Still Hanging

Wow! I haven't posted in 10 months. No excuses, just lazy. But we're still hanging in there. Living in Eagar with mixed emotions. Glad that the weather is finally starting to get a little warmer. I'll try and get some pictures together to post soon. Until now, enjoy the kids' new pictures there on the right.

Toodles.

The Wallow Fire

Well this was an exciting adventure! We moved up to Eagar on May 27. On May 29, the state of Arizona's largest fire ever was started by some campers up near Hannagan Meadow. Monday, May 30 was fine. But I noticed some smoke around on Tuesday, May 31. Wednesday was even smokier. Wedneday June 1 as I was walking up my road to let down the irrigation water, I saw this:
I thought, "Gee is that the smoke from that "little" fire I heard about up by Hannagan Meadow?" That doesn't look small at all! Thursday I noticed that it was all over the news. Crazy! By Saturday the smoke was so thick in town that I was having trouble breathing. My lungs burned. My throat itched. Here's a few shots of how smoky it was.We drove to Show Low for the day to get out of the smoke. We went to the movie and had lunch and just dinked around. This is the view of RV as we drove back in on Saturday evening:


Sunday we went to church and things were okay. It was smoky, but bearable. We had already planned to go down to Mesa for some dentist appointments so we decided to pack up and be prepared not to return for a while. We stayed at our good friends Tyler and Mary Davis's house for a few days. Tuesday morning Jason headed back to Eagar to grab a few more things. By Wednesday afternoon he was told to evacuate. Thursday morning I took the 3 younger kids (Braden had scout camp to go to so he stayed in Gilbert with my aunt and uncle) and drove up to Utah. It was an unexpected by nice visit with my family up there. We drove back to Eagar on Saturday, June 18. It wasn't too bad. Most of the smoke had cleared. The fire as of today is about 89% contained. It has burned about 540,000 acres of such beautiful forest land. My heart hurts. We drove up to Alpine to see some of the damage. It was bad, but maybe not as bad as I had thought it would be. Here's one shot (near Alpine):
Lesson to be learned: Put out your campfires properly!!

We are Binkie Free!!

Hallelujah! We are binkie free! The binkie fairy paid a little visit to our house last night. It all started when Maren quite surprisingly told me Saturday night as I was putting her to bed that she didn't want her binkie. My jaw quite literally dropped. She has been so stubborn about it. It took a little doing, but we had her down to only using a binkie for naptime and bedtime. In fact, she willingly gave it back to me when she would wake up (most of the time). But I was really worried about getting her off it when she goes to sleep. So you can see my amazement when I offered it to her Saturday night and she said "I don't want it!" Well, she didn't have to tell me twice. I expected her to cry for it in a few minutes (she didn't). I expected her to wake me up in the middle of the night crying for it like she'd done almost every night previous (she didn't). Sunday at naptime, I tried putting her down without it. She cried for it, but only for a minute. Sunday night was harder. She cried for 15 or 20 minutes for it. I held strong. Monday and Tuesday were a little better, but she still wanted it. Wednesday at naptime, she didn't even ask for it. Wednesday night she went to bed like a little angel, no binkie. Thursday naptime, the same. Lo and Behold I Think We Got It! Thursday I went and got her something I know she'll love at Toys R Us. The real test came. I pulled out all three binkies we had remaining on Thursday night and told her that the binkie fairy comes and takes the binkies the bid kids don't need anymore and gives them to the little babies who do (forgive my blatant lie . . . we do what we have to do as parents). I could see a little want in her face. I assured her that the binkie fairy would replace them with a nice present for her. She put all three on the table for the fairy. Didn't even ask for them at all.


And in return, the binkie fairy brought:



And we all lived happily ever after . . . binkie free!

Little League Opening Day

We have so much fun every year with the boys playing baseball. Well, up until now it's only been Caleb. But we signed Tainui up for t-ball and so far he's loving it! This was opening day. They each got to go up with their teams to home plate and say their names over the microphone for everyone to hear. Then they each had their first game. In t-ball, you don't really keep score so there are no winners and no losers. But Caleb is in Minors this year. It gets very competitive in Minors. Their team won their first game and so far has a record of 2-1. Caleb has been doing so well and has really learned a lot with his coach. I'm loving the games so far, but it makes me so nervous every time he goes up to bat. He's struck out a few times, but for the most part, he is a very solid hitter. Go Mudcats and Red Sox!!

Maren's First Haircut

So one day I decided Maren's hair was a bit stringy and uneven at the ends. So I sat her down and cut it straight! Don't you think the hair looks so much fuller in the after-picture?

Before
And After

My Love Affair With the Past

I actually kind of liked blogging the other day about my stroller. It was the first time that I sat and blogged (knowing that other people might read it) about something other than my kids' latest this or that. So I'm gonna do it again. Bare with me.

I am a history buff. There I said it. I love the past. I love hearing and learning of the stories of people who have gone before me. There's a few major mysteries out there that I would love to solve. One of the main ones: who in the heck was my great-great-great grandmother Diana Livingston? See, she married my g-g-g-grandfather David Ellsworth and had two children, who she named James and Lucinda. But I can't for the life of me figure out where she came from. Heck, I even have her birth date, but I don't know who her parents were or where she was from. I don't even know for sure what happened to her after she had the two kids. Some say she died in New York. Others say she went to Nauvoo with her husband David and then died there. Even others say she didn't want to go to Nauvoo and so she left David. She is a mystery. Someday, I hope to solve it.

But that's one thing. I do know an awful lot about some of my other relatives. Want a few tidbits? Probably not, but I'm going to share them with you anyway. See, a whole lot of my ancestors on both sides of my family came through Massachusetts. And a good bunch of them lived in Salem. Around the late 1600s. Uh-huh. Witches, anyone? I have no fewer than 4 ancestors who were accused in the mass-hysteria of the Salem witch trials of being a witch. Two of them actually died during the debacle. Susannah Martin was one of the 19 who were accused, tried, convicted, and hung. Ann Foster (my 9th great-grandmother) was accused, convicted, and died in jail. Her daughter and granddaughter (also my 7th and 8th great-grandmothers) were also accused and convicted, but did not die in the hysteria. Craaaazyy! Now whenever I'm a little too "witchy" to my kids, well, they know it runs in the family. Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha . . . .

In addition to being a witch, did you know I am also a royal??! I can trace my lineage back to many of the Kings of England, France, Spain, etc. One of the coolest things I found recently was the fact that I'm directly descended from Katherine Swynford. Isn't that the most AMAZING thing ever?! Wait, you don't know who Katherine Swynford is? Well, a few years ago I fell in love with the book entitled Katherine by Anya Seton. It's a fictional account of a real-live person. See, she fell in love with the son of King Edward III--John, the Duke of Lancaster (he was the 3rd son so not directly in line to become the King, but still, a royal) and she was a commoner. And he fell in love with her too! The book is about their life-long love story and is absolutely amazing. And I found out that they are my great-something-or-other grandparents!! Tell me that isn't cool!

Well, the whole point of my post is that I love history. And this past week I've been doing some family history indexing. Mostly, I've been entering the information from the 1930 US Census, in Massachusetts. It's not much, but I find it fascinating to see who was married to who, and how many children they had, and who their neighbors were and how they had their widowed mother-in-law living with them, etc etc. I did almost 1000 names this week. My kids were a little neglected. Not too much. My house was a little neglected too. Again, not too much.

I guess that's what you get when your mom is a royal witch . . .