Mother-daughter camping trip

This trip started in September last year, after the girls competed in the regional Bible Bee. There was no worries about them making it past regionals, since they did not demonstrate the fire of desire to learn all 200 Bible verses and 200 Bible facts necessary to win the competition (no I am actually NOT exaggerating this time). In fact, when we received the two reams of paper with all the Bible verses to memorize, their enthusiasm for participating really waned. However, we worked through 3o verses or more and I wanted to reward them for their effort. When I asked them what they wanted, they both listed some kind of activity with me. My oldest asked for a fishing camping weekend. She had received a fishing pole from Grandpa D and was itching to use it again. While I was honored that she would consider time with me a reward, I knew that it would take a while to achieve because we were in the middle of football season with Kyle, which led up to the Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year's holiday season. Has anyone thought about calling it New Thankschristmas? I also had to work to research where we would go because I am not familiar with the campsites in Arizona. In Illinois, it would have been Illinois Beach State Park, 45 minutes from our house and right off Lake Michigan.



The weekend before our trip, as I was perusing Maricopa County Parks web site, I discovered Lake Pleasant Regional park. Doesn't that sound like a wonderful place to go camping? It is a man-made lake formed by damming a river and filling it with fish, located a little more than an hour from Mesa. Since it wasn't Kyle's birthday yet, I thought it would be the perfect time to fulfill my promise to Elizabeth. Because, Arizona is living in opposite world compared to the Midwest, I knew that I would be able to camp and have a fairly pleasant experience in the middle of winter. I discussed it with Eric who agreed and I gave LZ the joyful news that I would fulfill my promise to her. The campsites are available on a first-come/first-serve basis, so I decided to take all the kids to Lake Pleasant on Friday morning to stake out a camping site.


We packed a clothes bag on Thursday night and pulled the camping equipment out to make sure it had everything we needed (imperfectly, of course). We had already determined our menu and I bought the necessary items to accomplish it.


Friday morning, after some brief schooling, I loaded kids, dog, some supplies and the tent in the van and headed for Lake Pleasant, which is a little more than an hour away from Mesa. We found a campsite just off the water, which allowed LZ to go fishing any time. I worked on getting the tent set up, asking LZ to help now and then. I even have a picture of my son helping me. However, as soon as we pulled up, I realized that I had forgotten to bring the hatchet to use as a hammer to pound the tent stakes into the sand. For those of you who don't live in Arizona, sand packs down into near cement quality status. Eric had to use an impact hammer to get a hole deep enough in the ground to support our bird feeder hangars. Fortunately, Arizona has a lot of big rocks, too. I surveyed the copious rocks around our campsite and finally picked one that looked like it would not shred my hands as I pounded it on tent stakes. Thirty minutes later, we had the tent set up. It took that long because I had kids helping me, I had to stop and make sure the kids who were not helping me were staying out of trouble and to stop and help the kids take about fifteen burrs out of Jacques' hair and paws. Because it was pretty windy, I placed big rocks over the stakes to "help" them stay down, because I am not totally sure of my abilities to stake a tent well. We ate lunch, checked out the teeny, tiny visitor's center, and returned home for the final preparation--packing the cooler and the food bag. When Eric returned home, I packed the car and LZ and I started on our adventure. We cooked gardenburgers (LZ' choice) over the fire and munched on them and salad while drinking milk. At that point, I realized that the kitchen bin did NOT have dish soap packed. I used hand soap, since that was all that we had. We looked at stars and talked about past camping trips before going to bed. The night was very windy, and I kept waking up wondering if the stakes would hold. We also had people who felt the need to blast CCR at midnight for a bit. At least they have good taste in music. I didn't get much sleep.



Our alarm woke us up at 6 a.m. the next morning so that we could watch the sun rise and so that LZ could start fishing really early. It was cold! We wrapped ourselves in blankets and brought chairs down to the shore, along with her fishing pole. After the sun rose, I started making breakfast: sausages, apple cinnamon oatmeal in packets and hot chocolate. We ate the sausages right off the pan to limit dirty dishes. The hot food and drink was welcome. I was wishing I had some stronger caffeine, though. After clean-up, LZ went down to fish. Unfortunately, something happened to her fishing pole and it wouldn't retract the line, so she had to give up pretty quickly. To stave off dissappointment, we went back to the Visitor's Center, where I made purchases for her and the rest of the family. We toured the marina, found a boat rental place and then left for lunch--sausage, cheddar cheese, and sugar snap peas dipped in Rondelle cheese spread. Can you tell that we like cheese? We returned to the dock and rented a sea kayak for a few hours. This was LZ first time paddling. I would have to say that that was the best part of the trip. We talked to any friendly fisherman on the lake, enjoyed the mountains rimming the lake, paddled to see how fast we could go and to see how quickly we could stop. We also allowed the kayak to drift when our arms tired out. LZ paddled like a pro. We returned to the Visitor's Center, where a fishing expert fixed LZ' pole and gave her a lot of information about fishing along with a fishing poster. We returned to the campsite so that LZ could continue fishing and so that I could start a fire for dinner: roasted hot dogs, potato packets and roasted marshmallows. We played a couple of card games, but, honestly, by 8:30, we were tuckered out. It was getting pretty cold, so we bundled into the tent, got into PJs, put on a couple extra layers and read a National Geographic article about supervolcanoes before going to sleep. It was quieter this night than last night, but it was also colder. In the middle of the night, I actually had to use the extra blanket we brought!



Sunday morning, we crawled out of our sleeping bags well after the sun rose and only because our bodies were telling us that we needed to visit the bathroom. We ate zucchini bread which I had baked on Friday and drank hot chocolate. It was so cold and windy that we ended up sitting in the car to eat breakfast. LZ returned to fishing while I broke down the tent and washed the last of the dishes. We managed to fit everything back in the car and was home by 10:30. We had so much fun, it was hard to return to reality.





Lake Pleasant rating: It is about 30 minutes north of Carefree Highway. Basically, the lake has not affected the desert habitat at all, except to provide an area for fishing. There are three or four different campgrounds, but some people just pitched a tent near the shore. Most of the spots are set up for RVs, but the tent sites are pretty nice. The bathrooms are well maintained and there are showers. The nicest thing is that each campsite has its own water source, which was really appreciated. Most of the places where we have camped in the past have a few central water sources, which involves lugging water in water bags or big pots several hundred yards. It has one hiking trail and another, much smaller trail, linking one campground to the Visitor's Center. There is also a mini trail near the Visitor's Center going down to where some desert tortoises are currently hibernating. I can't really comment on the quality of the hiking trails since we really didn't go hiking. The Visitor's Center will occupy kids for ten minutes, max. Most of the "stores" around the campground have junk food and firewood, so if you forget an essential, you have to travel 30 minutes or more to civilization to get the item--or you just adapt without it. Really, the main reason to camp at Lake Pleasant should involve water--fishing, boating or a combination. It is a pleasant experience.

My two dads redux: the in-laws

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (at least that is what it seems like to me), I started a tribute series and, at some point, wrote about my two dads, in Another tribute--My Two Dads. It turns out, I also happen to have a father-in-law and a step-father-in-law, though that was not always the case. My mother-in-law, Momma Sue, remarried when our oldest was a little over a year old.

Jim, my father-in-law:
The Bible writes this about Jesus: "The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being..." In other words, Jesus was a Chip of the Old Block. I can say the exact same thing about Eric and his dad. They look very similar, have voices that are almost identical and have a lot of the same habits. So, basically, I can thank him for making the wonderful man I married, though I think God made a few improvements over time. These are some of the things I admire about him: After many years of marriage, he still refers to his wife as "his bride", which I really love; He has a great smile. He is incredibly calm. I don't know if this is the result of raising five children or if it is more of his nature; He works hard and does his best in even the most minor of jobs, like washing dishes. He is a formidable opponent at games, especially cards, which he enjoys playing. He make a killer cup of coffee.

Dick, my step-father-in-law:
I made a brief mention of him when I wrote about my mother-in-law in Tribute series resumed--Momma Sue. He is a hopeless goofball. And I mean that in the highest honor. The kids all love him because he loves to pretend things, especially if they are silly, like the time he pretended to be a ballon that was blown up and then released. I am sure that he seriously regrets starting THAT trick, since it became their most requested trick. He can inject humor into a serious conversation that will prevent it from become a serious debate, although he does seem to enjoy watching people debate at times. He will break out in song, for no apparent reason, making it seem as if we are living in a muscial. He brings out everyone's inner silliness, which is a wonderful gift, especially for those people, not naming names, (me) who take life a little too seriously.

Both men are very liberal in their love for people, especially family and extended/grafted family. I really enjoy spending time with them when we visit the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Thank you, Jim and Dick, for being such great in-laws.

Have a Blessed Christmas

I wonder who wrote "Deck the Halls"? I tried to Google it to get the information, but apparently, no one on the internet knows who really wrote it. I did learn, however, the carols were initially ancient Europe's equivalent of rap and the church initially disproved of carols until it could subvert them to holy purposes. The reason I wonder who wrote that particular carol is because of the line "'Tis the season to be jolly." Really? There is a season for jolliness? Why should we be jolly? After all, for those of us living north of the equator, it is a few days away from the shortest day of the year. For those living in the northern climes, it is usually cold and sometimes dreary and the only colors you see in nature are white/grey/black snow or greyish-yellowish-brown dead grass and stark, leafless trees, with only a little color provided by evergreen trees and yellow snow, thoughfully provided by dogs. Maybe that is why so many people put up Christmas lights, just to add some color to the year.

Furthermore, Christmas time can be the busiest time of the year with gifts to buy and wrap, cookies to make, cards to send out, parties and church events to attend and/or host. There can be very little time to rest up until the "big day". It is usually the days between Christmas and New Years that are the most pleasant for those who don't have to work retail. Then again, I wonder if all of this stuff is a problem that the modern world created. In Tomie DePaola's book, "An Early American Christmas", he shows how people prepared for Christmas even before Thanksgiving, which is when most of us start preparing these days. Therefore, there wasn't as much of a rush of doing and they could really be jolly and thankful and maybe even ponder the wonder of a God who would send His Son to the world as a helpless infant to a poor, young, uneducated couple in a backwater town for the sole purpose of reconciling us to Himself.

I have also thought about Advent a lot this year. Advent is not at all about jolly times, but about having to wait for the Christ to come. Waiting is hard and most people do not think it is pleasant, much less jolly, even if there is something wonderful at the end of it. Isreal had to wait 400 years from the last prophecy of God until the birth of their Savior (which is about the same length of time they had to wait in Egypt until God brought them out of slavery. Coincidence? I don't think so.). So Christ came somewhere around 2000 years ago, which IS a cause of celebration because it meant "God and sinner reconciled". But He is supposed to come again to set up His kingdom, which will have no end and will be completely free from death and pain. Talk about jolly times! And yet, it hasn't happened yet, which means we are still waiting. So I do believe that Christmas should be a time a great joy and celebration, not just of the worldly presents, but the gift of forgiveness and life and renewal that Christ's birth promised and it is a time of waiting--a lovely, bittersweet time.

Joy to the world! Our Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King!
Let every heart prepare Him room.

A day trip to Sedona

I have the greatest husband in the world. An old college room mate called a few months ago to tell me that she would be within a day's drive and would like to meet me at a halfway point. My husband took a day off of work to homeschool our kids so I could go to meet her. He sacrificed one of his few vacation days (as he just started a new job five months ago). I left on Wednesday evening and returned on Thursday evening.

One thing about driving from Phoenix to Sedona is that getting out of Phoenix is roughly half of the driving time, especially in rush hour traffic which is not nearly as bad as Chicago rush hour traffic. Really! Also, Arizona is an awesome place to drive because a lot of the highways have a 75 mile/hour limit once you leave the city. However, there are no road lights, so once night falls, 75 feels pretty fast. It also means that you see nothing except what your headlights illuminate in front of you. So when I drove into Sedona at 7 p.m at night, I didn't see any mountains. Inky blackness extended beyond all the shops, galleries, hotels/motels/inns/resorts and restaurants. Sedona could have been one big valley as far as I was concerned.

However, this is what I woke up to:

Isn't it breathtaking?! The mountains seemed to form layer upon layer. You would get past one layer and find a whole new set of mountains. We got to "rock and roll on a very bad road" to see the ruins of an Native American pueblo built into an awesome cave. There are so many trails to hike that I could spend a week there and still not have explored them all. However, if I had formed my opinion based on what I had seen in the dark, I would have passed it off as merely a tourist trap (which it also is) and missed the glory and splendor that God created. It also made me wonder, however, if the residents of Sedona, the people who wake up to these views 365 days a year ever say to themselves, "Oh yeah. Another beautiful day to look at mountains (yawn). BORING!", or even "Mountains? What mountains?" I mean, really, if you had an awesome view to look at every day of your life, wouldn't it become ordinary and commonplace? Would it lose the luster? You might have to go to Detroit, Michigan (which I did visit once and was not impressed) or Rockford, Illinois (in which I lived for three rotten, no good years) to be able to renew your sense of wonder at your hometown and really appreciate it. At this point, I will leave you develop all the emotional and spiritual lessons that can be gleaned from this insightful insight.

My girlfriend and I had fun chatting about all sorts of stuff, taking a couple of hikes, and shopping, which, because I wasn't hunting for something in particular and because it didn't involve noisy malls, it didn't inspire anymore stanzas to the Malls--How do I hate thee? poem. We had lunch at a western themed restaurant with a fabulous view, too. I think it was the same one at which our family ate when we visited Sedona almost five years ago. I also had a vision for what to do to fill up the shelf high above the dry sink: buy a few, funky, tall, glass vases of different colors and shapes and put one of those rope lights behind them to turn on at night. However, I won't be buying them from the shop in Sedona which inspired my vision, considering one of them was about 1/3 of the cost of a small car.

All in all, it was a wonderful, lovely day in which not one conversation was interrupted by a child's need/scream/question/comment. Thank you, Eric. You are my knight in shining armor!

A trip up Pass Mountain

One of the many highlights of my in-laws trip was an early morning hike with my two daughters and niece up Pass mountain, part of the Usery Mountain range. Pass mountain has really cool, cream colored "scar" running near the top. It is volcanic tuff--rock formed by ash. It glows orange in the evening when the sun is setting. Our goal was not to make it to the top of the mountain, but to see the Wind Cave, a section of the mountain carved out by the wind. Actually, you can go on, but there was a sign that said that the path became very dangerous and I really didn't feel like doing something dangerous with pre-teen girls.

We started our journey in the wee hours of the morning. I woke my neice and daughters up a little after six a.m. and loaded up the camelbacks, some fruit, cheese snacks and stuff we might need on the trial, like bandaids and hand sanitizer. I also remembered the camera. Woo Hoo!. With one extra long stop at Dunkin' Donuts for sugar and carbs and a bathroom break, we started on the trail somewhere around 7 a.m. Part of the delay is that I had to return a second time because the donuts that M and I had chosen were so horrible tasting, I had to return them. What is the point of consuming a thousand calories in fat and sugar if you don't enjoy it? I wouldn't recommend that particular Dunkin' Donuts to people. Note that in the first picture, the girls are wearing jackets. Yes, sixty degrees IS cold if you are in Arizona.

Wind Cave trail is a 1.6 mile trail with an 800 foot elevation gain. We started out with what looked like a dry river bed on one side. The reason it looked like a river bed is that it was a lower area and had a high concentration of Palo Verde trees whereas we were surrounded by various cati and scrub brushes on the other side of the path. In Arizona, trees don't shed their leaves in the fall, they shed them in the summer, when drought conditions do not give them enough water to be able to photosynthesize. Also, most trees have small leaves in the desert to minimize transpiration, which is the trees breathing out moisture with the carbon dioxide. As we passed by palo verde trees, I saw tiny, cute leaf buds emerging from the stems. It took us about an hour to climb to the wind cave. The fact that it is a cave should tell you that we didn't reach the summit of the moutain. There were a couple of times when the path turned sharply and we started going the wrong way. Fortunately, the wrong way soon became impassible, which caused us to look around for the real trail. A few times, we walked over large bolders that served as a bridge over a little crevice in the path. With the way they were tumbled together in just the right way to support each other, I wondered if this was engineered by the park service or an act of God designed to help hikers. The wind cave is part of the tuff, so that when we approaced the cave, we got to see the it up close and personal. There were bits of granite "marbles" embedded in the tuff as well as large tracts of...lichen. We made it to the wind cave in about an hour. We spent some time resting in the cave. Basically, it is an indentation carved out by the wind. We didn't stay long because there was some evidence of a bee hive formed in one of the crevices, which made at least one of the girls nervous. We ate the cheese and started walking down. Even though we carried camelbacks, which hold at least 64 ounces of fluid, one of the children had gone through most of her water on the way up. Therefore, I had to share some of my water on the way down. It took us about 45 minutes to get down, mainly because we took fewer breaks. By that time, the kid's camelbacks were all drained, which meant a stop at the potty before heading back home. We were home by 9:45 a.m., ready to go to bed, or at least rest ;-). The hike was made possible by Nana and Poppa, who had brought my boys with them for a sleep over the previous night. Otherwise, the hike would have been a bit more daunting, especially with a four year old. I think I will wait another year, or maybe wait until I have another adult, to go on this trail with my youngest.

The only thing that I was hoping to see was a little more wildlife. With cooler temperatures and the early morning hours,theoretically, we should have seen a lot more animals. However, with four chatty females acting as an early warning system for the animals, the only thing we really saw were birds, other hikers, and one baby rabbit. However, the rainbow made up for the lack of fauna. It "rained" that morning, and by "rained" I mean that water fell from the sky, though very little of it actually touched the earth. Seeing the rainbow as we started our descent was very inspiring. It was as if God were blessing our hike that morning. It must have worked, too, because, for once, my youngest daughter did not cry and whine at all about being too tired to go on. It was definitely an awesome hike!

What I did on my Facebook Vacation:

When I moved from Illinois to Arizona, I was just getting into Facebook. That is to say, I would be on it about a once a night and maybe skip some days. When I moved to Arizona, however, Facebook became my primary lifeline to my friends back home, whom I was sorely missing. I started checking Facebook multiple times a day. I started viewing my day as what would make a good Facebook status. I started spending a LOT of time commenting and reading and taking quizzes of all kinds. I knew I was spending too much time on Facebook when my kids started developing a daily mantra of “Momma’s on Facebook again.” or “When are you going to get off of Facebook so we can play, Momma?.” Ouch! However, just like an alcoholic starts having a hard time saying “no” to alcohol, I started having a hard time walking away from FB. I HAD to get my daily, I mean, hourly, fix. Finally, God basically told me that I had to cut WAY back or else He would have me shut it down. Therefore, I took a two week vacation from Facebook. I planned the time carefully because family was visiting us for one whole week. That was the highlight of my two week FB fast. What else happened? Here are more highlights, in random order:

1. I had a fabulous time with my wonderful father-in-law and his wife, who is a dear, sweet lady, and my fun loving niece. The highlights of the stay was spending time with Kathy, hiking up Wind Cave Trail in the Usury mountains with my girls and niece, having alone time with the boys, dinner with in-laws sans kids, and playing Bananagrams.
2. I started making a Thanksgiving wreath using an embroidery hoop and many different colored ribbon. I finished it tonight watching a pre-recorded episode of “FlashForward” which I have not decided if I like or not. Too much cheesy dialogue. Too much like “Lost.” And is Joseph Fiennes really that gruff-voiced or is he intentionally whiskey-voiced to add to the gloomy ambience and keep reminding us that his character is a recovering alcoholic?
3. I played with my kids more—really. I also paid attention to them more and talked with them more.
4. My husband and I talked more. Any more information is really none of your business.
5. I read about making paper mache, which we are going to need in order to make two different Halloween costumes for the kids.
6. I finished one blog and wrote a second one.
7. I found my book _Waltzing Australia_ under a pile of kid's books and read another chapter in it. Well, technically, one of my kid's found it for me.
8. I read other people’s blogs.
9. I prepared more for the homeschooling week and found ways to make history come alive, mainly by impromptu acting.
10. I planned trips to take with my niece and children.
11. I shopped for the kid’s Halloween costumes, though that wasn’t all joy and bliss as my last blog will testify.
12. I slept more. It’s boring, but much needed.
13. I wrote a blog for “RealFolksUnited” about why I homeschool. I was inspired after reading that President Obama plans to increase the number of hours in a school day AND extend the year in the hopes that our children will become smarter than all the other world’s kids in spite of the fact that we already log in more hours per year of school than the children in countries who spank us in test scores. Every problem is a nail and the government is the hammer, apparently. Or is it a sickle? I know, it’s both! (Tongue in cheek humor, here. For those of you who support President Obama, keep in mind that at least I am not hyping an energy drink with a cocaine theme).
14. I started investigating things to do in Sedona for the one day that I will be there with an old college roommate.
15. I searched for potential camping places for my daughter, who wants to camp and fish as well as wrack my braid for a free weekend in which to take her.
16. I called a couple of people I normally would only facebook. BTW, can "facebook" be used as a verb now?
17. I baked a little more. It was in the 80's last week. Woo hoo for cooler weather! (please refrain from nasty comments from those of you in northern climes, I can't help it that I live in the desert!)

The one thing I wish I could post as an activity is that I spent a lot more time with God, both in prayer and in His word. However, I was a little sporadic in that area. One week was totally awesome and the next week was bad. Therefore, I can't blame FB for problems in that area, at least.

In general, I did not experience any withdrawal symptoms from Facebooking activities, though I was a little worried that one or two of my pregnant friends would give birth while I was taking the vacation and thus miss the announcement. Unfortunately for them, they didn't. Girls, you can now go into labor! I'm back! :-). I did miss all the little updates on my friends lives, but I will have to go on with my life with a blank spot in my computer generated memory. And I will be only going on FB occasionally during the week, because I don't want to status my life away.

Malls--How do I hate thee?

I am preparing for Halloween. I hate spending money on something that is used once or maybe twice, if I can find it the next year, so I try to create a costume from clothing that the kids can use after they go trick or treating. The problem is that to accomplish this, I usually need to find clothing of a specific color and PLAIN--i.e., free of all embellishments, patterns and egotistical phrases. Ay, there's the rub! To try and accomplish this feat, I decided to go to the mall with all four children in tow because, after all, malls have the highest concentration of stores and, theoretically, I should be able to find what I need in ONE store? The end result is usually me needing the remainder of the day in quiet solitude to recover. Returning today from the latest venture in frustration, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem, "How Do I Love Thee?," inspired me to write one of a contradictory theme.

Malls, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.
I hate thee to the height and depth and breadth
of all my senses, which are constantly assaulted
by loud music from the numerous stores and halls
and gaudy displays of women and men
in provocative clothing and/or poses.
I hate thee for the TVs that are strewn about the mall
and congregating in the food court showing music videos
of women wearing a preponderance of tight, glossy leather,
or bikinis, promoting them as everyday, casual clothes.
I hate thee for the multitude of total crap
that you try to convince me and my children to buy,
useless trifles packaged appealingly
and appealing to our egos and vanity,
stirring up in us ingratitude for God's many blessings.
I hate thee with a hatred that re-emerges
every time I step through your doors
trying to find what I need and instead
being offered what you think I should have.
And, if I could choose, I would shop always
in the quiet and solitude of the internet
until God brings me home in a heaven free of malls.

I realize that I may sound a bit puritannical in this poem; however, it is actually quite appropriate since we are studying the Pilgrims now (tee hee). You also need to know that shopping is not enjoyable for me. I am not the stereotypical woman who views shopping as therapy. I hunt for what I need and get frustrated when I can't find it. And the more specific an item, the harder it is to find. Plus, being highly visual and very auditory based person, I have just realized that the mall totally overwhelmes my senses. I feel the same way as I do when all four children try to talk to me at once, or at a party when there are two interesting conversations going on within earshot. Finally, my children usualy devolve into whining, wild things at the mall if I spend too much time there, which continues past our time at the mall.

In an attempt to end this on a positive note, my kids are dressing up as Black Beauty, a princess (but not Princess Buttercup), a cowboy (because he really wants an excuse for me to buy him boots) and a pterydactyl. The horse and pterydactyl will involve the kids learning about paper mache. I am looking forward to the whole process and its imperfect finished product. I just hope that the horse and pterydactly are moderately recognizable.