Reunion

Since most of the bloggers in the family were at
the reunion, it will be hard to add anything new.

We enjoyed each others company and made a lot of new memories. The weather was great even with the rain and hail.

It was fun geocaching with Alex's Human, and taking pennuts family to show them our favorite activity.

Hopefully next time everyone can be there. We love you all so much...

Counting down

The second tri-annual Carter reunion is just 11 days away. Yes, it is hot in AZ, but we are going to the mountains. It will not be 113 degrees there, the high should be in the high 70s or 80s and since it is in the mountains there is always a small chance of rain. The night time lows in Show Low are dipping into the low 50s so it should cool off at night.

There will be water and we will be able to fish. This is a picture that we took last summer in the White Mountains. It is closer to Big Lake so it is a little higher elevation, but it is still in Arizona.

The main thing is that we are going to spend time getting to know each other a little better. So it will be a good time no matter what. Just wish everyone would be able to attend.

The Edge

Saturday before we picked up G'Gma C at the airport we picked up Rhayn and took her to see "Over the Hedge" She wasn't sure which movie she wanted to see then she decided that it would be "The Edge".

We bought tickets then went to Rubio's and had fish tacos. Rhayn wanted chips, she said when we got to the movie we would need to get popcorn, then some candy in a small box. We took our sodas from Rubio's into the theater and bought popcorn and Reeses Pieces. When they showed previews there was a scary one about a house that is alive. She said that it was too scary for her and we decided it was too scary for us also. After the movie we had almost two hours before we needed to pick up G'Gma C.

She told us to go to Target and get something for her mom. When we started to park she wanted to park by the flowers, which was almost as far away from the store as you could possibly get. We decided to get a picture of her by the flowers. She went over and posed for us. One pic was a "lip smile" and one was a "teeth smile" according to this big girl. The only thing she wanted to look at were the toys. We did buy a few things, but we didn't let her pick out more than one thing for herself.

At the airport Grandpa spoiled her and bought her some chocolate milk from Starbucks. It was a fun day and we enjoyed spending time with her by ourselves without all the other family members around.

Chiricahua

Last weekend we ran away from home with Scott and Crystal C. We wanted to get out of the desert heat so we headed south. We knew most people would head north to the mountains, so we went to the mountains everyone forgets about. We were able to go on a hike. One of our favorite in the Chiricahuas - the trail from the Massai Point and through the heart of the rocks then down to the visitor center. It is 7.5 miles and took us a little over 3 hours. In a previous life I was a Girl Scout leader and we took about 10 eleven year old girls on this same hike. There was a lot less griping this time.

This is a pic of the duck on a rock and two dusty sweaty hikers that were on the path. Scott C wasn't able to hike so he provided shuttle service for us. After the hike we drove to the Dragoons and Cochise Stronghold and looked around there for awhile before driving back to the valley and doing a little geocaching. On Monday we drove home along the old Klondyke road and then stoopped in Eden at the Carpenter homestead where abe got stung by a bee.

G'rat and the move

Okay I guess I was wrong and no one knows what is happening with the G'rat. We will make the long drive to Ely one last time in early June to help them move back to Cooltown. They will be here for the reunion, which is really great. We needed a few more people in our home during the summer. Once they get settled and find a job they are planning on staying in the area.

Also, da Bear will be home from July 2-12. He will be heading for Iraq in August.

What's up

So it has been over a month since I have written anything. Probably because all the exiting events in my life are about the grandkids at this point. If I write that the babies each have two teeth you would all say "that's not news, their moms wrote about that". If I tell you Garrett is moving home, you would reply "purplelurple wrote about that".

See how hard this is? I don't want to complain about work all the time, that gets pretty old after awhile, besides it has been a lot better now that all the new people have pretty much gone on to greener pastures (hope they step in some manure along the way).

If I posted our June and July calendar it would depress me too much. There is only one week where there is nothing happening, after that it is total chaos. So I am going to be really busy the first week of June making sure that everything is accomplished before the craziness begins.

The only thing new in my life is after almost a year of not having a calling in the church, I was called to be an assistant librarian. We are going to recatalog the pictures and take turns being there on Wednesday night. We are also going to go through all the interesting things that have accumulated and weed out the things that are outdated, etc. It should be fun and the other two ladies will be good to work with.

Diagnosis

Suzy took G'ma Carter to the doctor today for her follow-up appointment. The diagnosis was "Benign Positional Vertigo" or BPV. G'ma had told Suzy last week that they had cleaned out her inner ear and that they were going to clean out the other one this week. This sounded really strange to Morris as they can't just clean out the inner ear. The main thing is that it is something that is definitely there and not Parkinson's or something that she will have to learn to live with. They should be able to treat it, and according to several sites that I googled, it may even be better after the second visit. Basically there are crystals that form in the ear and roll around making her dizzy. They move the crystals to a different part of the ear so that they can dissolve. Worst case scenario sounds like they may have to operate, but we will keep our fingers crossed that it won't come to that.

She had asked for a blessing from Abe and Morris the night before the appointment and so when the doctor told her he knew what it was it wasn't a surprise. No tests or prolonged probing, just simply "I know what is causing your problem". Faith is a wonderful thing.

Rest for the Weary?

Now that the whirlwind "wedding Bonanza week" is over, and all the family have gone home to their various states we're hoping that we can get back to some semblance of normalacy.

It was so nice having G'rats family so we could enjoy all of the wild childs. We got to watch them one night so that G and J could have a date night. Something they don't get to do too often. It was nice having g'ma A and CYEIEIO visiting at our house and leaners.

A trip to the zoo, the Grand Canyon, the Botanical Gardens made for one crazy week. But other than being exhausted we really enjoyed spending time with family. Only one thing wrong in it all and that is that our bear wasn't able to be here.

How great it is to have kids that actual seem to enjoy each others company and want to share in each others lives. It was also great having extended family that showed up early to help get the food together and then stayed til the end to help clean up.

Don't know what we would do without all of you and want everyone of you to know how much we love you and wish that everyone could have been with us as we welcomed the newest member into the Carter family.

Bath Party

Last night we threw a bridal shower for SLO of course Rhayn got quite excited and asked her mom if it was going to be a Bath Party like we had for Meh Meh before Madders was born, pretty good for a 5 year old.

Ten minutes to seven and three people had dropped gifts off and told us they weren't going to be able to come. We were all a little worried that we wouldn't have anyone there. Rhaynnon was assigned the job of answering the door and taking the gifts to the gift table, she took her job quite seriously. At seven there was only the immediate family and a next door neighbor. Not too great of a turn out, but in typical MST fashion (and that isn't Mountain Standard Time) the rest of the party started arriving at promptly 7:10. There were over 25 people there and after games we opened gifts. After the gifts we had our traditional Costco Cake, which Rhaynnon helped serve.

SLO recieved a lot of really good gifts, nice things that she can use around the house, including measuring cups and a cookbook. She also received some fun stuff to decorate the house with and a big fluffy bath towel. The most exciting gift may have been the candy bra, which the

bride to be modeled for us after most of the guests were gone. According to the package it is a 30 serving bra. Hairball also gave her the great gift of chocolate body paint, which she informed us was quite good. We all told her that that was WAY too much information.

One thing leads to another

A week ago Monday I went to Mesa to meet Jesse to help him buy meat for the wedding. I planned on buying paint to redo my big bathroom. It has been purple for over 3 years and wanted to spruce it up. Jesse went home and I continued doing a little shopping. Jesse called and asked if dad had called and told me about the water leak in the little bathroom. He hadn't so I called home and decided I better get home to find out what was going on.

Apparently the moisture build up in the bathroom had nothing to do with 6 adults taking showers. There was a hole in the ceiling and a very visibly broken pipe. Craig was covered with dust when I walked into the bathroom and he told me that it looked like he would stay home over the weekend and work on the bathroom while we went to Safford to Jason's play. I told him that I would have to stay home with him and work on the other bathroom and we could get a lot done. We would send the kids with G'ma and have the house to ourselves.

He turned off the water to that part of the house, which meant we could use the other bathroom, and kitchen but no hot water, no laundy. We walked across the street to Jva's apartment for showers. Did dishes by boiling water so it wasn't too bad. The laundry piled up, but only for one week.

In the meantime, Jesse took his dining room table over to his apartment and Brie tried to clean the really antique linoleum. What we found is that part would clean nicely and part was really bad. So we decided to retile over the existing floor. We bought 250 square feet of tile and on Friday night we redid the floor. Did you know that when you get older crawling around on the floor can leave you sore the next day? We finished around midnight, and then we looked at our new floor and realized that the counter- which was really gross before- now looked even worse.

On Saturday we got up and moved all the furniture out of the living room to try and polish the wood floor. The kids and g'ma left so we cleaned and polished the floor then went to the local home depot (20 miles away) to buy base board to put around the entire room. As we were driving we both decided that maybe we should go ahead and buy a new countertop. Not the tile one we had planned on putting in, but a laminate one since anything would be better than what we have. We checked on delivery time for a countertop and found out it would take over 2 weeks. So we walked over to the tile and decided that we should take the plunge and lay the ceramic tile. Long story short is they didn't have the tile CLA liked so off to the new Lowes in Chandler.

By the time the kids walked in the door Sunday, after a fun time at a play and then geocaching in the Gila Valley, we had the tile complete (except for the grout), the bathroom back together the furniture ready to put back in the living room. We worked more than we rested and since the weather was perfect we just opened up the house and got so much accomplished. The big bathroom did not get repainted, it still has purple cabinets (which isn't as gross as it sounds). We did get a new shower curtain and took down the flowers from Elise's wedding.

Now we have one week to finish the wedding preparations and do a little touch up, clean up around the house.

Delegate

Did you know that Frito Lay doesn't donate to organizations anymore? They don't give away their day old chips. For the past nine years we have had an annual Open House at the high school. For the past nine years we have gotten donations of chips. The one thing that we didn't have to think about. This morning the teacher who was assigned nothing more than writing a letter asking for donations informed me that he had not heard from Frito Lay. He said he had called and left a message, but they hadn't contacted him. I asked him to try them one more time. Ten minutes later he returned with a message that they don't donate any more.

Tomorrow is our open house. We are planning on around 200 people, we have chili-dogs and soda, and cookies, but the one thing, the easiest of all, the one that I had assigned to someone else wasn't going to happen. I called the district office and called in a favor from the individual that processes purchase orders and then went to the store to buy nine boxes of 24 count chips. Have I made it too easy for the teachers because they know that I will take care of things and that they can skim by doing the bare minimum? They each get paid between $500 and $750 for helping put on this one event. I am seriously debating following through on the threat that they get only half of their money if they don't fulfill all their duties. They each signed a contract that stated that "if" they didn't follow through, they "might" not get the full amount. Last year we had two teachers that didn't do anything and I did have the district office not pay them their second installment.

I just know that I really hate being so anal about every little detail. The flyer that one teacher developed was so bad that we reused the one that I made last year. I sent out over 300 invitations to all the 8th graders and the board members. I left it up to the teachers to announce it and to post flyers around the school. If no one comes I will feel like I didn't do enough and yet I made assignments so that others could earn their money.

Maybe I am just stressing about this event. Maybe there are just too many things going on right now in my life. Maybe I need to take some St. Johns Wart and Vitamin B complex and then a nice warm bath. Either way it will be over tomorrow and I can go on to the next stress inducing event.

Red Neck Birthday Bonanza Party Week

What better gift for a city boy than his very own 22, complete with camo hat and shirt and a brick of shells? Dacheese wanted to make sure that her boy had a real family celebration this year. So we called all the inlaws, outlaws and others peoples from cooltown to come over to surprise him.

We started with a pre-surprise party on Tuesday with a small cake, icecream, candles and just the five that were home that night. Then tonight we had the real surprise party. Dacheese made a Texas Sheetcake that was delicious . We also had chili-dogs with real elk chili meat. SLO took some beans, cheese, chili and layered it on a chip. The weather was great so we ate on the patio. Then we discussed alternate names for the birthday boy; Billy Bob, Dwayne, Howie, and other names appropriate for a cooltown red neck. The best part was we surprised him two times in two days for his twenty second b-day. That's a whole lot of twos, maybe we should play the lottery?

Wedding invites

We printed the invitations (125 of them), then JVA decided that he wanted them done differently. He insisted on changing them and printing a sample one so that SLO could make up her mind. She looked at them and decided that JVA hadn't asked for much when it comes to wedding plans so he should get his way in this.

Printed 125 more, then noticed that 90 of them had a typo on them, a big "n" right in the middle. Great, printing a third time and hoping that this would be good enough. So after hours of stamping and folding and stuffing we finally got them into the mail.

Yes, they are home made, but they weren't cheap, after all, that much ink and paper can be pretty pricey.

Now only 150 more things to do to get ready for this mid March event. We should be ready by May.

End of Christmas

We sent Jesse over to G'mas to help fix her TV and he came home and told us that we needed to go over and take down her lights. I called Suzy and Malcolm and asked them if they wanted to help. Da familia dacheese went to the zoo with ragininaz so they didn't get to help.

We all showed up by 6 PM so that we could undecorate. Everytime we thought that we all had everything down we noticed one more thing. We stopped to eat pizza and then continued putting everything away and then put back all the treasures that she had taken down to put up all the Christmas glitz and glitter. With everyone's help, including the girls, we got a lot done in a short amount of time.

G'ma has been very depressed lately, she is still having dizzy spells and so she has been very confined to her house. She says that Christmas went by and it never seemed like a holiday at all. She also said that she feels so close to dad right now. I can't imagine how lonely it must be for her.

We don't spend enough time with her and it is sad when we realize that a week has gone by without us visiting her. I had made a resolution that we would get over there at least one time a week and then the first week of January we didn't make it over there. We will try better the rest of the year.

addiction

Monday was a great day, no work, so abe and I decided to go on a mini hike and find some new geocaches in the area. So early afternoon we headed out and found a mountain to climb - only half a mile up the hill and then back down, a really good 1 mile hike. The workout felt so good. We have been so bad about not hiking the way we used to. While we were driving to the next cache I was working on the solution to a puzzle to one of the caches - like the new sudoko puzzles that are everywhere right now. I solved the puzzle, but it was too late, abe had to be up early (12 AM) to go to work. I called Suzy the next day to see if they had solved this puzzle and see if they wanted to join us on a caching adventure. They had the solution - thanks to a friend of hairball. So we planned a trip to CG on Thursday early afternoon. We also had a few other puzzles to solve and find in the area.

We attempted to find one cache, but I knew that my solution was based on a vivid imagination. Nothing there, but it could have been. Then we worked on one that Suzy and Morris had worked on for quite awhile. We found three clues and headed off to the cache. After arriving in the middle of a field (on private property) we knew that we had something wrong. Morris checked the math for the coordinates and he found an error. Back four miles, the same four miles we had just driven, to the hill on the water tank. We drove around to the back and started climbing up, the gps told us it was on the "no trespassing" side of the fence, but we weren't going to be denied again. After slipping, sliding, endangering our lives we climbed to where the gps zeroed out. We looked for a really long time and then decided that we had something wrong. Carefully going back to the car we managed to not kill ourselves.

I took the paper with the information and found two little errors that Morris missed. Minor details like 4+2 = 2 ( I had subtracted, not added) . So moving on to the cache that we knew we could find. The sun was beginning to set and we had to drive 8 miles into the wilderness to find the cache. We parked as close as we could to the cache and then hiked the little bit to find the nicely hidden ammo box in the pile of rocks- aka an Arizona Cache.

Abe mentioned that geocaching was the one activity that would cause us to hike and climb places that we wouldn't otherwise, just say there is a cache and Suzy and I are ready to go and scale the alps.

So now that we have found almost 400 caches, we should be tired of this sport right? I went to the site to log in our find from yesterday and noticed that there is a new one in Casa Grande, just this morning. How soon before we can jump in the car and find this one........

Part two, I called Suzy and at 3 PM we ran back to CG to not only get the one cache we missed yesterday, we hit the new one. 100% on the day! No addiction here.

Christmas

We weren't able to spend Christmas with Garrett and family, so we drove to NV the next day and spent a few days with them. The weather was good, even though it snowed the day after Christmas. We stayed at a motel with an indoor pool and the kids got to swim then the next day they had a snowball fight with g'pa. The kids are growing up so fast.

It is so hard having them so far away, but they are within driving distance, so we have burned up the road three to four times a year every year. We don't need a map to get there anymore and know all the good places to stop.

There is nothing better than a great big hug from your grandchild, followed by a kiss and an I love you g'ma. Watching the little things they do and remembering their parent at that age and seeing those same attributes in these new special children.

We kept the kids overnight and watched Madagascar on the TV. The parents had some alone time, and we had some time with the kids. Donuts and hot chocolate in the morning with a few more laps in the pool before we had to check out of the motel. It was such a great visit. Today is Brendon's seventh birthday, and in nine days Garrett will turn 27, then Beth will turn eight on the 21st.

Two days 'til Christmas

Getting cookies, popcorn, and nuts ready to deliver to people for Christmas. What a good heper we had today (that is she rocked nicely in her swing so we could cook.)

We baked Cinnamon Bread with and without raisins, and little loaves of Cranberry Orange Quick bread.

When we made cookies and sugared nuts (Lynda's recipe), Madison wasn't too helpful.

Okay, so we never put lights on the house, the Christmas card didn't get sent (they didn't even get ready to send), so far we haven't made any chocolate bears, we didn't drive around and look at the Christmas lights in town. There are probably a lot more things that we didn't do this year. There is always tomorrow, and after that......well we can always do better next year.

December ramblings

In case anyone forgot what Garrett looks like, here is a picture of him. Of course it was taken two years ago, but he hasn't changed that much.

We are planning on making the drive up to Ely the week after Christmas. Wonder if there will be snow like there was two years ago? We had fun didn't we dacheese? Since that Christmas, Andrew has spent a year in Iraq and is now back in the states. We have four new granddaughters a new son-in-law and soon to be one or two daughter-in-laws. I don't think we have aged at all - anyway we sure don't feel any older. Where does time go?

Thanks to dacheese and Rhaynnon we have a decorated tree in our living room. I think this Christmas is the hardest one yet. We have children at home, but they aren't ours anymore. They are their own people and have their own families. Who is Santa? Who will fill the stockings? I didn't realize how hard this year was hitting me until last week when I was freezing cold and alone in Kansas City. Then I realized that this big change is real, we don't have our own babies anymore who will wait wide eyed for Santa. That is a resposibility that falls to the next generation, and even though we can be there to watch, we are just onlookers. There won't be children all piled into one bedroom, staying awake all night, talking. We won't need to find an ingenious way to block off the living room to hide any unwrapped presents. No great treasure hunt type gifts. Nothing the same as it has been for the past 25+ years. Maybe the mom won't be so grouchy either?

This year we may be able to act out the Nativity, but who gets to be Mary? We have the perfect candidate for the role of the Christ child, but who should be Joseph? Oh for the simplicity of the years when we grabbed a doll, wrapped it in swaddling clothes, had two wise guys H & G, Joseph Jesse, Mary Briana, and Angel Andrew. Putting appropriate headgear on the dogs so that we could have a donkey, a camel or a sheep. We can't go back, so I guess we'll just have to move forward and honor those wonderful memories.

The hunt

Two hunters and their guides - Scott C., Craig, Jeff and Scott A. ready to find the elusive elk. By the end of the day they had seen a mule deer, a brief glimpse of a five-point elk, but no shots were fired.

It was cold, but little wind and the sun was shining, so it couldn't have been a much nicer day for a ride.

Maybe they'll have better luck tomorrow.

Where does time go

How did it get to be this late in November? I know for a fact that we just celebrated the fourth of July the other day. Then a day later the babies were born and they are getting too close to being two months old.

Tomorrow is our oldest daughters birthday. She was born on a Tuesday and we went home for her first Thanksgiving dinner. When we pulled into the driveway my brother Jack ran out and said "So you named her Helena, we call Tiffany 'Tif' so what are you going to call her?"

This is her birth story. I wrote it on a piece of paper towel the day after she was born.

"My dear little Helena. It has been a very quick 8 months since we first heard about you. You were a very much loved baby long before you even showed me any signs of life. I want to tell you about this "labor of love" we went throught to get you here.

I woke at two AM Tuesday morning and shortly began to feel pains - which persisted until we left home around 9 AM. Your father helped keep track of the pains about 30 minutes apart. When they got to 20 minutes we left home- which was good, since around Aguila (20 miles from the hospital) you then became more urgent and the pains slipped to barely 5 minutes apart. We came to the hospital, they sent us back to the doctor. He sent me straight back out to the hospital. Then the contractions came every minute. Long, hard pains. I think I scared your father as I was hurting so badly. Yes, dear, birth pains are the most intesnse hurt you will probably every feel, but it is worh it. Your father gave me a blessing, he told me my pains would ease and you would come soon. Less than 2 hours later you took your first breath and uttered your first sceam of protest. My pains were eased, only a little, but I was able to sleep between pains.

When I said you are special I meant that in many ways. To your father and I you are an important part of us, so much love, along with pain. But it will be only a little pain. The kind you have when you are growing. To the Lord you are a special part of his plan, and you are his spirit child.

Also, Helena, to yourself you should be special. Be the best person you can be. Love the Lord and show the world his light.

When they cut the cord and released you from being a part of me, right then I knew you would be an individual. And I pray that we will treat you like you are an important individual."