Adairing Adventure

This post is sorely lacking in photos. My old camera is literally falling apart. It is four years old. My new camera is not as easy to use and it is very small. So I don't take as many pictures. I will do better this month.

We got back from our trip in the middle of September. We got back on a Wednesday. Troy and the 3 oldest boys left on Friday for the Fathers and Sons campout. They came back early Saturday morning and we all loaded up in the van to head to Tillanie's baptism in St. Johns. The baptism started at 4pm. We slid into our seats in the chapel at 4:05. We spent the night there and headed back to home on Sunday.

It was time to get back into our normal rountine or lessons, they boys bread route, scouts, activity days and school.

JW has started walking. I didn't even write down when he started. It was around 10 months old. He just wants to keep up with his big brothers and sister.



Isaac turned 8. He got a BB gun for his birthday. He was supposed to have a birthday party. But it was General Conference weekend, so we had some neighbors kids come over to cupcakes. I still owe him a birhtday party.

Before I left on our trip wanted to start learning how to sew. While I was visiting our friends the Usher's Karla showed me all the things she had been sewing. When I got back I headed to Scrapbooks Etc and signed up for a couple of sewing classes. I've sewed several skirts for me and Stacia, a pillow, a purse and a few costumes.

Quinton started sewing lessons too.

In October we started baseball and park day with our homeschool group. It's been fun seeing our friends again.



Isaac was baptized. We had the Garcia's come. Our "cousins" the Tolmans came too and our good friends the Stephanson's. After the baptism we had everyone over for dinner.

The kids wanted to submit crafts and baked goods to the State fair. By the time I registered them they were only able to do baked goods. Stacia baked cookies. Isaac baked cookies and bread. Quinton baked cookies and bread and made trail mix. We did go to the fair one day to see if they won and they each got to go on a few rides at the fair. Isaac won 1st place for his bread. His cookies got 2nd or 3rd place we cant remember. Quinton won 3rd place for trail mix and his cookies got 2nd place.

Our stake relief society started a monthly service day. Quinton and I went and colored some coloring pages for a preschool. We are excited to have that opportunity to do service.

We went to a pumpkin patch one saturday with some friends we met from our store.

Troy and I are going to start doing dates with the kids again. They've been asking for a long time. Troy started by taking Levi on a date. They went to the YMCA and played basketball.

Poor JW got sick with the flu. He was sick for the week. I tried to just hold him and love him. We listened to lots of audio books that week.



Isaac started scouts and recieved his bobcat award. The bobcat is a lot of memorizing. He is really good at memorizing.

We (ok Troy and his scouts) moved our store three doors down to a larger location.

The kids had their primary program. They all knew their parts: Levi, Stacia, Isaac and Quinton. Levi got nervous when he got to the microphone and didn't really say anything. But I was proud of him for staying up on the stand the whole time. He loved singing the song Praise to the Man. It is one of his favorite now. It was a nice program.

8350 is the number of miles we drove in six weeks. I've been trying to figure out the best way to chronicle our adventures. We went a lot of places and did a lot. I think the best way to write about what we did is to go by date. It might be a little boring to read, but it is the best I can do.

August 3
Leave Mesa. Drive to Nevada, visit Fogarty's.

August 4
Leave NV, drive to UT. Our friends the Ushers were so nice to let us invade their basement.

August 5
Went to preparedness fair at Honeyville. Then to my brothers house to play with cousins and see aunts and uncles. I went to pick up Troy from downtown and we went to dinner at Cafe Molise in SLC. Then we went to my aunt and uncles house to hang out for a little bit. I got to see some of my cousins.

August 6
Troy, Quinton and Isaac went to Mount Timpanogas with my sister Tanya and her family in the morning. That afternoon Teana and Derek were sealed in the Mount Timpanogas temple. It was a great sealing, there was a lot the sealer said that I could apply to my own marriage. The we went to a park for a BBQ. I didn't see the kids at all. They spend the whole time playing.

August 7
Ty and Louise blessed their baby.

August 8
Drove up to Bear Lake, got a flat tire on the way, right before we got to Logan. I was glad I got a flat tire while Troy was with me, before I started my trip across country.

August 9
Spent the day at Bear Lake, rented water skies, played in the sand and water.


August 10
Cleaned up the cabin, went back to lake for a couple of hours before we headed back to Ty's house. We had a great time at Bear Lake the cabin was great. The lake was really high from all. We saw trees under water with just their tops out. The lake wasn't as pretty as we've seen it before, but is was fun.

August 11
Spent the day cleaning out the van and getting ready to go. Dropped Troy off at the airport, so he could go back to work.

August 12
My mom and I loaded up the kids and started our drive. We drove all day and then stayed somewhere in Nebraska. I can't remember where.





August 13
Drove to Winter Quarters, the visitor's center at the Omaha temple. Spent a little time at the visitor's center. Drove to Nauvoo, Ill.

August 14
Spent the day at the Historical sites. There was an article the Friend magazine about a horse John Taylor brought to Salt Lake City because his son loved the horse. Saw the Nauvoo temple. Played at the playground in the evening, had a great time swinging.


August 15
Went on a wagon ride in the morning before got back in the van. Drove to Kirtland, OH.





August 16 (my birthday and anniversary)
Spent the morning at Kirtland Historic sites. We even got to go into the Kirtland temple. We left in the afternoon to head to my parents house. We eventually got there late that night. There were times when we stopped every 30 minutes for someone to use the restroom.











We spent the next week helping organize a couple of rooms, playing. I brought the kids swimming at the pool I used to go swimming at.

August 25
Picked up Troy at the airport.















August 28
Huricane Irene hits my parents house. There is no power for the next three days.

August 29
There were trees down across the road. One of the neighbors came along with a tractor and moved the trees so people could get to town. We drove to Palmyra, visited the grandin publishing building, the sacred grove and the Hill Cumorah. When we were at the Grandin building one of the missionaries gave up a book of mormom and challenged up to give it away on our trip. We got home at 1:00 in the morning.






August 30.
My dad brought Troy to the airport.

August 31
Drove to Boston. Visit Louisa May Alcott's house in Concord, MA.

September 1
Visited John Adams home, drove around Boston trying to get to Paul Revere's house and the Old North Church, gave up after and hour and decided to go to the aquarium instead, paid $36 for parking, left to go back to my parents house.










September 3
My mom threw a birthday and retirement party for my dad. The Oakes came for the weekend.

Septbember 4
Mike shot off some rockets.








September 5
Spent the day cleaning out the van again and getting ready to leave.

September 6
Drove to Oakes house in Maryland.

Septbember 7
Tropical storm Lee was hitting Maryland. It rained most of the day. We went to George Washington's home Mount Vernon. The rain stopped for a little bit, we went to a beach found jellyfish washed up on the beach.





September 8
Went to Thomas Jefferson's home Monticello. The drove toward Kentucky. I can't remember where we stayed that night.



September 9
Went to Slade, KY to The Naural Bridge State Park. (Along our drive we saw signs or advertisements for Nautral bridges in Virginia and Arkansas. And Troy and the kids went to the one in AZ this summer with some friends.) Hiked the mile hike to the top of the bridge. Then got back in the van to start our drive to MO.





September 10
Drove to our friends house.

September 11
Spent the day with our firends the Hatches. We had a great time!



September 12
Went to Laura Ingalls Wilder's house in MO. My friend took us to Bakersfield seed. They sell heirloom seeds and they have a pioneer village. Drove to Little Rock, AK to pick up Troy from the Airport, so he could help me finish the drive home.

September 13
Drove to Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas. We looked for diamomds. Everyone had a good time digging in the dirt. We found some cool rocks, but no diamonds. Started our drive home.




September 14
Spent the day driving, got home at 11:00 that night.

So many fun and exciting things to blog about July.

4th of July Pancake breakfast, JW learning to crawl, playing with friends, paper airplane class at library, irrigation, still selling bread, Troy taking all the kids camping with the Keeles, serving sister in hospice, pioneer day crafts with the Stephensons, Isaac's lunch and lego day, more swim meets, 24th of July in St. Johns, kids staying a couple of extra days with cousins, chicken fat pack meeting, pool party, thinking I've downloaded pictures from cameran and then finding out I didn't, I deleted them instead:(

We started off the month going camping with one of our homeschool groups. We had a great time. The kids ran around the woods the entire time. I got to have great conversations with amazing women.



The big boys joined swim team this year. The first couple of weeks were hard work, with a little complaining from Quinton about how tired he was. Isaac has had to sit out of practice for three of the weeks. One week he hurt himself going off the high dive then made it worse by going to swim team practice the next day. I didn't realize that he was really hurt for a couple of days. I thought he was trying to get out of chores. Another week he had basketball practice. This week he cut his finger really bad and was told not to go swimming for a week.

Stacia and Levi took swimming lessons. They loved it. Stacia did really good.

One of our friends said we could come pick peaches from their peach tree. We got three big boxes of peaches. We couldn't eat all of the, so I came up with different ways to use them: canning, jam, juicing then freeze as popsicles, fruit leather (which I ended up fermenting them buring), freeze some slices for smoothies. Luckily I had a friend come help.



Troy went to mountain man rendevous (again, 2nd time this year, but who's counting). The kids and I drove up to Concho to give away our kittens. Then we went to pick up Troy from the Mountain Man rendevous.

We've had a busy summer: swim team, swimming lessons, basketball camp, camp out, driving up to Concho, Isaac starting speach therapy, going swimming, along with normal piano lessons, cub scouts and activity days.

Isaac made this fish out of legos. I love that my kids love to build with legos. The one problem I face is how long to keep the creation until someone can use the pieces.

Stacia turned 6. I actually decorated a cake for her birthday. It was a butterfly. She had a party with some friends.





It was the end of the year for our homeschool co-ops. We had a great time. I planned a fun field trip to Bounce U for our homeschool group. We had a fun time.




We went to Michelle and Gregs house one weekend. We brought some of our chickens to process. We canned them. The kids always have lots of fun at their house.






Levi decided to learn to ride his bike (with training wheels) all by himself. Up until now he didn't have any interest in riding bikes.

JW got his first 2 teeth.


I call the two oldest boys The Big Boys. One of the Big boys put on Stacia's princess dress. I tried to take a picture of him. He was so mad at me for doing that he even started crying.

Our cat had kittens and I can't get rid of them. Every time I try to post them to Craigslist my ad is kicked off.

I don't think that I have any pictures this month. The boys finished up their basketball season. They lost every game. They had a good time and learned alot. They were given a Phoenix suns magazine at the tournament. They next day I saw them ripping pages out and throwing them away. When I asked what they were doing they said there were bad pictures and they were throwing them out. I looked at the pictures. They were pretty bad. I'm proud of them for throwing them out.

We went to the Easter pageant public invited dress rehersal. We love going to the Easter Pagent every year. This year we had friends that were in it. The kids were excited to look for them during the pageant.

I took the kids to the Desert Botanical Gardens for a field trip with one of our homeschool groups. It was a good time. It was the first time we've gotten out this year. We saw the butterfly exhibit.

I am helping Quinton with a bread business. He makes bread and sells it. He's been doing it for a few weeks. It seems like there is some mishap every week. One week not enough salt, another week burn bottoms. Next week I'm sure it will go smoothly.

I have a garage now. It is so exciting. I can park in the garage and have a place for all our junk. Our house is getting organized little by little. I though it would only take a couple of weeks. I am now going on 5 months of working on it.

This year for Easter we talked about things that happened every day the week leading up to Easter. There was an article in the Friend magazine that we used. It was really good.

I was working on some family history when I found an ancestor whose name was John Wesley Brown. JW has a great-great-great-grandfather with the same name.

We started the month off with a garage sale. I want to get rid of everything in our house so we can comfortably fit all 7 of us in a 3 bedroom house. Teana and Derek moved to Alaska and were only bring what they could fit in their car. Here in Mesa they have yard sales on friday and saturday. It was craziness on Friday morning.


It was Quinton's birthday. We started with presents under the blanket. He got star wars legos from Isaac, a Fablehaven book from Stacia, shirt and pants from dad and soap from mom for carving. The kids have spent hours carving soap. Even Levi uses a potatoe peeler to carve soap.


Quinton wanted to go bowling for his birthday. We invited a friend. He wanted to go to someburros for dinner then we had cheesecake at home.




Quinton and Isaac are playing basketball. So I didn't have to attend to practices and two different games on saturdays I moved Isaac up to the 8 & 9 year old team.They haven't won a game yet, but they are having fun.


It was Teana's birthday after Quinton's. We had Teana and Derek over for dinner and cheesecake. We decided not to get Teana a gift since they were trying to get rid of stuff.


Troy went on the mountain man rendevous with the teachers. Troy had been growing out his beard for 4 months for the occasion.

While Troy was gone we had a girls night at our house with Teana and the Tolmans. We painted our nails and played candyland. The next day Teana moved to Alaska. The kids and I did a little clothes shopping then went to our friends hotel in Scottsdale for the night. They have dinner and breakfast. They also have a heated pool the kids swam in.


Troy got home from Mountain Man on Saturday night and we drove up to Michelle and Greg's house for a couple of days. They have little lambs.


They have a sword that the kids always fight over when we are there. So uncle Greg made a sword for Quinton, Isaac, Stacia, Levi and Tillanie. Troy and Greg knighted the kids and gave them their swords. We left the swords there for next time.


I took my activity day girls (and my kids too) to a farm to learn about horses.


It was pinewood derby. Here is Quinton's car. This is the second one we made. The first one broke somehow. Quinton did most of the work. He only asked for a little bit of help. Quinton did win 5 races (out of 18). Troy got in trouble at the pinewood derby. Half way through there were about 4 or 5 boys who had never won. (It was very heartbreaking to see those boys walk up there time after time after time to lose. Troy tried to help one of them and got busted.


Troy and I took a turn at homeschool co-op for Backyard Ballistics. We used Liquid Nitrogen to make a cloud, blow up a watermelon and make icecream. Blowing up the watermelon was really cool. The ice cream was really good.