September Chronicles

We were so happy Todd and Tana (and Aunt Nini and cousin Maya) came to visit us over Labor Day. They graciously came a day early so Aaron and I could get away on an overnight adventure.
And that is where the month full of defeated plans began...

Let me summarize in a series of short, factual, phrases and you can put together the story.

Weekend #1: Hiking the Hopi Salt Trail to the Little Colorado River
Late start. Middle of nowhere. Flat tire. 30+miles on dirt roads to go. HOT. "more of a route than a trail" as the pamphlet from the information center put it. Boulder hop for two hours...with a pack...exhausted...HOT...realize we lost the 'route'. Aaron stumbles and falls in a cactus. Losing morale. Fight hysteria. Pick our way down YET ANOTHER scree slope. Just want to sit in the cool river. Quit having conversation 2 hrs. ago. Hiking 100ft. apart now. Both admit to moments of moans and weeping. 2600 vertical feet in 2 miles, one way. Jean cries the last hour. Not stopping because we are so close...it seems. Finally in the canyon bottom 6hrs later. Can't get to river through the d*@! tamarisk. No beach. More hiking to find sand bar. Tent set up, baby fed, finally sit in river. Lightning storm starts. Out of river. Move tent. Rain never falls. Muggy, sweltering heat all night. Up at 6am to beat the heat of the day. Covered in bug bites. SO SORE. Jean cries for the first hour. It pours rain for the first 3 hours. At least we found the correct 'route' out. (this would have saved us so much time and effort on the way in!) 2 rattlesnakes. Jean cries up the final steep ascent...but we're so close! We stop anyway because we can't breathe. Finally out and make it home on the spare tire.
On our way out the door Aaron's mom asked us why we couldn't just go to Sedona for a night like normal people. We replied, 'because we like this kind of thing better.' When we got home she asked how it was. Our reply, "we should have gone to Sedona."

Weekend #2: Wood Gathering Family Campout
Yearly fall tradition. Rent a U-Haul. Sharpen the chainsaw. Pack extra blankets and hot chocolate. Our first campout with Jean! We're out to get aspen this year, it burns cleaner than pine. Word of mouth instructions from the guys at work say 'just past the no-name town there's a big mud puddle, just past that is a pull-out, just past that is a dirt road...' amazingly we find it just as they say. Except the 1/2mile on the dirt road was a tight squeeze around and through trees. Teamwork, reverse, and heads hanging out the window get us through. Work gloves on everyone. Mom and kids start to set up tent. The plan is to load the trailer and Aaron will run a load back in to town that night and we'll wake up and do another load together in the morning. An unnatural pounding bass is vibrating through the forest. Some kind of Friday night party further on up the dirt road? We won't let that discourage us from our family bonding in nature. Aaron, please don't drop the trees so close to the kids. 10ft. IS a little too close, especially when they explode when they hit the ground. Kids work diligently to load sticks in the trailer. Gun shots!?!!!!! Close! Maybe we'll camp further out. It might be hard to maneuver back in here alone in the dark anyway. Stuff the unrolled tent in the car. Keep working on hauling logs to the trailer. Wow! We're almost done. Check on Jean in the car. What's that smell? Addie has diarrhea. Um......scramble to help clean up. Jean decides she's hungry. It's dark. Feeding Jean. Addie gets another urge! Aaron smashes his fingers. The kids are cold. Decide roughing it might not be the best idea tonight. Maneuver back through the trees with a full trailer now. Make it safely to the pavement and home. Drop kids in bed and watch a movie on the couch. The next day we get a stroke of luck. We decide aspen isn't all it's cracked up to be and go for the easy pine already felled and limbed in the slash piles around the forest. Aaron gets one easy load in the morning without ever having to turn on the chainsaw! We go back out for the second load of the day. The kids are cheerful and helpful. We're ahead of schedule. We're going to make our goal of 4 loads for the weekend! Have lunch and head out for the last load. The earlier trip went so well we are all along for the ride again. The sky looks a little ominous. Pull off at the exit and it is a torrential down-pour. Turn right back around and call it a day. We build a fire in the backyard on Monday night and Aaron sleeps on the trampoline with the kids for FHE to make up for our canceled campout.

Weekend #3: Biking...with no mishaps!

We hire a babysitter and make another attempt at getting out on an adventure together. We coax our good friends the Rockows to come with us. We spend all morning biking the Schultz Pass trail. Good times and no disasters.

2009 Report from the Coconino County Fair:
Addie enters a knitted hat and melted bead zebra creation
Quinn enters her scrapbook and a picture collage of Jean
There were no ribbons on any entries. I immediately approached supervisors about this because in the Open Youth category all entries are judged on their own merit and receive a ribbon. My kids had too many hopes built up on getting a ribbon. (you can see the uncertainty and disappointment on Quinn's face in the picture). The sting of no ribbon is all too real for me from last year too. She pathetically claims 'they' didn't send enough ribbons and they ran out (even though we all turned in entry forms 3 weeks earlier and they knew exactly what would show up). The mother bear in me points this out and reminds her of the rules stated in the fair book. I ask her to take our name and address and mail them to my kids just as soon as she can. And then, aha!-just a minute- she returns from her car with bright green 'special merit' ribbons she just happened to dig up. how convenient. My kids are pacified.
I was somewhat consoled this year too after my second attempt at entering bread brought home a 3rd place and my chocolate scones a 2nd.
Even Aaron made progress: He came this year!

And one last public celebration for Quinn. Who taped her fingers, kept a chart and ate a sucker for breakfast 20 consecutive days to break her finger-sucking habit. She did it without one bad day and earned her very own Baby Alive Doll. Which she still can't quite decide if it really is alive or not. She looks at it with amazement and confusion before feeling overcome with her maternal affection and leans over to kiss it gently on the head for lack of knowing what else to think of it. Her name is Rosie, short for Rosabelle.

And did I mention Jean STARTED sucking her thumb?

(by way of entertaining explanation: this explains the picture with stickers all over Quinn and Jean's faces. Quinn informs me she is playing Princess School with Jean and runs to the other room. I'm busy and only half listen. I hear some crying. Then I hear Quinn yelling "Princesses don't cry!" over and over with more sternness. Then I walk in the room and find this.)