Thursday, April 19, 2018

What do we do all day?

    Apparently, a lot of people wonder this. I can't tell you often I've heard, "So, what do you do all day when Eldon works and you have no vehicle? Just sit in the camper?" And, I wonder, how many others simply don't ask, but still wonder? #1, Our camper is our house, just like your house is your house. #2, I LOVED to stay home all day when I had a house and I still love it. #3, Believe it or not, we still do need to cook, clean, do laundry, school, and everything that you do. #4, If we do just sit in the camper all day, then that is just fine and you can go your merry way. [Note, I speak sarcasm as a second language]

So, without further ado, I give you an assortment of pictures from the last few months so that you can see what we do all day.

"Just flap your arms and you'll fly, just like a bird. I'll catch you if it doesn't work."

The Page Library had boxes of toys and games we could check out so we loved having new stuff every week!

Tightening my knobs!

Creating cloth dolls :)

Eating oatmeal! Eating is such a big part of every day.

Tablet time. This doesn't happen nearly every day but then some days it lasts a loooong time :).

And sometimes, we eat oatmeal with our hands :(.

Makayla wrote a play, they made costumes and acted it out. Michael the Brave saved Emily the Princess from falling over a cliff :).

Easter cookies on clearance were a huge hit. The tiny tubes of icing are perfect for little hands.

So many messes to clean up! That is smoothie, and it's incredible how many crevices that silly heater has. It's also shocking how bad it stinks when it burns food off.

A boy and his tools. He'll play for hours with his new birthday set!

We play cowboy and race down the street on scooters!

While in Page, AZ, we ate amazing food that we ordered in........frequently :)

Sniffing cupcakes!

Some days we go to the playground so certain people can climb on the walls instead of the slide.

School, so much school!

I even use chocolate chips as bribes rewards.

Most days, at least Ethan takes a nap.

This is a leprechaun trap. Yes, you read that right. They wanted to catch one and find his pot of gold :).

And now, I realize that I still don't have pictures of us: 
cooking 
washing dishes
 scrubbing toilets, sinks, and showers
 sweeping floors
 hanging up and folding laundry
mending
 making yogurt
 brewing Kombucha
 feeding sourdough
 reading stories
 practicing Bible memory
 emptying tanks
 defrosting the fridge and freezer
cleaning the truck
putting groceries away
sewing (and giving lessons on it)

I'm sure there's more but I'm feeling rather tired after realizing what all we do. I'm going to go have a coffee. You enjoy sitting in your house-all day :).

Friday, April 13, 2018

Petrified Forest National Park

     After we left Page, AZ, we made a stop in Flagstaff to pick up some important roof ornaments for our rig. Yep, solar! I'm sure you'll here more about that later :). We spent the night boondocking near Holbrook, AZ at the Crystal Forest Museum. They have a big parking lot and allow RV's to park free overnight. Since it was a mile from the Petrified Forest entrance AND we have the free 4th grader pass, we figured we should at least check it out. We were so glad we did! I had no idea it was so awesome and we loved every bit of it.

     I'm not going to talk about petrified wood and how it's formed, but please do check out this link from Answers in Genesis that explains it well. One of the big things that intrigued us was the fact that this desert used to be a lush rainforest. However, before the flood and before the earth was broken into continents, Arizona was located near the equator, which would have resulted in a tropical climate. I don't understand it all, so that's why I'm not even trying to explain it :).

Emily loves purple!

Ethan loved making dinosaur tracks in the sand!

Super cool kaleidoscope.

Eleventh Junior Ranger Badges!

So much petrified wood just laying around!

Makayla couldn't get over how it looked like wood but was rock. None of us could!




Amazing to see such huge logs laying around!

"Don't climb on the logs, kids,"

This one was 10 feet in diameter!

Desert Beauty!


     When polished, it results in gorgeous rocks in a myriad of different colors. The colors depend on what minerals soaked into the tree. Definitely make to time to check petrified wood out sometime. It's found in every state so a quick Google search should find a good place near you!

Sunday, April 8, 2018

Lone Rock Beach

     We spent our last day off in Page by going swimming at the pool at our campground, long naps for all, and a picnic and evening at Lone Rock Beach. Perfect day!

Ocean meets desert.

Mr. Michael

She's almost 9!

Miss Emily

Building sandcastles in the gross mud and sand.

The Lone Rock

Lots of people boondocking down here!

Mr. E

She loves the beach!

Friday, April 6, 2018

Rainbow Bridge National Monument

     One of the big things Lake Powell is known for is Rainbow Bridge National Monument. It's considered the biggest natural bridge in the world but if you get technical, it's not. In order to reach it, you can spend 3-4 days backpacking the 18 miles of rough terrain or bring a boat 50 miles up Lake Powell from Page. I didn't even add it to our list of things to do while here, especially when we looked into renting a boat and realized we didn't want to spend $500 for one day on the lake! However, one of the many friends Eldon made at work offered to take us up on his speedboat. Ummm, yes! So today it ended up being 3 adults and 8 children 11 and under since Dr. Cluff's wife is gone this weekend. There was a few interesting moments but in the end we all had a great day!

The really cool boat :)


Notice, we're still driving down the boat ramp but these little guys already have cookies in hand!

40 miles an hour makes a lot of wind!

Entering a canyon

The boat docks at Rainbow Bridge.

Our boat is the one in the middle.
      Once we reached the dock we had to hike close to a mile up the canyon. Occasionally the water has been high enough that you could boat right up under it but now they wouldn't' even let you since it's a national monument.

It was amazing how green it was!


And, there it is!

We're so happy we got to experience this!

There's just nothing like nature to remind you of God's greatness and power!

See the graffiti? It was done as an example of petroglyphs.


Saw these 4 cuties and snapped their picture.

My big 3 year old!

The dry river bed.

Headed back to Page- about an hour an a half full speed!

Love this country!

New friends, pretty and windblown :).