Goodbye Grandpa

Last Friday my Grandpa Black passed away. I had been expecting the news. Still though, when I got the phone call and heard the words it felt like a punch to the stomach. Luckily I was able to go visit him 2 weeks ago. I heard he had been admitted to the hospital and things were not looking good. I felt very strongly that if I wanted to see him one more time in this life, NOW was the time. So even though we were leaving for a family wedding in a couple of days, I packed up, took J.J., and the two of us left for Utah that very same day. We had some adventures along the way that I'll blog about another time but we made it to Utah in one piece and were able to spend a couple of hours with Grandpa and some other family members. It was a great visit and I'm SO glad we were able to make it!

Here's me, J.J., and my Grandpa:

Grandma Susan was ordering Grandpa's dinner so we had to take another picture with her in it! I love her so much. I've been thinking about her a lot this last week, the two of them were always together. They were such a great team and supported each other so well. I love this article about them.

Today is my Grandpa's funeral and I was not able to attend. I had decided early on that if I could make a trip to Utah I'd rather make it to visit him, not to attend his funeral. And I later heard that he had made the comment, "I'd rather be seen, not viewed." That makes me feel better about the fact I'm not there today! I'm posting his Obituary just for my own references.

This last week I've been looking at a lot of pictures of my Grandpa, and reading this awesome book that he and Grandma Susan wrote together a couple years ago about his life. I'm so grateful they thought to do that! My kids, especially J.J., have LOVED looking through it and learning all about him.

I thought I'd just post some pictures I found too.

1980

1998

2008

2010

I love you Grandpa! Thank you for your awesome example to me and I will see you again someday!

Camping!

Sometime in May we went camping. It was fun. I really need to be better about blogging because 2 months after the fact, the details of the trip become very hazy. Luckily I took a lot of pictures and can recap the trip based on those! We didn't really have a particular site we were going to, which really made me nervous. I am a planner by nature and like to have things mapped out beforehand. I don't do "spontaneous" things. I don't like surprises. I don't like figuring things out as I go along. I like lists. I like maps. I like plans, backup plans, and backup backup plans. So...I tried to do my research as best as I could but the fact of the matter was that free camping is a first come, first serve situation and needless to say, I was stressed out about getting a good spot!

So we left on Friday evening after the boys got out of school and drove up just past Payson. We picked up a pizza in town for dinner because we were going to get there just before it got dark, too late to try to cook up some grub and set up camp! And just as I feared...we drove and drove and drove trying to find a decent unoccupied spot. We finally found an open spot at dusk and quickly set up our tent, unloaded what we needed for the night, and went to sleep. We were WAY too close to the "Rim" (Mogollon Rim for those familiar with Arizona) for my comfort level. I have 3 very curious boys who are...let's just say...NOT the best at listening to their mom. I was afraid one of them was just going to fall right off this massive cliff drop and die. The drop was literally 30 feet from our camping spot. So in the morning, we debated what to do. Should we move? Stay? We decided to eat some breakfast and think about it. First things first, we needed to start a fire. What's camping without a camp fire right? We put the boys to work finding some wood.

Then we poured some lighter fluid on it and lit it up. J.J. was in heaven!

Trey...not so much. He HATED the smoke and demanded that he sit in the van until the "fire was over". He looked pretty cute though. Don't you agree?

That is, until he set the car alarm off. Did I mention it was only 6:30 in the morning at this point? I'm sure our camping neighbors LOVED us. However, I did not feel very bad about it. Because said neighbors had themselves a grand old time drinking and loudly partying until 3:30 A.M. Let's just say I had myself a little bit of passive aggressive enjoyment at my son setting the alarm off and imagining their hangover headaches pounding at the sound of it.

Samuel was just being plain adorable. And I was being plain scary with no makeup.

After breakfast we went for a SUPER long walk around our camp area looking for a better spot. It was a longer walk than we thought it was going to be. See Samuel's face? This is how we all felt:

But the walk was worth it because we found a better spot. Still a bit close but not as close to the Rim. The kids and I stayed there and Josh ran back to go get some stuff to stake our claim on the spot. J.J. was not happy about it. He liked our old spot.

Don't worry, he got in big trouble for sticking his tongue out at me. He's actually sitting on that stump in timeout.

The other two kids were happy about moving.

Samuel was so happy he hugged every tree in our new spot.

Right after Josh got back, a fellow camper saw us and gave us a tip, to check out a better campsite down the road and across the highway. So we decided to have Josh drive over, check it out, and come back for us if he saw it looked good. By this time I was thinking how ridiculous it was that we were essentially spending our entire day trying to find a better camp spot but also thinking it was kind of funny and would make for a good story later. So Josh took Samuel (who by this time desperately needed a nap) and J.J. (who was insanely grumpy) for the car ride to go check it out, and left me and Trey to wait. And we waited...and waited...and waited.

Trey started to get worried they were never coming back! In the end it was all worth it though. Josh found the BEST camping spot EVER!

It had this huge open field next to it, plenty of shade, and no campers next to us. PERFECT. My sister and her hubby joined us (and brought a portable potty seat, HALLELUJAH!) and from then on, we had a perfect camp trip!

We played some baseball in the field:

Samuel got some loves from his Aunt Nikki:

We had a little rough patch when Trey realized there was no TV when we were camping...

He still wasn't over it when we tried to take a family picture.

The next day on the way out of town we stopped to check out Christopher Creek for a few minutes. The boys loved it and now they want to go fishing. I'm gonna have to leave that up to Josh. I hate fish.

But all in all, we had a great trip! I didn't sleep very well because I'm the lightest sleeper on the face of the planet, and camping with kids = no staying up late to play fun games...but the kids did better than I expected! And unlike this camping trip, there was NO putting flashlights in the fire, sticking hands in the fire, or picking up hot coals. So that was nice.

I kind of forgot about taking pictures the rest of the time. My sis did a great recap, complete with video, on her blog. Check it out here!

All about Trey!

I don't know where to start to catch up so I'll start where I left off. Trey turned 6 years old! I can't believe it. It seems like just yesterday he looked like this:

Now he's huge! For some reason I can't find any pictures of his cake. Oh well, I'm sure it wasn't anything special because a cake decorator I most certainly AM NOT. J.J. was very excited to get him this shirt though:

He also scored a Lego set (which Josh and I spent over an hour putting together...) some Bakugans, and other stuff I can't remember now but I'm sure I have stepped on and put away 1,000 times by now. :)

A few days later he had a singing program at school. For weeks beforehand I heard him singing the songs at home non-stop. The day of the program arrives...and he stood up there and didn't sing the ENTIRE time! My little charismatic boy sat there like a statue and I have it all on film. But he sure was cute!

Honestly it's the ADHD medication. It calms him down so he is manageable at school...but also makes him very nervous/anxious and he loses some of his "stage presence" if you will. Here's a cute shot of him and his teacher from this year. They had some ups and downs but they survived. I think they learned a lot from each other this year and he has since told me he misses her. Aw...

After the program that day we got out earlier than normal and were able to spontaneously join J.J. at his school for lunch! We hadn't been able to do that all year because the exact time I had to pick up Trey from school was the exact of J.J.'s lunch so it never worked out. So we surprised J.J., which was also good because this will be Trey's school next year and he was able to see what eating lunch at school will be like. J.J. got to pick some friends to eat with.

I love this next picture because even though J.J. was surrounded by his friends, he still was happy to see Trey and wasn't too embarrassed to hang out with him. They really are best friends. Sheesh, I'm almost getting teary eyed even looking at this picture right now!

Anyway, I had a lot of fun volunteering in Trey's class this past year when I could fit it in between work, etc. He struggled a lot in the beginning of the year but I think really surprised everyone in the end! (not me though, I knew he was a little smarty pants and just needed to adjust!) I love my Trey.