Elise Comes to Visit!

After running in the 10k in Snowflake, my friend, Steven (who drove up with me), Elise and I headed back for Tucson. Elise got to spend the whole week with me! She got a scholarship to go to Camp and will be enjoying science week as part of my group. But trust me we did almost as much outside of camp as we did at camp (which is saying a lot because we keep those girls busy!). Saturday Elise and I met Tricia, one of my really good friends who is moving out of state (I still can't believe it!) for ice cream! Cold stone is really yummy! Sunday Elise went to church with me. I got to see the institute through her eyes and it is really awesome! We have ping pong, pool and other games, she didn't have primary to go to so she read quietly in the conference room while I was in a meeting and during Relief Society. We had linger longer after church, where we ate doughnuts! After church we had a huge dinner for Tricia at Shaun's house. We made Navajo tacos and ate them all up (It was a 20 cups of flour recipe!)!

Monday we went to Camp and for Family Home Evening, instead of going to the church with my ward, Elise and I got dinner (pizza) and a movie (Inkheart) for a girls night at Grandma's. It was fun. I love hanging with Elise, it makes me feel 11 again!

Tuesday after camp we got a quick bite to eat and went to the church ball fields to play softball. I played (not well) on our ward team this year, it was a lot of fun and something active to do. While I played Elise played with my phone (a favorite activity of hers - I've found) and made friendship bracelets (camp activity of course).
Wednesday was my day off, so Elise took a break from Camp as well, but not from Swimming! Elise is swim crazy! She would do it all day every day if she could. It is a good thing that she gets to go everyday at camp.

We also went shopping all the time. We had a list of school needs and hit all of the Savors in Tucson trying to find some good deals! Which we did!
Thursday Aunt Louise came down to Tucson and All three of us went to see Harry Potter #6, which I have been frantically trying to finish reading and just made it, I'm not, however, going to wait until right before the last movie to read the last book (I already have!). Elise and I helped enlighten Aunt Louise on the story and a few philosophical points of the book.

Friday went really quick, and after camp and clean-up, we packed up Elise and Aunt Louise and they drove back up the mountain!
It was a lot of fun to have her here for the week! I miss her!

Girl Scout Camp!

So my summer job (makes me sound like I'm in high school or something!) was working at The Tucson Girl Scout Day Camp. I had a load of fun working there and met a lot of new friends! It is hard to express the friendship, the good times and the craziness you can have while working so closely with such great counselors. I'm posting a few pictures and videos so that those not lucky enough to work for so little, doing so much (but having a great time doing it) might get an idea of what it was like. I am going to post a few more pictures later.

Pioneer Day!

Ever since I ran with my stake in a 5K I have been on the look out for a 10K to run. When I was visiting Jon and Kristi awhile back I saw a paper on their fridge that had Pioneer day activities on it and one was a 10K! So I intensified my running (a little) and I drove up to Snowflake for the run. I got up super early went to the temple view chapel and ran for 6 miles! It was crazy and let me tell you that around mile 4 my mind tricked me into thinking I was getting close! The last two miles were difficult - needless to say - but I finished on a good speed and checked my time...
I had been hoping for 60-70 minutes, mostly because of the elevation change and the ups and downs of the trail - also I hadn't been as good about preparing as I should have. But with all the adrenaline and excitement I did it in under 53 minutes! An all time best for me! I got a cool shirt, plus a ribbon for first female in my age category and a trophy for third place female over all.

After the race and awards I went to Jon's were I had enough time to grab some cereal and head to the parade with him and his kids. We met Kristi's mom there, but Kristi and her dad were both in the parade. Kristi was in a volunteer band and her dad was in because of his 50th high school reunion.

The kids got loads of candy and had a great time watching everything - especially the horses and tractors. You have got to love small towns!

After the parade Elise finished packing and we set off for a week of fun at Girl Scout Camp!

Week in California!

June 27, 2009 Sarah and I drove to California. Sarah had been in Arizona since Lake Powell and was on her way back to CA so I bummed a ride! I had the whole week off (they don't have camp the week around the 4th of July). It was a great week of just relaxing and hanging out with Sarah and Beth and all the boys! When I got back to Tucson, everyone asked what I did in CA; 'Did you go to the beach?' 'Did you go to Disneyland?' "Magic Mountain?' No to all - and they would say; 'What did you do?' Well here you go:

Lake Powell

Family Trip to Lake Powell!


We have always had such a great time at Lake Powell in the past! So this summer found our family at the lake once again!

First and foremost we ate! And it was GOOD! Everyone was to work in groups to do a meal, but everyone helped the whole time. It was a great success and as always one of my favorite parts of being together! When we all sit around and eat and talk - I love that part of family vacations - it reminds me of mom!

The kids spend lots of time with poles in the water - Dad had collected poles for all of the kids - some already had some - and they loved it.

Fishing was loads of fun - but it seemed that some of the kids spent more time having someone like Grandpa untangle the lines. The funniest part of it all was that they didn't even have a hook on any of the lines - just a casting weight.

William spent most of his time casting!

As always we just had a good ol' time - hanging out and relaxing!

And there were a lot of pictures taken!

On June 19th we celebrated Jacob's birthday. Katy and I went to Walmart and got party supplies - Disney's Cars was his theme because he loves that show (him and Sam)! We had ice cream in cups and opened gifts.

We found time to play a few rounds of Scum - here Sarah and Rachel are playing speed while Thomas tries to help and Uncle Henry found a moment to play solitaire.

I love jumping off cliffs - within reason - I found one I liked and jumped one morning - later that afternoon when Jon, Rachel, Sarah and I were kayaking around Lone Rock Sarah and I went to jump off a cliff, but I didn't really want to - I didn't feel comfortable - but Sarah just ran right off it - but hitting the water proved to be a problem. She leaned forward because she felt that she would hit to close to the base and ended up with the wind knocked out of her. I ran down the rock to see if she was okay - and decided not to go back up and jump.

The kids found tons of things to do - just playing in the sand.

We really had a great time! I love spending time with family and Lake Powell has always been a favorite!

Back to Arizona! Memorial Day.

Home again to the White Mountains! We made it back Sunday evening in enough time for me to run over to the Ranch house to see Jon and Kristi's new place. it is crazy right now with the move and all but they have their own place now and see a lot of potential in it. I think I would love living on the Ranch it is so pretty and green.

Monday morning Dad put up the flag for Memorial Day. Jon and his family came over for breakfast. Melissa and Jaden hardly stopped they just blew past the french toast for the fun outside. Jaden came running in yelling he had found a humongous torny hoad - or Horny Toad. We went out to investigate and found that it was a large one - easily caught I let the kids take turns holding him, and Elise and Ian took turns taking pictures (they both love cameras!). As you can see I am slightly worried about the poor lizard in J's hands. After a few minutes we let the big fellow go.

We had to go too - we went over to the Pinedale cemetery to work at the headstone. Dad, Aunt Louise and I had run into town to get some flowers earlier and with the help of the kids and Jon and Kristi we made short work of adding to mom's and Jeanie's graves and hopefully making them look a little nicer. It was a good way to start out Memorial Day - a drive back to Tucson took up most of the rest of it.

Graduation Weekend!

Ben's graduation! The first graduation ceremony we went to was for the department. It was very nice and small. You can see the happy family so excited that Ben is all finished, no one is as excited as Kori, she has worked so hard so Ben could do this.


One really nice part of having a small ceremony was that Ben told them that his grandparents were coming and that both were graduates of the 'U' so in the middle of everything else they took a few minutes to honor Grandma and Grandpa for their combined 119 years of alumni. Grandma graduated in 1948 (a year before Dad was born) with a B.S. in Business while attending what seemed like an all-girls school as all the boys were off at war. Grandpa returned with the rest of the male population and enrolled making the school go the opposite direction. Grandpa graduated in 1951 with the same degree. Grandma later went back and got an additional degree in elementary education.


After the pictures were done we headed back to Ben's birthday bash. We had pizza then ice cream and crazy cake which was crazy good! Kenzie and Carson helped blow out the candles (3 and 3 in this case makes 33 not 6)!

Saturday morning we went to the College of Medicine graduation ceremony. It was larger and longer - but still very nice.

After the ceremony we had a fun BBQ back at Ben and Kori's. Rachel and I ate with the kids on a blanket (which Kori later used to take a quick nap), Kenzie and Carson both practiced casting their new fishing poles.

According to Wikipedia Marzipan is a confection consisting primarily of sugar and almond meal, however I didn't know that. Marzipan is my nic-name. Rachel has been calling me that for a long time. Sarah calls me Marciona (or Marce for short), and Rachel just took it and transformed it to Marzipan. So basically Rachel is calling me sugar, and this weekend I got to try out some Gourmandise Bakery items with Marzipan. Only the almond bar thing dipped in chocolate and the small pear tart had Marzipan, the bread pudding and the peach puff both just looked good. We took box of treats back to the house, cut them up in 8 pieces each and everyone had a sample!

Rachel wanted an Ikea shelf but when she got to the sale the black ones were all gone - so she got a white one for Ben and Kori to put in the kids' room. The family all helped to put it together - all but Dad and I who were content to take pictures of the laborers. Aunt Louise helped by holding Chloe, who just watched and listened.

Rachel has been taking an ice skating class! She has learned a lot and showed me her moves! I even picked up on a few but will have to put in a lot more time to get them down.

We ended our fun day by playing one of Rachel's many clue games. This one is Harry Potter Clue complete with passage ways that rotate, house points and dark marks. Rachel, however, randomly guessed her first turn and won. The second round lasted much longer but Rachel still won.

Sunday morning Rachel drove me to the hotel that Grandpa, Grandma, Dad and Aunt Louise were staying at. I said goodbye to her, got in the truck with the others and we headed south to Sunny Arizona. It was a long drive but we survived and made it back without any problems (or water in the fuel).