Skull Valley, Our final Farewell

So many good memories of this place. I have early childhood memories of coming up to Skull Valley. My grandpa, dad, and uncles would come up often to work on my grandpas house which was up the hill. That was sad when it was sold about 10 years ago. But we had Grandma Anna Mae still living up here to keep us connected to Skull Valley.This was so sad because our little piece of Family history in Skull Valley isn't ours anymore. This is My great grandma Anna Mae's house. I think she lived in this house for about 35 years or so before moving down to Glendale to be closer to family as she got older.

The home had been taken care of for several years before going up for sale. Sold in April. We took the opportunity to go up during our spring break one final time.



Smashing coins on the tracks. We always love to smash em and try to find all of them.


Out in the orchard. Zachary loved the freedom of roaming.
Great grandpa's wall of tools.
Out Geo caching. just before heading into Prescott turned off the road and found this beautiful place. Saw so much because of geocaching.



Metal Detecting behind Grandma's house.



The Kids thought it was great they could get lost in the backyard.
Loved climbing this huge cottonwood.


Our very first geo-cache ever. Little trinkets in a weatherproof container and a log book. Fun to find with our new hiking GPS.
Taylor pointed this one out for us when we had a hard time pinpointing it.
We will all miss this place. I know it was such a happy place for myself, Jeremy, our kids and for so many members of my family. I'm glad we got to go up here for as long as we did, but it will surely be missed. It will be a wonderful memory when we drive through Skull Valley in the future.

Field Day

I have been wanting to add field day to our blog for a while now. It turned out to be pretty chilly, it was March 11 this year. I think Ella had her jacket on until after lunch.
THe little brothers had fun watching Ella and Caden. Although Zachary was a little upset that I wouldn't let him out of the stroller, especially if he saw a ball.
Even Daddy got to go down in the afternoon.




Ellas favorite event, the sack race, she was seriously bounding out there.

Zachary, our little . . . blessing

He is so sweet in these pictures thank goodness they are start out so cute because this one has given us new insight with little busy boys.


Yesterday was the beginning of the end for me. I put Zac down for a nap like I normally do, then set out to get some work done, because its impossible to get anything done when he is awake. I heard him after awhile and hoped he would lay down and go to sleep. Before long Taylor his friend Andrew, and Zachary come skipping into the backyard. I was totally taken aback I asked Taylor how Zac got out. Because I figured and he and his friend must have gone upstairs when he started screaming and done a little team work to get the boy out. Taylor proceeded to tell me " he was just crying then climbed out and came downstraiwrs." I forgot that couple of weeks ago he was nearly climbing out of his crib. yesterday was my DOOMSDAY.

He figured it out. 18 months old climbs out of his crib, he is screaming at his locked bedroom door for his nap as I write this. He has to be contained. Last night after several attempts to get him to go to bed usually around 8:00, we brought him upstairs with us at 11;30 put his mattress on the floor then the rail back on, thinking surely this will be too much for him to climb over. (On a side note since he went to bed so late last night I though I was going to get to sleep in a little, nope 6:30 bright and early.) This morning after just a little crying I hear a thud. Poor kid it really was high. He just uses his sticky little feet to climb up and over. Be careful Zachie I love you.

What else is that boy doing other than climbing out of his crib, he climbs on the table, pulls chairs off the rug which are not at our dining table,but prefers if they are on the tile so he can just push the chair closer to the counter, sometimes he uses the oven door to get up but he has burned his fingers so the chair is his preferred method. sometimes I just put him in his highchair while I make dinner. He also loves toothpaste and toothbrushes. We often can't find either when we go to brush our teeth. our bathroom counter is full of his footprints and we now use our TV stand as our bathroom counter, not sure where we'll turn when he learns to get to that stuff too.

Life with our little Zachary is never dull. He drives me crazy and melts my heart several times each day.

Finally blogging again

OK so it has been forever since I blogged. Our laptop crashed in Dec., which had all our pics on it, but Jeremy's good friend Brent was able to retrieve them. Very grateful for friends with computer skills.

This last Sunday we went out to Jeremy's folks for a visit and to pick Ella up after spending the weekend with cousins and at grandparents house. Its getting to be close to time to go when cousins come over to pick up their sister also. So we stay way longer, its hard to get away when so much fun is going on everyone is there and Jeremy and his brothers are playing ball. Even after the extra hour or two we stayed, Taylor is completely upset about leaving and wants to spend the night at grandads and grandmas so he can play with ry ry. Well I tell him we won't be back until Saturday and he would have to ask grandma if he could stay until then. Of course he immediately does and thinks he is staying. problem solved. I guess it wasn't solved when the next thing he knows he's getting stuffed into his car seat, crying that he was going to stay until sat. Grand dad reassures him he'll come out and get he and Ryden to spend the night sometime. he settles down as we drive home and we start talking about what they will do there. The little wheels in his head start spinning, when we tell him he would take a bath over there. He says "NO, I DON'T WANT THEM SEE ME NAKED!" it was hilarious. our modest 4 year old right?everywhere else except for home. He told us he would just take 2 baths at home before he leaves. he is still thinking and planning what he'll bring with him when he does get to spend the night with his cousin at grandma's and grandads.

Pics are from the annual resident retreat at the end of January. Has been a great program going to miss all the stuff they do to include families. I can't believe how old our kids are getting.

Boston

Jeremy had a big conference in Boston in mid October and I got to tag along. It was short but fun . We tried to see as much as we could with our time there.

This is the view from our hotel room, it wasn't the Devonshire suite, was it Brent and Nicole,but we had a nice view.

Our first night, we were not prepared for how cold it was, in the forties that night with wind and a little rain, looking for a place to eat.

Boston Gardens was pretty close to our hotel so we walked through these beautiful gardens and headed for the Freedom Trail.

That sun is very deceiving it sure looks like a beautiful day but it was cold unless you were getting direct sunlight, and there are a lot of tall old trees in Boston.

The six of us, Jon, Rachel, Brent, Nicole, Jeremy and I.

Listened in on the tour here and learned some pretty cool history. John Hancock, Ben Franklin are among the founding fathers found here.

Site of the Boston Massacre.

Near Fenniul Hall here.

"Ye old Oyster House" Known as the oldest restaurant in America. Jeremy would tell you he had the worst Boston Baked beans here, they were nothing special. Clam chowder though was very good.

Hey, redcoat what are you doing here still?

Paul Revere

Even the fire stations looks cool.

Our final destination on the Freedom Trail. What.! we're climbing up that thing.

Yeah I think we've started to huff and puff up these stairs, what number are we on 150.. 250.. I lost count.

We made it (barely).

Riding the subways was pretty fun, It reminded Jeremy of Russia and Nicole of Japan.

John and Abigail Adams.

This is the home where he retired. There were some beautiful gardens here.

Where John Adams grew up and then lived after marrying.

Jeremy knocked on the door, lo and behold it opened right up on us, but it wasn't John Adams, merely a surprised security guard locking up.

The great 2nd president of our nation, John Adams.

In Harvard square.

Had to see Fenway Park, Jeremy and Brent were really hoping Boston would have made it a little further in the playoffs, so we could have been there when a game was going on. I'm sure it would have been crazy.

Got out of order, George Washington in the Boston Gardens.

Cool Statue of Ted Williams outside of Fenway Park.

The leaves were all changing it was the perfect time of year, even with the little cold front Boston was having.

Leaving way, way too early Saturday morning with Brent and Nicole.

Was cool to see the sunrise above the clouds though.

Quick short trip to Boston a beautiful city rich with American History.