Things I love about Williams

I LOVE WILLIAMS! No, William is not my new crush, it's a quaint little town in Northern Arizona that has the charm of a story book. Just outside of Williams you'll find Deer Farm road which is home to an actual deer farm! And just down the road from that you'll find the quirkiest little ugly cabin you ever saw, right in the middle of tons of trees!

If you've hung out with me or Mel at all you've for sure heard of the cabin. In fact, if you've hung out with us long enough you've probably been invited to use it or come up with us for a weekend or something like that.

I dream of fixing up the ugly little cabin. I think we all do. But time and demands on our lives permit us from being able to do many fixes... Today as I was day dreaming I dreamt of building a big beautiful house next door to the cabin and have the cabin become a bunk house! That would be amazing!!! But it's just a day dream!

Some of the things I love most about Williams is...

1. The beauty all around. Today there were clouds covering the sky and it caused the green in the trees to just pop out! The little red dirt roads that form the square of houses that surround us add dimension to the area. I think if it was just brown dirt it would be cute, but the red is cool! The pines that grow all around are just beautiful. I love them most in the winter when they are covered with snow and the wind blows through them and the snow falls off and makes you think it's snowing again.

2. The atmosphere of relaxation. I want to sleep a lot when I'm here. It might be due to the higher altitude... or it just may be that I am totally relaxed! I take a nap if I want, go for a walk if I want, cook if I want... or don't! I can just do whatever, and I love that!

3. The kids love it! There are cool funky big rocks just above the house and the kids make forts and "stores" and all sorts of pretend things. The teenage boys have been known to sleep out in the rock forts before. Tents have been set up all over when the boy scouts come here. We put the trampoline up and nothing is cooler than to jump on the tramp with the trees around and the cool breeze blowing! Oh to be a kid again!!!

4. The new things we see every time we come. We have been to canyons, been crossed by a huge elk, had lots of cows come to graze in our yard, been shut out by tons of snow, built snow caves and sucked on icicles. Had lots of heat or freezing cold. Yesterday my niece Shelbie said, "lets take a walk to the obsidian rocks." I couldn't think of what she was meaning by that. She told me they were just totally black rocks. I was picturing big black rock like the big rocks that scatter our property and I though that sounded pretty cool so we began to walk... About a half mile later we came to where the dirt road turns to gravel road and Shelbie announces "this is it!" The black rocks were mixed with the white gravel road! I laughed and the kids filled their pockets with "obsidian"!

5. I'm coming to love the town of Williams itself. I have become very fond of Williams. Safeway and I are good friends now... But the other things it has to offer are pretty cool. The Grand Canyon train, the Lord and Lady shop my son loves, the antique shops and the whole atmosphere around that that I love. It's just fun to go spend time there. I am finding I think trains are pretty cool. Someday we are going to take the train to the Grand Canyon, something we have yet to do! We've been to church there many times and even attended Catholic Mass on Easter once. It's a great place!

Well, that seems like a lot of things to love, but as I sit here I know there are so many more little reasons to love it! If you ever need to get away and want peace and quiet, leave your kids home... and come up to the cabin! (or bring them and watch them love it too!)

P.S. The ice caves near Flagstaff... awesome! Flagstaff area has tons of awesome stuff, that's a story for later!!

This is an impromptu talent show! Skits and lots of tricks on the trampoline!
This is Brodric's one handed cartwheel.

The kids had a little skit about a toilet... the bowl is the toilet! Goofy kids!


Baillie is always tons of fun and kinda crazy!

Cousins!


Our trip this year to the ice/lava caves between Williams and Flagstaff. The cave is about 3/4 mile long and at points you have to get nearly to your knees to get through. It was a lot of fun.



Outside the caves there are lots of little rock tunnels the kids found with actual ice in them. They climbed around in them like you would climb around in the tubes at McDonalds play place. This was a better play place than McDonalds!!

Kendahl got her legs stuck in some rocks underneath. Scott helped her get them out.

They loved climbing around these rocks outside the caves.

"Marathon", WHAT?? I don't understand, what language are you speaking?

I know, the first time I heard that word it was totally forign to me too. I couldn't even place it in my mind. What is that anyway? A Marathon?

Then I met Tracy. What a lucky find. Tracy works for us now and she is a very down to earth person. Tracy owns a marathon. More of the forign language stuff... Who "owns" a marathon? How does one "own" a marathon? But true, she does! She told me I should run a marathon. HA HA HA I think Tracy is blind.

For all these years I have been trying to hide the fact that I could loose a hundred pounds and still technially "need to loose weight". So, how have I done? Are you all shocked that I need to loose weight? I mean, if I am good at hideing it then no one would have a clue that I am fat, right? So, how have I done? I know, I'm no good at hideing at all! Which takes me to the marathon.

I've tried dieting. I've tried beating myself up. I've tried mild exercize. No success, no success, no success. This thing is bigger than I am right now. So what could it hurt? If I train for a marathon, just maybe... I could do it! If I train for a marathon maybe I will like it. If I train for a marathon maybe I will win back my life! I think I'll try it. Simple as that... I'm going to train for a marathon!

Tracy has a schedule for me. I start with a 10K. That will be at the Vally of Fire Marathon (Which Tracy owns and if anyone would like to participate it would be more than GREAT! It's between Las Vegas and St. George and it's supposed to be BEAUTIFUL!) And it just goes on from there! Awesome huh?

I just want to say, I get discouraged daily! I have to drag myself to the gym and I don't expect that to change for a while. I have to make myself do it. But when I am there and Tracy is chattering away I start to think I can do it! For those few moments I see the light in the tunnel! That's why I am putting this out there in computer internet land. So that maybe I will feel more motivation from others or energy, or I will feel guilt that it's out there and so I better follow through. I'm not sure of the reason, but I am! It's out in cyber space now and I can't take it back!

I am going to do a marathon! Notice I didn't say "run a marathon". I may run or walk or even crawl, but I am going to do it!

So for Valynn or anyone else who wonders what my hobbies are.... This is it, my new hobbie, I am training for a marathon!

Anyone want to join?

Two blogs at once! They are long but take the time to read them both!

I've sent my kids off for the last day of school. Three of them at least, and now I am going to spend a minute doing what I should of done for the past two months. I do miss blogging, I think it's the hard chair it requires to sit on that I just don't enjoy...

Awards assembly's are always touchy... I don't see myself as one of those mothers that feels every kid needs a trophy for participating on a sports team, or that there should be 12 valdictorians at graduation, but sometimes an award at the right time would be nice!

My sweet brown eyed boy tugged my heart into the direction of "everyone needs an award" yesterday. He was so excited for me to go to his awards assembly. I assumed he wouldn't be getting an award since there had been no letter home in the last week or so, but he was just beaming about the assembly so I wanted to be there "for him". The awards started coming, and children began their trek to the bleachers to receive their awards... but Brodric's name was never called. Then the next set of awards, and the same outcome. With each name that was called I could see the sparkle in his eyes begin to dim. He kept turning around to find me in the crowd of parents to give me that look, "why aren't they calling my name" was written all over them! I kept blowing kisses to his little spot on the floor and I would smile and take his picture. He seemed happy that I was taking the pictures, but still that look.... It nearly broke my heart!!! I couldn't hold back tears but would quickly hide them so no one would know.


So contrast that with the other son. 13 years old and not a care in the world... On Monday he comes home and I ask when his awards assembly would be... He lowers his head and with a different look in his eye (one that says, "shoot, I'm in trouble") said, "um, it was on Friday"!!!
"WHAT?" was kinda my response! Then I got TEARS and began the questions! Carter got 4 awards and I was not in the stands to enjoy the parts that moms like best!

After the fact one of the teachers stopped my husband in the halls at church and said, "Wow, Carter really got a lot of awards the other day!"
Scott looked kinda stunned and all he could say was, "oh really?"

Upon questioning Carter about his awards he said that he was most proud of the PE award because it is his worst subject in school and he was proud of himself for getting the presidential award, he was second most proud of a math award because it meant he was smart and I was most proud of the citizianship award because it means he is a good kid, WHICH HE IS! He is a good kid!

The awards didn't stop there in our family, Clara made the honor roll again which is a great accomplishment for her! She has worked SUPER hard this year and has really excelled in her learning, we couldn't be more proud of her!

And last night Kendahl got a cool award! She had a chior concert that turned out to be surprisingly great. The school is very new and this is the first year there has been a chior. They have from 6th graders all the way up to 11th graders, and the chior is quite large, probably 40-50 kids. They did fantastic!!! They sounded great. After the concert they had a little awards assembly which everyone got participation awards and then the kids had voted on silly awards for some of the kids. Kendahl won the "biggest know-it-all" awards voted on by her peers! She was laughing with all of them and by the whooping she did as she received the award you could tell she was proud! And then the final two awards were given to a child from middle school and one child from highschool. For this final award the teacher read off her reasons for giving this award to the person she chose and every time she read a great quality Kendahl would say some child's name that she thought it was. But in the end Kendahl's name was the one she announced! Kendahl was shocked to hear her name! I wish I had a picture of that moment because she was geuninely surprised! It was classic! The name of the award is called the National School Choral Award and there is one given to every chior in each highschool in the country the teacher said. There is a plaque that will hang in the classroom and each year another name will be added to the plaque, but Kendahl's will always be the first one on the plaque! She also received a little hefty trophy and a pin! What a great award for a great girl who puts all her efforts into the things she loves!!! It was great to see her be recognized for this!

And now that the last day of school is upon us, (except for Kendahl who has one more week of school,) the kids are off at school hopefully enjoying their friends. It has been a good year and I am so proud of our kids and the accomplishments they have made! I love them so much!

Let me add one more thing (I know this is so long, but I should post more I guess.) A couple of weeks ago the kids had their 3rd piano recital. They each spent tons of time practicing and had a totally successful recital! Again I was so proud. I wish I had a video, but I don't so I'll share some pictures.
What I should mention was that at one point early in the practicing for their recital peices both Carter and Baillie were discouraged and wanted to "quit!" But they perservered and were both able to finishe their peices and were in the end very happy with what they were able to accomplish. About that time Brodric decided he wanted to start piano lessons again! So he too was able to work hard and learn his song. They were all great! By the way, Kendahl didn't do piano this time, she decided to do voice and she has been able to really improve on her talents. She sang three songs at the recital and they were all beautiful. Two of them were in french!




And then there were more awards...

I wish it was May

So this is how I wrote it, but I never posted it... Here's to May anyway!

If I don't hurry up I won't have a single post for the whole month of May!!! What happened? I've lost time I think! It seems like the month went by and I was too tired every night to write. Well, I better get on it! I keep getting messages from people that I better do one soon, they miss it. Besides, I haven't put pictures of the remodel up! So here goes!

The remodel...
Before...


After...



The colorful things in the cabinets are where the glass will go in the cabinet doors, but while I was gone on a trip to Arizona Scott and the kids decided to make stained glass of thier own. They wrote cute things on them, (their dad is very creative!)
There’s still so much to be done, but it is beginning to be beautiful and it is useful again and that is good!! In the next few weeks it may continue to transform. I hope so!

So, Other things that happened in May (and I have pictures of that I can share and make my blog so much cuter)

Mothers day was awesome, my kids baked and cooked dinner and were sweet through the day!





Shenanigans performances this was fun stuff! The girls have joined a group called Shenanigans. It is a theater arts and performing group. They sing and dance and just have a good time. We had our first two performances a couple of weeks ago. One on stage and one at the fair. The girls had a blast! Kendahl is a natural. She gets on that stage and is as comfortable as ever! Clara is a bit different and she wasn’t even sure she liked it until that first performance! She looked so scared during the whole thing. It was so cute, but when it was over she was just energized!!! She loved performing! She is sold and she wants to continue “forever”!





Brodric’s “may” birthday party. This little boy has my heart! He is so cute and I just love him to death. We went to Mesa for a few reasons, but while we were there I decided to have a birthday party for Brodric. For his birthday party he just wanted his friends there… that means… Chloe, Charli and Connor. So that means we had to do it in Mesa! So that’s what we did. We borrowed a pool from Steph’s friend and had all the cousins there. We ate pizza, played in the pool, opened presents and ate cupcakes! It was a great day.

I had more pictures of this day, but for some reason it won't let me add more, so I guess this will be the end of this post, but it does a bit of catching up!!!