Well, here is why I guess I should be blogging. For my poor kids who never know what state I am in!
Grandma Sherlene and I thought it would be great to visit Lauren and make a little road trip out of it. On Wednesday October 20th, we got up at the crack butt of dawn, and started the trip by driving south on 389 through Colorado City. Always a treat to visit that obscure architecturally disheveled mess of a town!!! Not! We did have an assignment to pick up some squeaky cheese for Lacey and Larry. The dairy store was open at 7:00 am and already young polygamist mothers were there buying gallons of milk, for just the day I'm sure. I always feel so sad when I watch these women and children. ( I DID try to be discreet as I made my observations) :-)
The boys that accompany their mothers always seem so attentive to their task of carrying out the goods to the vans. They seem so wide eyed and innocent and so well behaved. Why is that sad? I guess my presumptions are sad. They seem to be unaware of such things as pity from the likes of us gentile women wearing jeans and open toe sandals. As we pulled out onto the highway, the sun was rising over the eastern jagged edge of the Arizona high desert flat mountains.
We passed through Fredonia and turned south down 89 towards Jacobs Lake. We stopped at a roadside lodge not far from the lake and took a bathroom break and rinsed our green drink cups. There were evergreens in this area. Such a contrast to what I ever pictured Arizona to be like.
We were tempted to drive down the road to the north rim of the Grand Canyon but it would have added at least an hour to the drive and we wanted to make it to Laceys in Camp Verde by noon.
We did stop at Lee's Ferry and took pictures of the bridge spanning the Colorado River.
As we walked toward the bridge we saw people taking pictures of something just over the rock wall in front of us. There were 4 big Condors warming themselves in the morning sun on the steep rock hill below the observation area and just under the edge of the bridge. They were magnificent to see stretching their 8 ft wing span as they fanned the feathers out to catch the suns rays.
We met a couple who were gypsy's in retirement and living out of their mobile home and traveling where the winds blow them. They were kinda leathery and plain in their life of no cares. The man flirted with Grandma Sherlene and said for a kiss he would let her look through his camera telephoto lens to see the Condors up closer, funny... she just scoffed at his wierd comment but ignored it anyway and looked through the camera. I was laughing quietly.
We drove through more desert before going back up in altitude again as we approached Flagstaff. Another site I wasn't prepared for from my imagination of what Arizona is. It was very green and looked almost like parts of Washington.
Just south of Flagstaff is Camp Verde where aunt Lacey and uncle Larry now live. We met them at the big Indian casino and had lunch there before going over to their home. It was of course darling because Lacey can only do darling. Lacey has been through a rough spot lately as they moved to Arizona. The move was hard on her and they felt like they might lose her. Her kidneys shut down and they put her on dialysis and then she had a stroke. It just sucks to see your adored aunts fall to these failings of the body.
We had a lovely visit and then left late in the afternoon to get to Laurens before too late.
It is only about an hour away but with late day traffic it took almost two hours!
When we drove up to house and barely got out of the car, Weston came bursting through the door and jumped into my arms and yelled "GRANDMA!!!, I missed you" Oh, my heart just about bubbled out of my chest!
Then the screen door opens again and Caleb came running out yelling "GRANDMA" and gave me hugs and squeezes!!! Just filled my cup full almost to the brim... until I went in to get a drink of little Iris.
We got to sleep on the futons in Iris' room while we were there and it was a double treat to have Iris snuggle in bed with us for awhile the next morning!
Lauren carted us around to enough places the first day or so to get us pretty mixed up with the "loops" of Arizona. But by the time we left, we felt a tiny bit confident to even go get gas by ourselves at Costco before leaving.
We got to go to the State Fair on Friday night and watched Caleb & Weston go on "scary" rides. The best was the haunted house ride and the look on Caleb's face looking at the ghouls and his expression as their cart exited through the doors at the end. NOT a happy face!
We thought the Fair food might be fun...
but in reality it's your usual scary fair food.
We ended up eating a barbecued turkey leg. Note: The lovely Lauren tearing away...
There was a food venue insert with the map they hand you as you enter the Fair grounds and it made the food offerings look almost exotic. Grandma and I giggled as we pictured showing this to Grandpa Julian to make him jealous, knowing that the food was really yucky but he'd think it was gooooooooood!
We got to go to soccer games on Saturday. Weston was pretty sweaty out there chasing that ball and assisting a few goal kicks.
Caleb's team was pre-occupied with team pictures so we didn't get to see him in action. :-(
Then Saturday afternoon we did the "relative" thing. You know you can't escape those obligatory cousin visits.... no matter how many 2nd, 3rd or 4th cousin positions away. ha ha ha.
But it was a good visit. We told Ernie and Lauren that my dad's cousin Nancy would probably be there with her lap top and get some genealogy info from them and sure enough she did. I even got grilled about John's family information.
So, my cousin Shauna Harrington, my dads 1st cousin Scott's, daughter, who is just a year under Lauren, mustered herself one of those incredible deals on a bank sale and bought a beautiful house last year. It was cute watching her proudly show it off and how welcoming she is to all who need a respite in her home. She has a 5 year old son, JD, that Weston and Caleb got to hang with. We made cinnamon rolls earlier in the day for Lauren to serve for Halloween so we brought them over to share with the Harringtons.
Yes, we made cinnamon rolls for the annual Halloween feast of Chili and cinnamon rolls. A tradition since I was a little girl. I hope that the grandkids have fond memories someday as I have of my childhood and having to force chili down in order to race outside to meet up with friends to trick or treat. Yah the olden days when your parents didn't have to go with you and the goal was to fill a pillow case full of candy before retiring for the night. Because back then, that was your candy stash for the year. My brother Bryan could make his last forever. I did NOT have that kind of self control and was done within a few weeks! Trivia question... what was my favorite Halloween candy?
Weston was my sous chef and cut all the cinnamon rolls with dental floss for me! Lauren asked him to please learn how to bake so she wouldn't have to. He was mighty proud and honored at this request and you could see the wheels turning for his future adventures in baking!!!We also thought we were a big help to Lauren by pitching in to help her turn her cactus pear juice into jelly.
She had patiently waited for us to visit so we could help her make this jelly. The sad thing was that we blew the second batch somehow. We thought we did the same exact method as the first batch the day earlier but even after the jars sealed, sadly it looked like cactus syrup. Lauren was really the super woman in the whole process. She went through heroics harvesting these prickly pears. She read up that there is a big warning to wear protective coverings as you pick the fruit with work gloves. She smartly chose to use tongs and still got wicked little glochids. Ok, so I have to include the wiki definition here...
Glochids are tiny, finely barbed hair-like spines found on the areoles of some cacti and other plants. Cactus glochids easily detach from the plant and become lodged in the skin, causing irritation upon contact
and then this was really a peachy description...
Glochids from prickly pears (Opuntia species) can cause an extremely pruritic, papular eruption called sabra dermatitis, which can easily be confused with scabies or fiberglass dermatitis.
THEN, she had to take each of these prickly beasts and burn the wretched little spines off by holding them with the tongs over a candle fire. When they were safer to handle she then quartered them and cooked them, mashed them with a potatoe masher and finally had to squeeze the life blood out of this smash through cheesecloth and actually produced 16 cups of this precious ruby red jeweled colored juice. We just breezed into town and cooked it up for a few minutes with some sugar and pectin and wholla.... sweet cactus jelly! Or syrup in the later batch.
We got to go to church bright and early at 8 on Sunday and hold sweet little Ahumada kids on our laps for a few tolerated minutes. And because this is MY blog... ha ha ha I get to make this smirky remark that always makes my daughters eyes roll. There were a few comments, even from the Relief Society counselor as we were introduced, that thought I was Laurens sister and Grandma was her mother.
After church we packed up and made a snack and left for the road trip home. The highlight home was our drive over the new bridge above the Hoover Dam. But the view was obstructed by its structure of solid concrete railings so we back tracked down the old highway road to the dam and crossed over and parked so we could walk out over and peer over the edge! All I could feel as I held my stomach tight was this was a bad place to bring and adventurous child!!! It was my first visit to the dam and the second one for my mom since she was a little girl.
My darn camera finally gave up the ghost so... no pictures.
And with that..... I remind you to be kind with your comments.
We both got to hold sleepy Iris while she napped :-)
Yes, I am in heaven
