South Dakota, camping style, Part 3: In which I will not mention toilets.

2 Aug

Monday morning, we drove the scenic Needles Loop Highway and looked at the beautiful granite outcroppings and pine trees.  On a whim, we stopped at a lookout and saw this:

The Needle’s Eye

 The kids had a great time scrambling and climbing on the rocks.

Cherry Pie is a fearless climber.
Even Baby Dumpling got excited about climbing.
Pumpkin Pie
Tamale Pie
Blueberry Pie used to be so cautious when he was 2.  What happened?
Rock Monkeys
 

We had to go through 3 tunnels like this one.  I held my breath for extra skinniness the whole time.  Didn’t you know holding your breath makes you skinnier? 

I felt like the Knight Bus in Harry Potter.
We had planned on touring Wind Cave, but we should have checked before driving all the way there, because it was closed due to prairie fires.  Instead we went swimming all afternoon in Sheridan Lake.  The water was pretty green smelling, but the sandy beach was nice and green water is better than no water when you haven’t showered in 2 days.
For lunch we had PB&J and pretzels with nutella.  Everybody liked that.  For dinner I made a rice & hamburger & tomatoes & cheese thing all in the frying pan.  It tasted fine, I thought, but the kids hated it.  Can’t win em all, I guess.

South Dakota, Camping Style, part 2: Sunday Sunday

1 Aug
We had to overcome some wardrobe malfunctions Sunday morning.  Blueberry Pie’s slacks were missing the main button, and root beer got spilled on my shirt when Ben was ironing it.  (that’s right, ladies.  The Man of this House does the ironing.) I don’t wear makeup when I’m camping so I didn’t bring any, but I wished I had some for church.  We looked a little rag-tag, but the important thing was to go.
 Sunday morning we found a meeting house.  –One nice thing about our church is that all the chapels look about the same so you can just drive around until you spot one, and it is a good bet that Sunday meetings will start at 9 a.m. But if you don’t like uncertainty, you can find the address and meeting time online.  After Sacrament meeting, where we were treated to an excellent talk about keeping the Sabbath Day holy, we reassured each other that appreciating God’s creations with your family was OK for a Sunday activity and we headed for Custer State park to find our campsite.
Dinosaur Park in Rapids City
We set up camp near Sheridan Lake, in the midst of hundreds of Ponderosa Pine Trees.  I’ve always loved how they seem to be reaching towards Heaven–so straight and tall.
Normally when we camp, I do most of the cooking in a dutch oven.  I like this because I can basically throw all the ingredients in and leave it for 45 minutes-1 hour and viola! Dinner.  However, South Dakota was under a burn ban so we couldn’t cook with firewood or charcoal; only gas stoves on a hard surface were allowed.  For lunch we ate Taco Salad.  I precooked the hamburger at home and vacuum sealed it.  So when we got to camp, I broke out the propane stove and we had taco salad in the time it takes to heat a can of refried beans.  There are pros to gas cooking and speed is #1.
After lunch we drove through the beautiful Black Hills to see Mount Rushmore. 
Blueberry Pie wants his face carved on a mountain someday.
It was fun to go through the little museum and learn how rock was removed from the mountain.  There was also a slide show of pictures of the mountain taken at different times of day and in different seasons.  George Washington looks especially distinguished with snow in his hair.
As you can see, we had plenty of cheese.
Also, plenty of energy.  (And don’t miss Blueberry’s shuffle-step in the background.)

For dinner we had parmesan pasta (with chicken I had precooked and vacuum packed) and fresh fried zucchini.  The kids loved it!

All the kiddie pies begged to go swimming, but that’s definitely not on my Sunday appropriate activities list, so  we went for a family walk along the lake shore instead.  It was beautiful and peaceful.
I tried out the new trekking poles that the Man of the House had insisted on buying for me.  I was skeptical about carrying something extra around to trip myself with, but when I tried them, I could quickly tell that they were improving my balance.  It was a lovely walk.  After it got too dark to see, we went to bed– with no showers because there was no plumbing at this campground.  Only pit toilets for bathrooms and a spigot down the path for getting water.  The girls made the mistake of being curious about what is in a pit toilet and looking down there.  I think they learned the valuable lesson that ignorance is bliss.
Holy Cow! I just realized I’m talking about toilets on my blog again.

South Dakota, camping style, part 1 cause if I don’t post what I’ve written, it might never get posted!

31 Jul

**I’ve been trying to decide whether to give you a highlights version or the every single detail version.  Couldn’t decide so I’m going to do both.  I’ll put the main things in bolder font so you can skim through fast. I’ll put in all the other details too, which will make me happy and you can read them if you want/have time.

Our trip began with a 14 hour drive.    

We got started by 7:00–only 1/2 hour later than our planned time!  That was the best start ever for a family trip. For food in the car, we had granola & strawberry yogurt parfaits for breakfast & chicken salad with Ritz crackers for lunch–so tasty.  For snacks we had, carrot sticks, grapes, and animal crackers. There were also so sour gummy worms and gummy bears for when car sickness threatened.

I was so busy planning food and clothing for 6 days, our longest camping trip ever, that I planned nothing to entertain the kids in the car.  That could have been disasterous, but lucky for me, it wasn’t. The 12-year-old and the 10-year-old both brought a book to read.  Somehow they kept busy and happy with not too much fighting.  I think it is because of how much space we have in the Death Star.

We did play the license plate game and kept a list to see if we could see all 50 states.  By the end of the trip, we had seen 42, including Alaska & Hawaii! We found every state west of the Mississippi River, except Louisiana.  I guess Louisiana-ians weren’t visiting South Dakota this year.

On our way to Rapids City, We drove through Sioux Falls.  For 20 minutes as we approached the city and then drove through it, we got to see some pretty neat aerial stunts that turned out to be none other than the Blue Angels in their F-18’s.  That is the definition of serendipity, readers!

I also found out that South Dakota natives pronounce their capital city “Peer” not “Pierre.” That seems a little weird to me, but I guess it’s their state capital so they can say it how they want.
 
The drive was shorter than it could have been because the Man of the House rigged a  …lou….  for the van. We are pretty sure we saved about 4 hours of stopping to take kids to the bathroom.  I’m sure he is planning on telling all the details on his blog, so I’ll leave that for him.  Besides I don’t know if I want to talk about a toilet on my blog.  I’ll just say that my initial reaction to his idea was, “You’ve got to be kidding.”  But it turned out to be genius because we didn’t have to stop every time a little kid needed to pee.  Also we used kitty litter instead of RV chemicals in the lou. They were cheaper and smelled better.  In fact we only had to open the windows once, the first time it was used, because we didn’t have the foresight to put some of the kitty litter in to start with.  Perhaps you cat owners are shaking your heads at our ignorance right now.  Go on, laugh it up.

For dinner we bought hamburgers at Burger King and I added homemade chocolate chip cookies and Mug root beer.  Everyone got their very own can of soda.  How exciting!
We got to Rapids City at about 8:30 p.m. and stayed in a motel overnight  so we could clean up and go to church in the morning.
Saturday night I realized that Baby was dehydrated–no wet diapers all day and none I could remember from yesterday.  That worried me.  I realized I’d probably been giving her too many crackers and not enough milk the last few days while I tried to get everything ready for the trip.  I pretty much stayed up most of the night feeding her and she seemed better in the morning.  By Monday, she was much better.  Phew!

 

Gasp! Be Still My Heart

20 Jul
Prada’s gone Steampunk for fall.
More delicious goodness here.
I still might faint.
Nothing looks as good as a well cut suit on a well groomed man.
Dear Husband, I know I’ve been begging for you to get these.
 
But I’ve come to my senses.  I’ll settle for this.

Dreams

20 Jul

In the wee hours of the morning I kept dreaming that a baby was crying.

I woke up each time to check on the 7 month old and then the 3 year old.

No one was crying.

Super.

Oh, what do you do in the summertime when all the world is green?

18 Jul

The Man of the House and I have been talking about having the kids be in a sport for some time, years really.   The conversation goes something like this:

Him:  “I really want the kids to be in sports.  What is coming up?  Could they be in soccer?”

Me: “I think soccer already started.  But next fall/spring/summer we’ll do it, I promise.  I just don’t have time to drive them all over the place to practice and games right now.”

But this summer I bit the bullet and agreed to give up my time and the Man of the House paid the bill for the kids to be on Swim Team.

The team warming up.

We’ve loved swim team.  Practice is every morning, but they all practice at the same time and since it is summer now, we don’t have to do anything else.  So having practice has kept us on a halfway decent schedule.  Plus, 3 of my 6 kids could save themselves if they fell out of a boat.  most likely.  better chance than before anyway.

I haven’t even minded being at the park for 2 hours every day.  Sometimes I even walk laps around the playground!

And the swim meets are super fun–like an 8 hour picnic with an exciting race every hour or so.  The weather has been really hot, so my only wish is that I could get in the pool every so often.

We’ve found some fun things:

Turns out, Gwenny is very competitive.  She was nervous her first meet, after all, she could barely swim when we had signed her up for the team and had only been practicing 2 weeks.

Her second meet, she knew what to do and swam like a whole different person.  She cut a whopping 20 seconds off her best time on the 25 yard freestyle.

Gwenny- freestyle is her favorite stroke.

She came out of the water full of excitement and told me, “next time, I’m winning my heat.”

Here is Gwenny waiting for her turn.

Guess what!?

At the next meet, she won her heat!

Gwenny winning her heat in the 25 yard backstroke!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then she had times for both her freestyle and her backstroke that were just 2-3 seconds off from being “A times.”  Having an A time makes you one of the top 10 fastest swimmers in your age group and qualifies you for a completely separate championship at the end of the season.

There are 2 “divisions” for every race.  The swimmers with seed times (or entry times) that are A times are the “A Division” and the swimmers with B seed times are the “C Division”–don’t ask me why they don’t call it the B Division. 

They give medals for the top 3 in each division.

At our most recent meet last weekend, Gwendolyn’s seed times were B times, so she was in the C Division.  However, she bettered both her times by about 3 seconds scoring not only A times but coming in 3rd place for C division in freestyle and 2nd place for C division in backstroke.  So she got 2 medals and will be swimming in the A Championships. 

A 10-year-old boy from Joplin broke 2 tri-state records.  They announced his name and the record he broke over the loud speaker each time.  
Gwendolyn was like, “There are records and we can break them?”

I looked up the tri-state record for her age group for the 25 yard freestyle. (They print them on the heat sheets that we get to know when our kids race.)  She would have to cut 10 more seconds  off her time to beat the record which has stood since 1989.

She has record breaking in her sights now, so WATCH OUT!!

The yellow cap is Benji

Benji & Ana are not competitive.  They do usually get a personal best time each race they swim, but it is only 1 or 2 seconds better.   

Benji doing the butterfly as part of the dreaded “IM”  100 yard Medley where they have to swim 25 yards of each butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, & freestyle.

I think Benji might be more excited if he was winning or getting A times or even close to either.  But most of the swimmers in his age group have been swimming a lot longer than half a summer.  So he is last or almost last every time.  I think this disappoints him, but he also doesn’t have that fire of focus in his face like Gwenny does.

Benji doing the 50 yard backstroke.  He has been lapped here, which is why that other guy is going the opposite direction.  rats.

Ana hates race day and whines every time we go to a meet.  But I found what motivates her!

Ana doing the breast stroke in the IM Medley

At our meet last weekend, there was an ice cream stand next to the pool.  She was pestering me about getting ice cream and I was saying “No” of course.  Finally she said, “Mom, if I win my heat, which ice cream can I have?”

I said nothing, as I had already informed her that I was not buying ice cream.

“MOM, if I win my heat, which ice cream can I have?”

I thought, “She’ll never win her heat.”  so I said, “If you win your heat, you can choose any ice cream you want.”

I saw that look of focus and determination take over her face and I thought, “She might do it!”

Ana doing the 50 yard backstroke

She walked up to the starting blocks and for the first time ever, I could see that she was going to really try her best.  I decided to myself that if she bettered her time by something significant, like 10 seconds, that I would buy her ice cream anyway, regardless if she won her heat or not.

She got a best time ticket but we didn’t know how fast she had been.  I could tell she had swum her hardest.  I was so excited that when Benji came up for his race, which was right after Ana’s, I told him through the fence that if he bettered his time by 10 seconds that he could have ice cream too.

Benji looked pretty determined to get ice cream.  At the end of his race, he told me his timer told him he bettered his time by 9 seconds and was that good enough for ice cream? 

I bought ice cream for all three kids, and we rejoiced in sweet success.

When the times were posted, we found that Benji had cut 8.8 seconds off his freestyle and 2.77 seconds off his backstroke.

Ana  cut 6.5 seconds off her freestyle and 11.95 seconds off her backstroke!!!

She may not care about winning, but she cares about ice cream!

All in all, Saturday was a very satisfying day for all of us.

It’s a Reunion! Day 1

11 Jul

When my family gets together, you know there will be lots of kids.  Last night was the opening meal of my mom’s family reunion.  There were 37 adults,  48 children, and 1 lion (see above.)

I can tell you, it seemed like alot more children than that.  Especially 2- year-olds.  But then, it doesn’t take very many 2-year-olds to seem like alot–especially if half of them are crying!

 This is Owie Boy and he is a sweetie peach.
Sam is getting ready to jump on a fast moving merry-go-round.  No one else was brave/foolish enough to try it.

Hi, Birdie
Hank didn’t stop moving until he saw I had a camera.

Gwenny letting some healthy blood get to her brain.

Heath

Annie and Eva

Porter Frank the Tank!

Wyatt says, “My running! My climing! My Whinging!”

Maren is ready to be catapulted to the moon.

Renata and Julia.

   There’s more to come, it’s only Day 1!

Pumpkin Pie’s Baptism

11 Jul
Someone turned 8 last week!
 Sunday, July 8 was a beautiful day.
I was very proud of Pumpkin Pie.  She gave a great talk at her very own baptism.  She was so beautiful and pure and the Spirit was so strong.
 Here she is with Abuelita & Abuelito.
Here she is with me.  Yes, I have a disorder that makes my neck go wonky whenever I get in front of a camera.  I should have had a V8.
  • But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 19:14

The Naughty Primary Song

8 Jul

Key Lime Pie asked me to sing the “naughty” primary song tonight at bedtime.

I figured it out:

In my pretty garden, the flowers are “naughty”

Like grandmother, like granddaughter.

(My mom also thought that song was about “naughty” flowers.)

**actual lyrics:

In my pretty garden, the flowers are nodding

How do you do? they say

How do you do today?

In my pretty garden, the flowers are nodding.

Getting Ahead of the Housework

4 Jul
For almost 13 years, I have been on a quest to improve my house cleaning skills enough that I’m not ashamed when people come over.  Also I like to have the house clean because I am happier when things are neat and uncluttered. I feel so peaceful when things are neat and so out of control and cranky when things are messy. 
Myths/Lies I told myself:
  • If I can just get more organized, the house will be clean.
  • If I weren’t so lazy, the house would be clean.
  • If I would get up at 5 a.m. every morning, the house would be clean.
I’ve read many books on the subject.  These are some of them:
Organizing from the Inside Out- Julie Morgenstern
Time Management from the Inside Out- Julie Morgenstern
The Art of Homemaking- Daryl Hoole
Make Your House do the Housework- Don Aslett
Is there Life After Housework?- Don Aslett
No time to Clean- Don Aslett
How to have a 48 hour day- Don Aslett
Sink Reflections- Marla Cilley
The Ultimate Career- Daryl Hoole
It’s all too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff – Peter Walsh
The Sisterhood of Wonderful Wacky Women- Suzy Toronto
I’ve been to many time management classes.  I’ve made schedules, weekly plan sheets, lists, color coded spread sheets, chore charts, chore binders.
Only one thing has worked.  Achieving this one thing has brought not just success, but lasting success. 
Want to know the secret?  
Here it is:
Reduce the amount of Cleaning.
That’s right, the only way to keep up on the sisyphean task of keeping a house clean is to make it so there is less cleaning that has to be done. I still have more reducing to achieve.  But I’ve had some success. Here is my short list for how I have managed it (and how you can too!):
  1. Get rid of stuff.  De-Junk, De-clutter, De-treasure.  Re-shuffling piles of stuff around isn’t cleaning.  I gave away half of the family’s clothing and saved myself hours of laundry time every week.  None of the kids has had to go naked yet.  (Though one of them goes nekkid by choice quite often. And I think we can all agree that there is a difference between naked–as in “Naked came I into the world”–and nekkid–as in “plum stark nekkid.”)
  2.  Get traffic mats.   Good mats at every door will stop so much dirt from entering your house.  Dirt that you don’t have to clean up if it isn’t there.
  3. Put things away right the first time.  If it is in your hand, put it away right- it will take less time than if you drop it any old place and then have to go back later to put it away.  Unless a child is in mortal peril, you have time to put things where they go.
  4. Clean as you go. Example: Fold clothes as you pull them out of the dryer.  It hardly takes more time than pulling them out and mashing them into a laundry basket.
  5. Set a timer.  When you are cleaning, set a timer for 15 minutes and race it.  See what you can get done.  We’ve all performed cleaning miracles in the 2 minutes from when we saw an unexpected car pull into our driveway and when the doorbell rang.  Have a miracle every day and then have more time for what you really want do do. (Like read a good book!)
  6. Wait for your toddlers to grow up.
If you need more help with #1, especially if you are really emotionally attached to all your stuff, I recommend  It’s all too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff – Peter Walsh.
For more ideas like #2, I recommend one of Don Aslett’s books;  Make Your House do the Housework is my favorite.
For more help with #3 & #4 the best one is  Sink Reflections- Marla Cilley
To remind yourself that being a mom is so much more than keeping a house clean, read one of Daryl Hoole’s books.  

If you are still waiting on #6, sit down with your toddler and read him a book.  You’ll both feel better.
D&C 42:41 And let all things be done in cleanliness before me.
Psalms 51:10  Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
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