Our Weekend in Thatcher

One weekend in July, I took the kids and we headed down to Thatcher.  We stayed with my sister and her family, the Miners.  My parents met us there, along with Jared, John and Karlee, and Brooke came down with her kids from Amarillo.  We had a lot of fun.  Jared went through the Temple.  Ben's cousin, Maleah, watched my kids.  Thank you so much Maleah!

We also spent one day at Cluff's Pond.  We played and played and ate.  

The little critters there sure liked me though.  Before I got in the water I was stung by 2 bumble bees on my leg.  So I decided to go into the water, where a crawdad attacked me!  So then later, I was sitting under a tree visiting with the wonderful company and a lizard fell from the tree and crawled down my back.  Yikes!  We all had a good laugh about it!

All the kids and Uncle James and Uncle John played chicken fight, over and over again.

Weston and Aunt Brooke

Chicken Fight! Calvin and Uncle John with Ashton and Uncle James

Devin contemplating the meaning of life.  :)

Devin and Colton (cousin)

Darling Daisy

Aunt Brooke's little girl, Maddie

Aunt Brittany, I love this picture!

Mayley (Brittany's girl)

Weston (Brooke's boy)

Dirty=Fun, Landon (Brittany's boy)

Jayla (Uncle James' girl) Look at those eyes!

Maddie

Devin and Dayton (Brittany's son) collected bottle caps

Devin and Dayton

After the fun at Cluff's Pond, we went and watched the parade.  Uncle Wes drove an old fire truck in the parade and all the kids rode on the truck in the parade.

After the parade, we headed for the football field to watch the fireworks for the 4th of July.  We had some time to kill, so Grandma and Grandpa Reed played Red Rover with all the grandkids.  What fun grandparents!

We had a great weekend and look forward to spending more time with our Arizona families!

Here's another one!

I actually like this one better!

Movie Editing #1

My boys have learned how to edit videos on the computer now.  They are way better at it than I am!  Take a look!

Check it OUT!!!

As many of you know, I have 3 wonderful sisters!  We all live in different places: Queen Creek, Thatcher, Amarillo and El Paso.  We love crafting, talking, and having fun!  So we decided to make a blog to share all of those things with each other.  Head on over there and check it out! It's a work in progress and we are just starting, so stayed tuned!

Babblings and More

Having fun in El Paso with some cute kids!

El Paso has been good to us so far.  We are loving it!  You should see all the looks we get when we take all the kids places.  And some of the comments are classic!  One person just stood in awe and quietly said, "I've never seen anyone with 7 kids before!"  We have never received so much attention before! 

The weather is cooler than the Phoenix area by a little bit and cools down at night.  We've enjoyed the monsoons every night and the thunder storms are beautiful!  We miss our family and friends, but we will be visiting soon!  Watch out!

We (meaning Caleb, Carson and myself) snapped a few pictures of Lacey playing in our backyard and some of the kids at the park.

Lacey has so much fun dressing up and loves to have her fingernails painted by some of her favorite people.  You know who you are!

She would sniff the flowers and then wipe her nose as fast as she should.  Funny girl!

Daisy is growing up so fast.  All the boys are so helpful with her, I don't know what I'm going to do when they all start school!

Here we have Ashton, Carson and Caleb.  They love having a good time!

Now look at that smile!  So precious!  How can you not smile back!  

You know you are...

Congratulations Dr. Richardson!

Congratulations are in order for Dr. Ben Richardson!  After many long years, he graduated from Medical School on June 3, 2011.  He worked so hard!  Here are pictures of the festivities.  We had a graduation party for him that evening, but I forgot to take pictures.  We all had so much fun and want to thank everyone who participated and helped in this journey.

All the adults that attended the graduation: Grandma Stanford, Ben's parents, my parents, Lacey, and Grandma and Grandpa Bear.

Calvin, Devin, Ashton, Carson, Caleb. (I held Daisy)

Ben was a part of the first graduating class of ATSU: SOMA.

Ben had some wonderful mentors.

Our family

Grandma Stanford and Ben

Ben and his parents

Ben and Briana

Ben with Grandma and Grandpa Bear

Ben with my parents

The kids being so patient.

How many people graduate from medical school with 7 kids?

And they are good kids and very helpful!

Our family

Ben with Grandma and Grandpa Richardson. They weren't able to come, so we went to them!

We are so proud of all that Ben has accomplished and the wonderful example he has set.  Now on to new adventures in El Paso!

Arizona Roadtrip-Last Day

After we left Mt. Graham, we debated on what to do: find another camping spot or get a hotel.  Hmmm...hindsight is always 20/20.  As we were driving and it got darker and darker, we managed to find a road and we took it.  Since it was dark, we didn't see that the road goes right through a wash...with lots of sand.  Now in the past we would have just put it in 4 wheel drive with our Yukon XL, but our party bus doesn't have that feature.

So all the kids were asleep in the van.  They were sleeping so peacefully that we didn't want to wake them up, so Ben and I worked and worked to get ourselves unstuck.  We tried everything we could think of.  We dug, put twigs and cardboard under the tire to get traction, forward, reverse, but we only got deeper and deeper.  Finally we retired to inside of the van.  Kids were everywhere!  On seats, the floor, on top of each other.  I found a spot to sleep by Daisy's carseat, half on the seat and half off.  Ben slept in the drivers seat for a while and then moved to that spot that you step on after you open the sliding door.  Yeah, I don't know how he slept there.

So we got some sleep. Not a very good sleep, but some.  And we tried again in the morning.  We weren't very far from the highway, inbetween Safford and Wilcox.  One nice man stopped by and tried to pull us out.  It didn't work.  He had a small blazer and we have a one ton.  So he left and came back again with more "equipment" and tried again.  That didn't work either, but it was really, really nice of him to stop and try.  In the meantime, we were able to get a hold of my brother, James, who lives in Safford.  (Funny thing is, he just pulled my sister out of the sand the week before.  Thank goodness for little brothers!)  

I wish I could have taken some pictures.  James was driving over bushes and small tress like they were nothing!  He hooked us up and pulled the van out like it was nothing!  He was a life saver!  

 

Here is the tire after we tried all night to get it unstuck.

The Van View.

It got deeper and deeper the more we tried!

We did a few things to keep us all entertained for the 12 hours we were stuck.  Obviously the first part of the 12 hours, we slept, or tried to.  When morning came around, Caleb and Carson practiced their photography skill and took a few pictures!  They took some good ones too!  Some boys made towns out of dirt and rocks and sticks.  And of course we ate lots of snacks!

Daisy

Cactus Flower

We watched the highway and all the cars.

So after we left our "camping spot", we headed to Tombstone.  On our way there, we stopped in St. David and visited the cemetery there.  We found lots of family graves there.  The boys had fun looking for the headstones.  It was like a treasure hunt.

Our Great-great Grandpa Calvin Reed.

There were lots of pictures I took.  After we visited the town of Tombstone, we went to the town cemetery.   I'm not talking about the Boothill Graveyard, but the actual town cemetery.   Here we found Tom Brandt's Gravestone.  He owned the town bank and was the first one shot and killed in a bank robbery in Tombstone.  He is my Grandpa Reed's (Pa) uncle.

Tom Brandt's Gravestone

Then in the same cemetery, Lillian Reed is buried.  I believe that she is Pa's cousin who died in an automoblie accident (when cars were first coming out).  I was honored to participate in sealing her to her parents in the Temple.

Lillian Mrytle Reed  1909-1926

We had a great time on our Roadtrip and hope to do it again.  Next time, we will avoid the sand and get a hotel.  :)  It's the trips that don't go as planned that you will always remember.