To the Moon and Back!

Last year, I was reading a FamilyFun Magazine, and saw a story on "Cousin's Camps". Most of the families featured in the magazine had a grandparent who took the grandkids for a few days and did activities with them and called the week "cousin's camp". I wanted to do a cousins camp after reading that article, but with a different take--I wanted to take my kids camping with their cousins!

As a child, I felt like I didn't get to see my cousins enough; we never lived by any of them. Once a year, I'd get to visit my Crouch cousins overnight, and a few times a year for a few hours at a time, I'd see my Rose cousins. I want my children to know their cousins and have fun memories with them!

I approached Jen, my sis-in-law, with the idea early this year, and she liked the thought! We set the cousins camp date for the last weekend in June and the place--Craters of the Moon near Arco, Idaho. I'd never been to Craters before, and neither had Josh (even though we've driven by it numerous times). It's a 2 and 1/2 hour drive for us to get there, as well as my brother's family, so it seemed like a good mid-way place to meet and have lots of adventures at!

Craters of the Moon is an old volcanic area chock-full of:

volcanic rock and lava formations:

caves and lava tubes:
& volcanic ash and wildflowers:

Upon arriving on Day 1, we set up camp and had lunch before starting our adventures in the park.
We looked through the Visitor's Center and headed on our first activity--walking along the caves trail and visiting the Dewdrop Cave, Indian Tunnel, Boy Scout Cave, and Beauty Cave.The Indian Tunnel was my favorite, because it wasn't too difficult and we all walked/hiked through it: Seeing the caves was the perfect activity to do on the hot afternoon--their darkness and coolness and dampness felt so wonderful!

After the few hours of cave exploring, we headed back to camp and had dinner. Then we set out again to see the Cones. We hiked up the Inferno Cone (which is even taller than what can be seen here):

And then we saw the Snow Cone and the Spatter Cones:
After that, Josh took Ammon on an evening 3.5 mile walk along the North Crater Trail along with Jen, Tawna, and Aspen. That was Josh's favorite part of the cousins camping experience:And I took the younger 3 boys on the much-shorter .25 mile North Crater Flow Trail:
That night, the kids designed and colored their official "Cousins Camp" T-Shirts. And we all marvelled at the beauty of the moon and its orange-hues before heading to bed:
Day 2 started off with breakfast in the morning and the cousins all wearing their hand-made shirts. The front says 'Cousins Camp 2010' with outlines of all the kids' hands:
Everywhere we went that day, people commented about the kids' shirts and how adorable they were! The back of the shirt says 'Craters of the Moon' and everyone drew their own pictures:

We set out late that morning for a 2-mile hike along the Broken Top Trail. The Buffalo Caves were located a 1/2 mile into the hike, and Josh and Jen especially enjoyed spelunking those! The last leg of the long hike was downhill, and the panoramic view of miles and miles of lava rock was so beautiful:
Our last activity in the park was walking along the easy .5 mile Devils Orchard Nature Trail:
Then we headed back to camp, ate lunch, and packed up our camping gear. Before we said goodbye to the park (and each other), the kids showed us their special "fort" that they'd discovered and played in near the campsite:

I felt like our 'Cousins Camp' was a success. In just 24 hours, we saw all the major features at Craters of the Moon! And the kids had fun being with each other, camping together, and exploring the unique features of the park. I think we made lots of good memories, which was my whole goal for the experience. I think we might just do it again!

The Tolman Family:

The Perkins Family:

Aunt Tawna with the cousins:

Proof in the Paraphernalia

As I was moving things from the old house to the new house this summer, I came across a box I hadn't looked at in years.

Seeing the contents of the box took me back nearly 7 years in time.

It was full of old medical supplies. It was like looking at proof that I'd had twins. It was proof that they were sick babies. Proof that they were born premature.

The twins were born 9 weeks premature. They came home from the hospital on their due date, two months later. Those 9 weeks in two hospitals, in two states, with lots of challenges in between, were not good ones for me.

When we finally brought the babies home, we also brought a giant medical supply with us. They were on several different medicines that had to be administered every 3 hours, they both were on breathing & heart monitors, and Jonah was still on oxygen. When they were newborns, I felt like their nurse rather than their mother.

Seeing this box made all those past feelings inside me of fear, sadness, and around-the-clock care, arise. I spent a considerable amount of time just staring at the medical paraphernalia that I'd unloaded from the box, surrounding me on the floor. I thought about all that I went through back in 2003. I thought about how far I'd come since then. I thought about how healthy my twins are now.

Then I decided that holding onto those past feelings of hurt would do me no good. So, I took this picture, and threw almost everything away.

3 x 3

3 WORDS [Cousins + Fun + June] x 3 TIMES =

9 extended relatives that my boys liked playing with this summer!!!

They've spent hours and hours of enjoyment with...

the Perkins Girls

the Franson Kids

the Beesley Boys
{I think they're so blessed to have such great cousins to play with!!!}

Oh Beautiful for Spacious Space

Out with the Old, In with the New: Part 14

On Tuesday, June 8, the county building inspector came and looked over the house. There was three minor things that needed to be fixed, but he gave us a temporary occupancy permit until we had those items fixed. That night, after dinner and scheduled meetings and soccer games, we started moving in. We moved in just the beds and the washer and dryer that first day. It was awesome sleeping in our new house rather than the camping trailer that we'd been cooped up in for the previous 3 weeks! And I got to work right away washing dirty laundry that had been ignored for 3 weeks.

Last fall, we traded in our smaller camping trailer for a larger one. At the time, we had no idea we'd be living in it within 6 months of purchasing it. And still, even with having a larger trailer, I was thankful that we only had to spend 3 weeks living in it! During those 3 weeks, I had 2 severe anxiety attacks, I started having claustrophobia, and I spent a lot of time bawling. It rained so much during those 3 weeks, and Kanyon peed his bed and had potty accidents every day while we lived in the trailer. We didn't have laundry facilities, so I either took the wet/dirty/stinky laundry to my mother-in-law's, different friend's houses, or the laundromat. It was a pain! We also didn't have a shower, because it broke after the first day we were living in it. Every morning, I'd walk to the pavilion in my in-laws' backyard to take a shower. It wasn't a far walk, but I was always self-conscious because the pavilion is visible from the road, and I walked to it in my bathrobe carrying my clothes. Because we didn't know how long we would be living in the trailer, we used the toilet in the pavilion as well. We didn't have the capability to dump the RV sewer where we were parked, so we only used it in the trailer if it was an emergency. It was inconvenient and challenging and difficult to be without a washing machine, a flushing toilet, a shower, satellite TV, internet for most of the time, and phone for half the time during those 3 very LONG weeks.

(trailer is on the right, pavilion is on the left, separated by the ditch & bridge)

After living temporarily in a 200 sq. ft. trailer, the 2000 sq. ft. home felt like a mansion! I enjoyed having space again. Space to move around. Space to breathe. Space to just be. I loved being in the new space, and feel the spaciousness of it!!!

Living Room (Dining Room visible on the left)

Kitchen

Utility Room

Family Room

Master Bedroom

Master Bathroom (left half)

Master Bathroom (right half)

Ammon's Bedroom

Jonah & Micah's Bedroom

Kanyon's Bedroom

Boys' Bathroom

Of course, the only thing left to do with all that space was to fill it up!

...to be continued (p.s. only one more installment in this series is left!!!)

Crews in Control

Out with the Old, In with the New: Part 13

This is the most boring post in this series.

And during the entire transition from old house to new, it was also the most boring part to live through.

After the house was put together, different crews came to finish it. This period lasted 12 days (from May 28 - June 8), and crews came every day during that time to work on the home (except for the two weekends and Memorial Day). I say "Crews in Control", because we had no idea who was coming, or when they were coming, but they seemed to know and were in full control of the situation! We were told to stay out of the house when nobody was working on it (for insurance reasons). But when workers were there, we still stayed out of their way because I didn't want the work hindered at all. So we just watched on the sidelines as people came and went, improving our home without us seeing the progress.

Sometimes there was just one crew there: And sometimes there was six or more crews all at once:

There was the electrician:

The plumbers:

The TV/Internet/Cable connections hookup guy:

The drywall crew:
The painters:
The excavator:

The septic guy:

The overall fix-it man:

The construction crew:

The cement truck:

As well as the power company. The phone company. The cleaners. The state electrical inspector. The state plumbing inspector. And finally, the county building inspector.

Needless to say, I was happy when the "crews in control" period was over. Not just because that meant there would no longer be strangers in my new home all day, every day--but also (and most importantly) because that meant the home was finally ready to move into!!!

...to be continued