Our Secret Spot

We discovered a "secret spot" when I took my Dad out on the ranger while he was visiting. It is a dry wash where the side walls come up over the ranger and you drive in between the "canyon" walls. So I took Tad and the kids back there the other day and they had the most fun ever. They call it their secret spot, although judging by all the tracks it's really not that much of a secret. But when we were there we were all alone and it was a lot of fun. At the end of the wash, there is a perfect area to just ride the hills and criss-cross this way and that. It was really a lot of fun and I'm sure we'll be spending a lot of time out there, especially when it starts to warm up.

This is near the start of the "canyon". There are also several smaller washes that intertwine the main wash. Some of them turned out to be dead ends, which made for a tight turn around in the ranger, and some of them had areas that were pretty tight squeezes to get into.







Climbing up over one of the walls...


It's hard to tell here, but there are two washes, one on each side of where we are sitting...










This was at the end of the wash- a great big open area with tons of tracks. We didn't get to explore too much because it was already getting late when we got there, but we will go back for sure. Way too much fun.



Just because I thought these were cute...

Pinewood Derby

OK, I am all caught up on the blog (for now). Today was Derek's first year participating in the pinewood derby. Grandpa Martin helped him shape the race car up and put the wheels on and Derek decided to paint it to look like "Bumble Bee" the transformer. It was nice and shiny and then Paige tried to clean it with a wet towel this morning and smeared the paint and we didn't have a chance to fix it. His car won first place about 3 or 4 times and 2nd place a few times and he got 3rd overall for the Wolf den, so he gets to continue on to the district races.








Grandpa John took us all out for McDonald's after the race and we had a picnic at the park.

Happy 3rd Birthday Darci

Holy Cow, it's hard to believe this little girl is 3 years old!! I remember we moved to Albuquerque when she was 3 weeks old and that seems so long ago... It's also really weird that my baby is 3 years old and there's not another one crawling around or on the way... I guess that makes her seem younger to me than she really is. Darci is so stinkin' cute! She is finally (95%) potty trained during the day and only has occasional accidents. The other kids were 3 when I put them in underwear at night, but I am going to wait another month or two until it warms up and she's not wearing those big zip-up pajamas to bed. Darci is very stubborn too. If you give her something sweet to eat like a candy or even a cough drop, she will demand another and keep demanding one until you finally give in. It's not easy to change her mind or distract her when she wants something. And she's not quiet about it.... At night she wakes up at about 11pm with night terrors and about the only way to get her to wake up enough to go back to sleep is to bribe her with something sweet like chocolate chips or a marshmallow or a cough drop! She might be the first of the kids to get a cavity.... But otherwise, she is so sweet and lovable and loves to give hugs and kisses and say I love you and I miss you. She's talking great and is already starting to ask pretty complex questions and her memory is great. She finally accepted the fact that she was turning 3 and not 5 like she wanted. She is a mini-me of Paige 100%. Anytime Paige says anything, Darci will say it to. She always wants to play with whatever her big sister is playing with.

I had fun with her 3-yr old pictures...

Legos and Trains

We have built MANY lego sets at our house over the last few weeks. I feel like our house has been taken over by legos...











The boys were so excited to help Grandpa clean out his garage and pack away his trains and earn a few dollars in the process.

Ranger fun

Getting closer to having the blog up to date..... About 2 weeks ago we took the ranger out behind Daley Estates up to Dead Man's Canyon, or something like that. It was a rocky rough rode with a pretty good drop on one side that dead-ended at a little creek. We enjoyed a little picnic with the cows that were up there and then headed back down the rough rocky road. Paige and Darci entertained us by singing almost the entire way. I will put that video up once I get them edited. First I need to get a computer that has sound on it again....






















On another trip we found a fun open desert area to cruise around in.. The kids love to look for used bullets wherever we go and throw them in the back of the ranger. In fact Darci gets mad if she sees some on the ground and we don't stop to let her get them.