AZ Trip Day 4: Exploring Tucson Without Dad

Did I mention that the whole reason we were in Tucson was for Dennis to attend an Indian Health Conference? So while he was learning about how to improve patient care, the kids and I went exploring. We held off doing all the deserty things because Dennis really wanted to join us for those so we went to the zoo and a children's museum.

Reid Park Zoo is a relatively small zoo, but it is really nice and actually it was big enough for us having all of the "big" animals that one hopes to see at a zoo: lions, polar bears, tigers, giraffes and elephants! This zoo also had a South America section which most zoos don't have. I don't think I've ever seen an anteater, capybara, tapir or jaguar before. I felt a little like Diego.The highlight of the zoo however, was feeding the giraffes. Giraffes have long tongues (long enough to pick their own nose with) that are a little rough (like a cats) and very slimy. The giraffes were not shy at all, but the kids were a little reluctant. I myself was a little gung-ho, because I have never felt a giraffes tongue before. I picked a very small piece of lettuce and put it in the palm of my hand and the giraffe licked and licked my hand. It was gross, but cool too. (Gosh am I 8 years old, or what?)

The next stop was the Tucson Children's museum. I didn't take many pictures for several reasons. The first is that the lighting was really bad. Secondly, the kids were moving kind of fast and I frankly was getting tired of taking pictures. I wanted to play too (Remember? I am 8.)
This was a fun rope maze that the kids tried. They tied themselves to a rope and had to get through the maze by going over and under other ropes.
The rest of the day was spent, you guessed it, at the pool. Again, I'm going to make you wait for those pictures.

AZ Trip Day 3: Getting to Tucson

We left Pinetop on Monday morning and took our time driving to Tucson. To get to Tucson you must drive through the Salt River Canyon. It's a beautiful place and a twisty turny kind of a drive. Note: Since having children, my body just doesn't like twisty, turny mountain roads (or swings, or rocking chairs...). Actually now that I think about it, my body never really liked them, but I would only feel sick after 3 hours or so of bumpy, turny roads, now I just look at curvy roads and my head gets light and my belly starts to turn. I found that I'm better if I drive.

We made it to the the bottom of the canyon and found a place to pull off to throw rocks into the Salt River. Throwing rocks is a favorite past time for all of us. We could do it for hours.
Eli found a prickly pear, one of millions, that we saw on the trip. Here is touching one just to prove that he's tough like that!

Even Sadie found a prickly pear to pose by. One just cannot get enough of those prickly plants!Ahhh, blue sky and it's not 15 below!! We enjoyed the sunshine as much as we could and tried to get a lot of the mood boosting Vitamin D that we were all missing. I think it worked, we were all in good spirits and I'm still feeling it 2 days after arriving home. oh yeah, the picture. This is a fun game called "mountain lion". Grrrrrr... Aren't they ferocious?

We arrived in Tucson in the early part of the afternoon and spent the rest of our day getting checked in at the hotel and checking out the swimming pool, but you'll have to wait until later to see those pictures.

AZ Trip Day 2: Exploring Our Old Stomping Grounds

We stayed with our good friends, David and Kathleen. David and Kathleen are perhaps the quirkiest and genuinely nicest people I know. Kathleen, among the zillion other things she does, just happens to rescue guinea pigs. Holding Kathleen's guinea pigs was Eli's favorite part of the whole trip. He loved those guinea pigs. Pigs, yes, there are 10!!
Funny story: Before we left on Monday, Eli and Sadie wanted to say one last good-bye to the guinea pigs. Kathleen already left for work so I took 2 out of their cages (there are 4 different cages holding the 10 guinea pigs) and let the kids hold them. Then I put them back and we left. Kathleen called later that night laughing. Turns out I put the guinea pigs back in the wrong place and I put the boy in with all the girls. Oops!! I really hope Kathleen doesn't have 24 extra guinea pigs to find homes for. Or, I hope she doesn't send us 24 guinea pigs. She did promise though that she would name any possible guinea pigs Eli and Sadie. :)

We showed Eli and Sadie where we used to live and teach. We took them to the Catholic church in Whiteriver to meet Father Eddie. We took them to Rainbow, Over the Rainbow, Down Below, and Seven Mile (neighborhoods on the rez). Then, we went to one of my favorite little places on the rez, the fish hatchery. I like it mostly because it's a pretty drive down between the canyons with a little river running through it and because it was the very first place Dennis ever sent me to exlore by myself on the rez.

We went back up to Pinetop and took the kids on a hike where they could view the edge of the Mogollon Rim. Can't you see why we just love this place? Lots of rocks and trees and canyons and crazy formations. And the hiking. Oh the hiking. It goes on for miles...

Anyways, the kids collected lots of rocks and learned that it's a lot easier getting into a canyon then it is getting out. They asked us lots of questions about before they were born. There was lots of reminiscing. We ended our short trip to Pinetop by having dinner with most of our good friends that still live in the area. It was so great to see everyone and see how much their children have grown and introduce them to Eli and Sadie. I wish I would have taken more pictures, but I was too busy talking and catching up to take pictures. It was a great day!

AZ Trip Day 1: Getting There

We left from Minneapolis on Sat, Feb. 12. Because Dennis was going to a conference, and we didn't want to pay the high price that his ticket cost, we ended up flying on separate flights. Our flight left before his, so he dropped us off and parked the car. He was also in charge of luggage (another perk of being military. You can check 3 bags for free!). So that made our journey easier. Both of the kids have flown before, but their memories aren't that great, so it was like a new experience for them. They loved the "fresh" baked chocolate chip cookies and that I let them have pop.

We beat Dennis to Phoenix which gave us just enough time to pick up the rental car. Crazy rental car story: While getting our car, I started making small talk with the guy about our trip. I told him we were heading up to Pinetop/Lakeside. He told me that he was from there and was wondering what we were going to do there. I told him that we used to teach there. He asked where I taught I told him Cradleboard. Then he proceeded to tell me that his aunt was Toni, who just happens to be one of the people that we were going to see while we were there. He upgraded our car for free! Small World.

We picked up Dennis after his plane arrived and we drove up to Pinetop/Lakeside (3 hours from Phoenix).

Another crazy story: On the way to Pinetop/Lakeside we stopped at Globe for dinner. While we were there we hear "Sperle!!" in that typical way that Apache boys would call Dennis. There was one of Dennis' former students and his family. Small world.
We arrived at David and Kathleen's house in Pinetop late and went straight to bed knowing that the next day would be a very busy day for us.

Random Vacation Thoughts

I'll get to the pictures and the day-to-day events from our trip to Arizona in another post. Before I start though, I have a few thoughts to share about the trip.

* The kids traveled the best yet. They were awesome. No problems on flights, no problems with them carrying their bags and keeping track of their stuff. They were enthusiastic and eager. They were polite and friendly. They tried new things and were just good sports all-around. Yea!

* This is the first trip ever for us as a family (even before kids) where we spent more than 3 days in one place. We like to see the highlights and move on. But, I think hanging out in one place for awhile allowed for some down time which contributed to the kids being so good. That being said, we still put on 850 miles on the rental car and 400 miles on our own car. We stayed at 2 different family/friend's homes and 3 different hotels. So, we were still on the move!

* Eli got sick on the flight home. Actually, he was sick before the flight, so I don't think it was the flight that caused the vomiting. But, we boarded the plane (we were in the third row), I looked over and Eli was puking. He tried to catch it, bless his heart, but it was on the seat, the floor, his clothes. A mess and everyone boarding the plane had to walk by us. They held up the plane and the maintenence people came and changed out his seat, the seatbelt and cleaned up the floor. I had a clean shirt for him, but no pants, which were drenched. I cleaned him up the best I could and wrapped my sweatshirt around him to keep him warm. He was a trooper, the poor guy.

* I love AZ and the high desert with all of my heart. I hadn't been back since we moved and everytime I saw pictures of AZ and mountains or lava rocks or cactus or Indian ruins, I had such a feeling of longing, a feeling of wanting to go home. I was sort of hoping that that feeling wouldn't be there when I got there. I was hoping that I'd think it was too brown, too hot, too cactusy, too something that would make me wonder why I ever loved lived there and make me feel good about our decision to move to Minnesota. But, that didn't happen. I hated Phoenix (and I always have) but the rest of AZ was awesome. I love it just as I did. It was as good as I remembered. And Dennis feels the same way. And the kids thought it was awesome too. I'm not sure what that means for us.

Stay tuned, there is more to come....

Happy Valentine's Day

I hope that you are having a lovey-dovey kind of a Valentine's Day. Or, if not, at least enjoying a pint of Ben and Jerry's while watching 30 Rock or Modern Family on Hulu... (which really, if you ask me, sounds like the best way to spend Valentine's Day!)
Enjoy these pictures of the kids making homemade conversation hearts, which are remarkably similar to the real thing. For the full directions, go here.( I bought the edible magic markers at JoAnn's.)

Crafting with Eli

While prepping for our trip to AZ, I discovered that Eli didn't have any short-sleeved t-shirts that fit him. I had Eli look through some catalogs so I could get an idea of what he wanted. Well, he picked out this shirt from Boden. My first thought was, "$30?? For a t-shirt??" My second thought was, "I can make that for $5." So, that's we did. We made a peace sign applique t-shirt for $4. Take that, Mini Boden. (the peace sign is NOT crooked, Eli is just standing funny.)At the same time I was buying the other t-shirt I picked up another one since they were only $4. Eli freezer-paper stenciled a shark onto this one. But, alas, no picture of him in the shart t-shirt yet...

A Trip: Tucson!

"Arizona" by Sadie

We're leaving today for a trip to Tucson. I'm so excited to show Eli and Sadie one of my most favorite places on Earth: the desert. I hope they love it as much as I do!!

Sewing With Sadie

I am constantly amazed by Sadie's independence and her desire to "do" and "make" and "create". She needed envelopes for her valentines. I got out the sewing machine. She's sewn before, just once, or maybe twice, so she had the idea. But this is the first time I let her drive. I moved the machine to her art center so she could reach the pedal, gave her the basics and let her go. And go she did. She didn't even ask for any help, she just sewed. She sewed 9 envelopes. All. By. Herself.

They say "I'm Stuck on You, Valentine!" because she made each of her friends a heart magnet made out of fuse beads. Yes, we've been working on Valentines since January! They turned out so cute and she was so proud of her work. She even picked out the colors according to whom she was making the heart for and we had to label each heart so we wouldn't give someone the wrong heart.

A Valentine Box

Eli's very first Valentine box. Although I'm not sure if it's a monster or an alien or a monster/alien...

Ski School

The Bemidji Cross Country Ski Club offers ski school for people of all ages, abilities and xc ski styles (classic and skate). They also supplyall of the needed equipment and snacks. The teachers (who are volunteers) are awesome and all of the kids seem to be having a great time even when it's freezing cold (the parents on-the-other-hand, whine constantly about how cold it is. And it is really esp. when you're just standing around in the cold watching your child ski).On this particular day, they were learning to go down hills. The hill, which is more like a ditch was easy to go down, it's the getting up part that can prove to be too much work for little ones. Can you believe that I didn't hear one cry or whine or complaint out of any of the kids? They were so awesome.

The little kids practice without poles, because at this age they are more of a hindrance than a help. They are mostly working on gliding instead of shuffling, turning and how to stand up after they fall. This is the "hill" by the way.

Here is Eli side-stepping back up the "hill". I'm not sure when they learn to v-walk up or stomp up, but this seems to be the easiest method at this age.Last week it was a balmy 10 degrees at ski school. The kids spent an hour and a half outside without a grumble. However, after we got in Eli and Sadie had their very first toes-are-so-cold-that-they're-on-fire experience. Man, I so remember that pain as a kid after hours of skating. I felt so bad for their cold, red toes. I promptly went and bought them each some new, fat, warm wool socks so that they can enjoy their outdoor experiences a little more! Here's hoping that the toes are toasty next week.

Snow and Update and Stuff

I think the kids have reached my favorite stage. I'm just loving parenting right now. The kids are independent, but they still need you and they still like to cuddle.You can motivate them with a dime. They can play for hours crazy, silly, imaginative, albeit messy play. They are funny and make me laugh. I can reason with them a little bit. It's just fun. I really would like to have ongoing video footage of them right now, so I can have it when they're teenagers, just because they're so sweet and charming right now, but it might get kind of boring to watch, yet I couldn't capture this moment in a single 1 minute clip.
I love that they're currently into playing "Rolling Derby" since we went to see the Babe City Rollers the other night. It's crazy how Eli knows all of the rules after watching one game and yet neither Dennis nor I sat down to really explain the rules to him. But, that's Eli. Eli loves rules, he loves to follow them and he hates if others break them!
They also love playing "Backyardigans" and go on adventures. Sadie is always "Tasha" who tends to be the confident, bossy one on the show and Eli likes to be "Pablo", who always seems to have a crazy, frenzied, panicky moment on every episode. They seemed to pick the characters that they could relate to the most.
Eli tried wrestling and has decided that he doesn't want to do it. Actually, I think he would love to do it on a Saturday morning, but when it's at 6pm, I think he's just too tired. And I don't blame him, I don't like having things at that time either!
Sadie has just moved up groups in Gymnastics. She is now a "Superbee" and has practice in the evening versus the morning class that she used to attend. She is working on mastering her cartwheels, and pointing her toes! We've never gone at night before and it was a totally different experience. Lots of gymnasts at all ages doing some pretty cool stuff. I think Sadie might have caught the bug. She was awestruck!
Now, onto the snow. We have a very large pile in the front of the house mostly due to Dennis pushing snow off of the roof. So, Dennis and the kids dug this tunnel:
One of our favorite things to do outside is lick icicles and dip them into the snow and eat the snow. Sort of a low-calorie lik-m-stick.

Elephant and Piggie

Mo Willems, the author of the Knuffle Bunny, Pigeon, Elephant and Piggie and Cat the Cat books, is a favorite around our house. The kids have read all of the so many times that they are memorized and then reread by them over and over and over again. They love being dramatic and Eli and Sadie make a pretty good duo. In this video, you can tell they've read this book lots of times, they "overact", correct each other and argue. I guess, they're just like every other brother/sister team!! Eli and Sadie even read this book in front of Eli's class (Yes, you read that correct. Eli got in front of his class and read a book!! He's come a long way!).

We also recently acquired the "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus" game which Eli bought with his Christmas money. Which is sort of a funny story. See, Eli likes to spend money like crazy so my rule with him is that after he finds something he wants he has to wait 3 days before he can buy it to make sure he really really wants it. Otherwise we end up with a lot of toys that he doesn't play with. He saw this game and really really wanted it, but he also wanted about 20 other things, so I made him wait. After several days of waiting, he said, "Mom can we please go back to Target and get that Pigeon Game? I've been dreaming and dreaming and dreaming about it." So, we went to Target and he got his game. It has become a favorite for the last week or so. They particularly like that they can move the pigeon to get their opponents bus back to the beginning.

If you've never read a Mo Willems book then you are in for a treat. Then, you should rush to your local library and check out as many of his books as you can. Be prepared to laugh. We always do!

Yoga

We're all a little yoga crazy around our house. I've been doing a lot of yoga over the past few months. Because Sadie is home with me all the time and because we're often doing yoga, she got a new yoga mat for her birthday (which was wayyyyy back in October). I refused to pay $3o for a kid yoga mat, so a $10 mat and $20 in supplies later... She is now the owner of this hand painted rainbow yoga mat, that I'm just a smidge jealous of. She also received a pack of Yoga Pretzel cards that demonstrate how to do each pose. By the way, Sadie is much more particular now of her clothing choices while doing yoga. Sadie likes to wear "yoga pants" and a tank top. But, it's been pretty amazing to watch them concentrate in the poses. And the partner poses? I'm shocked that my kids can do these without arguing. Yoga, it brings us all together. Namaste!
Here is Sadie doing plank:
Eli in turtle:

Double dog:

Double boat:
Open heart:

Happy New Year

After spending Christmas at home with my family, we decided to head to North Dakota to spend New Year's with Dennis' family. The Tuesday before New Years, the meteorologists were forecasting that starting Wednesday evening two big storms following right after each other would keep travelers stuck where they were for several days and no travel was advised. The meteorologists have said this for several storms this year and while there has been snow and blowing, they haven't been the storms that they promised. So, we were a little skeptical of this "big storm" and figured it wouldn't be so bad. But, just in case we stopped at all the places we needed to go before the storm: made a stop in Jamestown to drop of a gift for Kristen, drove to Bismarck to visit the beloved Emily and Ashley (and Megan too) and for me to visit my identical cousin, Brenda. We made it to Dennis' mom and dads on Wednesday evening to join Pat and Duane , Theresa and Cole. There still wasn't a storm. We woke up in the morning, there still wasn't a storm but the wind was blowing like crazy even for ND standards and it was freezing even for ND standards. We made a quick trip to the best store in ND, Nita's Attic, which is a consignment shop that has all of the stuff that you never knew you wanted for dirt cheap. I have yet to make a trip a come home empty handed. This time it was a loaf pan from Bennington Pottery ($2. 75), last time it was an incomplete set of china ($7.99). But, I digress, it was a cold walk home with our arms full of treasures, only 2 blocks away, but it felt like 2 miles. Someone even stopped and asked if we needed a ride. Yeah, the storm was starting. You might not remember, but last year we got snowed in over Christmas with Pat and Duane, Theresa and Cole. It's sort of becoming a tradition, I think.
So, for 3 days (2 days longer then we planned on staying) we didn't go outside or change out of our pajamas. We ate nothing but cookies and desserts and spent lots of time in front of a screen.I've never been so thankful of technology in my whole life. Eli and Sadie played "cut the rope" on Paula's IPad for hours. Cole brought his wii so Sadie become a cycling phenom and Eli is now an expert at 100 pin bowling. The kids received 10 movies for Christmas (no lie, we bought them second-hand from Dennis' coworker) so we had lots of movies to watch. Dennis' mom and dad got a new laptop, so I could do my online yoga in the peace of the basement. It was fantastic.
We also spent a lot of time playing games and relaxing on the couch.

The kids were very excited to bring in the New Year. They made fantastic hats (out of leftover wrapping paper) and blowers. I told them they were welcome to stay up until midnight (thinking that they'd fall asleep before that) and that at midnight we'd go outside and run around and yell "Happy New Year" (thinking that they'd fall asleep before that).Well, wouldn't you know that they managed to stay up until Midnight and that they were excited to run around outside even in the midst of a raging blizzard. However, this is what happens when you stay up until midnight and you prepare to run around outside in the midst of a raging blizzard to yell "happy new Year" and you can't find your mittens that your mom is making you wear because of the said blizzard and dangerous way below zero temperatures and wants you to wear socks on your hands for the one minute we're going to be outside. You throw a tantrum... But, you pull it together long enough to run outside (which I did not get pictures of. Theresa did. You can't even see us. All you see is lots and lots and lots of snowflakes) for a minute and yell "happy New Year!".

New Years Day we celebrated again because some adults did not manage to stay up until midnight.

We finally made it home on Sunday afternoon by driving on the back roads to Fargo since the interstates were still closed due to bad weather/ice and a major 100 car pileup. Being stormed in for 4 days can make a person sort of antsy. I've never been so excited to see a McDonald's playland. We stopped and played (along with every other kid in the Fargo metro area) for a long long time before making the last little jaunt to Bemidji. We are still working on getting back into our routine after the holidays. We all went through a little sugar withdrawal for a couple of days. We're happily waiting for all of the joys and milestones that 2011 will bring! Happy New Year everyone! Stay warm.

Skis

This winter we were gifted another set of kids hand-me-down cross country skis. The kids no longer have to share skis (like their parents do) and have been out on the trails sliding along. These trails, by the way, are in our, ahem, Dr. Johnson's backyard. They are just another reason why living in Bemdiji is pretty awesome and yet another reason why you should come visit us no matter the season.

We are spoiled to have these groomed trails 50 yards from our front door. OK, so this particular trail that Eli is on is leading to our house so it's not so beautifully groomed...