The Queen and Her Castle: July 2009

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Family and Friends

Gray and Owen at Ft. McHenry. (story at bottom of this blog. I couldn't move this pic down there.)

When we are in Maryland, our friends are our family. Noah and Payton went to a friends last night and enjoyed a bbq/pool party with ice cream sundaes for dessert! How cool is that?!! Greg and I took off for a date night (watched Harry Potter). Greg was a good sport to join me even though he saw the movie with Gray, Owen and Hunter the first weekend it came out.
Tonight, we swap, and watch our neighbors children. (Thanks, Heather and family! Enjoy your night out! )

Noah and Aiden drying off. While the little boys were having fun with friends and mom, to the beach, the big boys were in NY.

Below is a picture of the three musketeers. Lucky Tyler caught the biggest fish from grandpa Gams' pond. I heard that the boys spent alot of time not only fishing, but biking around town on their own, playing tennis, basketball, baseball, swimming, playing video games, watching movies, riding the 4 wheeler, shopping, eating yummy treats from Beavers' shop, and visiting a fun animal farm! The days of summer!!! What joy!!!

Now that the big boys are back home... it's back to work - mowing the lawn and reading books! Nah- I have plans to do some fun things with my big boys as I did with my little ones. However, they start football season next week so every night they will be busy with FOOTBALL!
(We might not have time to go to the beach, but there are other day trips we can do. I'm thinking of Cunningham Falls and Fort McHenry / Inner Harbor Baltimore.)

I really don't want summer to end!!!

More of the Island

Payton lost his 6th tooth at the RV camp we stayed at. Really, he pulled it out and then went to rinse it and it fell down the drain! Luckily, the toothfairy still comes. However, she doesn't pay up. In our house she is stingy... she must have to dig deep into her pockets by the time she comes to our house because all the neighbor kids get like 5 dollars a tooth while our kids only get 1-2 dollars! How much does your toothfairy pay?

Above is the horseshoe crab. My stupid camera doesn't take good pictures... thats why Im waiting for some of Robyn's pics to add. The horseshoe crab is a descendent of spiders and scorpions. Can you see why? They use their claws or whatever you call them to push their food directly into their stomach. Oooo!

My camera is a descendent of the first ones ever invented! The picture below, of the boys in the pool, is seriously ridiculous! It's like the lens is looking through a funny mirror at the circus. Silly!

Above, Noah and Payton are checking out animal life of the marsh lands with their new binoculars!

They call this type of horse a pinto horse.

The Maryland state flower, Black-eyed Susan's, make a beautiful border of the sign and nice backdrop for the boys. It took us 3 and 1/2 hours to get here from our house, and that's with good traffic!

the fawn

We bumped into Becky Johnson and her family at the marsh lands of the island. They were crabbing.

Amazing to see how close they come to your car and to you! Since they block the road and cause a traffic jam, we decided to get a closer look! We were in their way of grazing so didn't stay out of the car for long.

Assateague Island

Okay, this picture of Robyn is not her on a horse at Assateague Island, cuz your not even aloud to touch those wild horses. I just don't have a picture of her or her kids. Its all in video form. The one I have is not the best shot, so I'll wait for her to send me some copies. She kept telling me, "Don't take my picture!". Great! I'm such a good listener, now I have nothing to show off!

Anyway, here's me with the horses!

Noah and Payton are in all these photos because Gray and Owen went up to New York to spend a week with g & g Gams. (They even took their best friend, Tyler!)

Okay, I know your tired of catching up with me. We have done alot this summer and I'm only into mid July. So, I was sad to say buy to Robyn early Sunday. Responsible me went to church while she and her crew went to the beach to spend time at the Atlantic ocean, Ocean City, Maryland. Well, Monday, I caught up with her at Assagteague Island and I must say it was a good choice. Ocean City is so commercialized and crowded that I truely enjoyed being at Assagteague Island. I caught up with Robyn, even better! So, we spent Monday at the beach there! We spent the night in our car, Robyn and her three had a tent. It was expensive just doing that! We saw many horses on the island, a fawn, and horseshoe crab. WE all had fun!!! We said our final farewells there- Tuesday a.m., July 21st. Again, I'll have to add some pictures from her camera once she sends them to me. I have video of us but that's always a pain to download.

DC

So we get back July 8. The boys goof around town with friends while I get caught up with life here. Then, July 15th we get company! Robyn, with her 2 kids (Vanessa and Hunter) and best friend- Colten, have driven all the way from Az. to visit us!!! Well, they had other family and scenic stops along the way.

We spent two days in DC. The first day we both drove into DC. We went to a couple of Smithsonians like the Air and Space. July 16th just happens to be the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 launching to the moon. The first day in DC, I left Robyn in DC because my boys were tired and (they had football camp to get to). Robyn stayed with her three until late, walking for miles to see all the major memorials and sites of DC. There is so much they couldn't get into see everything.

We learned that if you want to get up to the top of the Washington Monument, go see money printed in the Printing and Engraving building or see Ford's theatre where Lincoln got shot you have to be in line at 7 a.m. to get tickets. The tickets are free but you have to be there early. The daily tickets are all given out by 10 a.m. Since we moved to Maryland two years ago, we haven't been to DC to tour. I'm not much of a tour guide. Cheerful, resourceful Robyn learned with me how to tour DC.

Again I dont' have many great pics. I'm going to wait for Robyn to send me more.

Day two of DC we took the metro to places like the Arlington National Cemetery. Payton was with me while I took pics. I have some video but never have good luck with downloading it. Oh, this is the place where Noah got lost. He was tired of walking. He got even more cranky after Gray fought with him so he refused to continue past the Kennedy's Eternal Flame. Even after trying to console him for 10 minutes, his stubborn self wouldn't follow the rest of us. So, I let him sit on a bench while we went up to the tomb of the unknown soldier. Oops, well, it rained. He walked away from the bench. We all got nervous looking for him, especially Gray, Tyler and Owen. Luckily, Noah was smart enough to walk down to the visitor center and find a guard to wait with until we found him there. Man, that was scarey!

From Day One: Patyon posing by some colorful mineral rocks in the Smithsonian of Natural History.

Back in AZ - some birthdays

Payton's birthday was back in June, just before school ended. I almost forgot to post it because the pictures are hidden amongst many others.

Payton is 7. I can't believe my baby is 7. tears... cry....

Look at this cheerful, toothless cutey! Happy Birthday Payton!

After 3 weeks gone in Az, I came back to a very fruitful garden! It has grown even more than this believe it or not. I've had to put more support beams up because the tomatoe branches were all over the ground. Luckily, its been rather dry for Maryland and all tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers and peppers are fine! Now my problem is with some darn animals. I'm not sure if its deer or skunk or ???

We flew out just before Daniella had her birthday. Happy 5th pretty girl. We miss you!

Canyon Lake

Knee boarding was tough, but Gray got up on the first try! He did super! (I also got up and stayed on for awhile, unfortunately noone took my pic!)

This is Kelsey, my sister Meloney's husband. They have a speed boat. Canyon Lake was alot of fun thanks to them.

Boys on the Sea Doo, having a blast!

Montazuma's Well, Near Jerome, AZ

Below: Most of the kids put their feet in the water of the ancient canal. (Owen went back to the car with Greg, so you don't see him in this pic.) Above: Daniella is sitting with her dad on the other end of the canal. The park ranger taught us alot about this historic place.

Katie with her daddy. To the right of Niel, you will notice the native dwelling which sits in the rock above the well- a natural spring fills the well but there is alot of CO2 so the water is green. There is a stream that flows from the well/ pond underground a couple hundred feet. The native tribes many years ago, built a canal (pic. above) to direct that stream of water to their crops.

Our little gang. Aren't we cute! Al is taking the picture. (thanks bro.)

Mt. Humphrey's Peak - Flagstaff

I wish it was this sunny the day we hiked Mt. Humphrey's. This spectacular picture is from the internet, I just googled it. (Now, if I could only get a camera that would take pictures like this!)

The only picture we took was with Isaac at the beginning of the hike. I guess we got busy with helping the children along the stormy trail that we forgot to take more pictures. We never reached the summit because of the lightning, hail storm. Nevertheless, it was a hike to remember! I'm sure we will make it to the summit next time!

So, the Grand Canyon and Mt. Humphrey's Peak was a two day, one night trip. On the way home we stopped at Montazuma's Well. The pics in the next posting are of that. We also stopped at Beaver Creek too cool off but didn't get pics of that.