Pinetop. We stayed in this great rental house that was right on the beach. It was a beautiful view and great weather, but my heart will always be in Arizona.

Gage and Jake spent hours building their fortress in the sand.

Bella and Megan sat on this boogie board, not yet brave enough to try it.

Paisley kept eating the sand, which is why I kept the binky in as much as possible. She also had no fear of the ocean. She kept crawling down there into the water, and I let her, thinking she'd shy away after getting slammed by the waves. But she didn't.

We went to a less-expensive version of Sea World, Scripps Aquarium. The kids got to touch starfish, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, stingrays, and the likes. They were beyond excited!

Rob and I even got to go in a shark cage! It's totally real....I promise.

So is this shark's mouth....REAL!

We also went to the Botanical Gardens. They had this awesome treehouse that Rob now thinks he has to build in the backyard.

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!!"