After leaving the Carlsbad Caverns and the yummy ice cream shop, we drove to the Grand Canyon. We stayed in a hotel about an hour from the Grand Canyon that night, then drove to it early the next morning.
I had been to the Grand Canyon twice before, but Robbie had never been, and he and the girls were so excited. The girls kept saying wow and how they couldn't believe how deep it was. We met a ranger there that taught the girls about the animals that live in the Grand Canyon National Park, and gave them little booklets to fill out so that they could become Junior Rangers. The girls had tons of fun doing that and got their badges. We had a lot of fun there.
Georgia, Grace, and Gwen posing in front of the Grand Canyon.
My sister Melissa (who had come to stay with us for a while back in May and came on vacation with us), Grace, Gwen, a 7 month pregnant me, and Georgia in front of the canyon.
We decided last year that instead of going back home to Vermont for our summer vacation, we were going to take a long road trip, see some family, and visit some National Parks.
Robbie and I both had never been to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, and since it's only about 6 hours from where we live, we decided it would be our first stop.
We got there right when it first opened, so we didn't have to wait too long to ride the elevator down into the caverns. The girls loved the elevator, and the little visitors area when you first get down there, but they were a little scared at first because it is a bit dark down there. Once they got used to it though, and realized that there was nothing to be scared of, and that the caverns were actually a pretty neat place, they started to have a lot of fun.
A picture of me, my sister, and the girls in front of some of the stone formations.
My sister and my girls in front of some really cool formations.
After walking through the caverns, we went back up to the gift shop and visitor's area. They had a really cute photo area where the kids could poke their head into the head hole and pretend that they were a ranger.
Ranger Georgia
Ranger Gracie
Ranger Gwen
Here are just a few photos of some of the formations we saw inside the caverns. It was definitely an experience unlike any other, and one place we will definitely take our kids to again some day.
You can see how big some of these formations were, and how open some of the caverns were. That's Gwen standing in the archway of one of the formations that spans the walkway.
I had to throw this picture in because it was so cute. After we were finished at the caverns we stopped at a place in town that had the best ice cream I have ever had (sadly, even better than Ben and Jerrys). I wish I could remember the name of this place. Georgia had one of their special creations called Cookie Monster Ice Cream...it was just vanilla cookies and cream ice cream with blue food coloring added. It turned Georgia's mouth blue for the rest of the day-so cute!!
So if you've read the previous posts, you'll know that we have moved again. At the beginning of 2012 we were informed that the company Robbie works for wanted everyone to move to Texas to be closer to the actual job sites instead of working in the office of the company they are doing the job for. Robbie's boss and his project manager both graciously allowed us to stay in Owasso until the school year was over so we didn't have to move the girls in the middle of the year.
So, we moved out of our house in Owasso Oklahoma the last day of May, and moved into our house in Abilene Texas the second day of June. We live in a really nice neighborhood with really nice neighbors, and we can walk the girls back and forth to school every day because it's only 2 blocks away. The picture below was taken on one of the very few days we've actually had rain.
Shortly after moving here, I had a really rough night. When I am pregnant, my hip joints and pelvic joint get really loose, and they make popping sounds and even pop out of place, and that night had been bad. So I was sleeping in a bit while the girls laid in bed with me and watched cartoons. I guess Georgia snuck out at one point and got into the dress up stuff, cause all of a sudden I heard "Mommy...." from the side of my bed. I looked up and Georgia said "I'm little red riding Shmoo!!"
Lol she was all dressed up like this (and a quick glimpse in the background of our front door/play area):
Lol
I love my girls, all the memories we have made here so far, and I am excited for all the memories we are going to make while we are here.
We let Gwen sign up and try out Girlscouts last year. If we didn't have to move again this year (from Texas to who knows where), and if my kids (since Gracie is old enough this year too) weren't so afraid to go door to door and sell cookies, I would have let them do Girlscouts this year too. Gwen gained so much confidence in herself and made so many good friends through the program that we might try it again when we get to stay in a place for longer than a year and a half.
All the girls participating in the Girlscout initiation ceremony.
Jaycee, Gwen and McKenzie. Jaycee became one of Gwens closest friends.
Gwens troop at cookie night after making their own clipboards (Gwen drew a picture of Perry the Platypus from the tv show Phineas and Ferb on hers).
Practicing knocking on doors and what to say when selling cookies. They also practiced basic and stranger safety.
Every year they pick a country and each troop in the Eastern Oklahoma area did a table featuring something about that country, and something fun to do. That year they picked Jamaica, and because our troop were brand new daisy scouts, we didn't have to do a table that year. We just got to participate in all the fun games, activities, and food tasting. One thing that a troop did was focus on some festivals they have there. They made masks and headdresses and the visiting troops could put them on and not only take a group photo to take home, but individual ones as well. This is her troop minus one.
Gwen was the only one in her troop that forgot her vest that day, but she still had a lot of fun. They sang some traditional Jamaican songs, played some traditional games, watched a puppet show, tried some fruit that's typically grown in Jamaica, and made lots of cool things like mini light houses and masks.
Their lessons and activities last year centered around plants and animals...learning about different ones, how to recognize them and take care of them. One thing the girls had to do to earn a patch was to take care of an animal. Since none of the parents really wanted to buy a pet that all the girls would have to share and take care of, Gwens leader decided we would use a stuffed animal instead. Each girl took turns bringing Mr. Ribbert home for a week at a time and taking care of him as if he were real. One of the challenges her leader gave the parents was to place Mr. Ribbert in different places to surprise the girls when they got home from school each day and saw what Mr. Ribbert had been doing. These are just a couple of places I put him.
In our Elmo reading chair, reading some books.
Gwen made him this bed, that he slept in every night, from her baby dolls quilt and an empty cookie box.
Gwen loved Girlscouts, and right before we moved to Texas, they did a special patch ceremony so Gwen could receive all the patches she had earned up to that point. It wasn't as many as some other girls, but Gwen was proud of her hard work and what she had earned, and I was proud of her too. It was a really tough night for her, because she had to say goodbye to all her friends, and she and I weren't the only ones shedding a few tears. It was a wonderful experience while it lasted, and one that I hope we might be able to do again in the future.
The girls were so excited when the end of the school year came around and they got to have summer vacation, but they were also a bit sad. They were leaving great teachers, and wonderful friends behind.
I have heard that some kindergartens have a special graduation ceremony at the end of the year, but the kindergarten classes in Gwen's school in Oklahoma did not. They did have an award ceremony though, and while Gwen was disappointed that she didn't have perfect attendance, she did get an award for reading.
The kindergarten teachers started a program in January of 2012 to help the kids learn how to read, then progress into higher reading levels and harder books. They started sending home practice readers which the kids had to practice reading to the parents until they had it right, and then returned it to school and took a little test on it. The goal was to have each child read 20 books by the end of the school year.
Gwen accomplished the goal by Easter. She had already been reading the practice books, so she started bringing home level 1 reading books, and quickly progressed to level 2 (she started reading chapter books like the magic tree house series and captain underpants series and charlottes web and stuart little a couple months ago...they tested her and she's reading at a 3rd grade level). So we went to watch Gwen receive her award at school. She was so excited she was getting up on her knees and waving at us from where she was sitting.
Here's Gwen receiving her reading award from her teacher Mrs. Tooley (what a wonderful woman she was!! I just loved her!!). We were oh so proud of Gwen!!
So the following three videos after Gwen's awards ceremony are from Grace's preschool graduation. I was so excited to find out when we moved to Oklahoma that the school district there had a huge preschool program that they ran out of one of the elementary schools for all the 4 year old children living in the district, and I was so glad that right before we moved there they opened up more classrooms and hired more teachers because that allowed Grace to enter into the program (we missed the normal enrollment and registration that happened early on in the year). Mrs. Elliott and her assistant teacher Mrs. Olmstead were fabulous, caring teachers, and they put together a wonderful graduation.
This is part of the Dinosaur March song.
This is part of the Chewy Chewy Bubblegum song.
They did so many more cute songs like the dinosaur march and bubble gum, but I loved that they sang the Oklahoma song from the musical, and was surprised to see that Gracie remembered most of the words. It was very cute.
I was so proud when the program was over and they handed out little diplomas to the kids. They put them inside big binders that also held a bunch of artwork they did during the school year, a hand print from the beginning of the year and a handprint from the end of the year, a see how I've grown sheet showing weight and height from the beginning of the year and the end of the year, and so many other things. It's something I will treasure forever.
This is Grace and her friend Xoe, who also happened to be in her primary class at church. They were best friends, had play dates once or twice a week, and were so excited to share that moment together before both of our families moved to different states.
We spent Easter by ourselves again this past year, and we had a blast. We made a bunch of yummy food, spent some time snuggling and watching movies, talked a lot about Easter being a time to remember and celebrate our Savior's resurrection, and just enjoyed our time together as a family.
We decorated eggs the night before...it is one of the girls favorite family Easter traditions.
After the girls had baths and the eggs were dry, we decorated the eggs with crayons and stickers.
Happy girls on Easter morning, ready to go on the hunt for where the Easter Bunny hid their baskets.
After a bit of searching, the girls found their baskets, went on the hunt for the eggs we decorated and the Easter Bunny hid, and then went through their baskets to see all the goodies...candy, chocolate Easter bunny, stickers, a Crayola glow sand ball, bubbles, a jump rope wrapped around the handle, crayons and notebooks. The girls were thrilled.
This is what Gracie's beautiful hair looked like before she decided to style her own hair. We had gotten it trimmed from time to time when it was needed, but she had never had a big hair cut-ever. We had let her hair grow since birth, and by March 12, 3 days before the first of MANY incidents, this is how long her hair was.
Right before St. Patty's Day (which I apparently didn't take pictures of the girls on...first year I have failed to do that...we'll blame it on the all-day morning sickness), Gracie came home from preschool and told me that a little boy in her class had cut her hair. I took a look and sure enough-a loss of hair!
When I looked at how her hair was cut, I should have known then that she was lying about who did it, but I was not happy, so I emailed her teacher about it. I didn't hear back from her that night or the next morning, so I talked to her the following day after school. Her teacher hadn't known anything about it, so she and Gracie's assistant teacher investigated. And what did they find? My child's beautiful locks sitting in her pencil box. When confronted with the obvious evidence of inflicting the damage to her hair herself, Gracie confessed. Her teacher kept an extra close eye on her after that whenever they used scissors in class, and Grace promised us that she would never do it again. Sigh...if I only knew then that this would be a recurring pattern with her (she's done it at least twice since then).
Her hair after the hair cut to try to fix things...not too much shorter, but they did take a couple of inches off, and Gracie now had some very long bangs.
Gwen was jealous that Grace was getting her hair cut, so we agreed that if she really wanted to, she could get her hair cut too. I don't have a before picture, but her hair was down to her shoulder blades. I was sad she was cutting her hair too, but Rob and I agreed that if she and Grace were old enough to start picking out what cloths we bought for them, then they were certainly old enough to decide what type of haircut they had, which is why Gracie had a couple inches cut off the back and didn't just get the front fixed. They turned out really cute though, and there really wasn't a whole lot of hair that was cut off.
Of course Georgia wanted her picture taken too, even though she didn't get her hair cut, having had a recent trim herself. This girl sure loves to dress up and pose.
Gracie didn't get punished for what she did...although we were a bit upset at first, we really just found it funny and another life story to write down in a journal and save for her to read when she gets older. I really cherish things like this, and I can't wait to laugh over it with her.
Rob and I were married on December 17th 2004 in the Boston Massachusetts Temple and each year fall more and more in love with one another. We have been blessed with 4 beautiful little girls and are so grateful for our eternal family. Life can be crazy and challenging at times, but we have each other and the Lord, and we feel so blessed.
