Hogan Project

In 4th Grade (in UT), Cadence had to do a Native American home project.  She was given a list of types of Native American homes & she got to choose one to make herself.  Parents could not help at all with the project; it had to be all her.  She chose to make a hogan which I loved because I grew up around hogans as a child & knew so much about them.

My parents live near the Spanish Fork River, so we took a walk along the river bank & Cadence collected sticks for her hogan.  Using branch cutters, she cut them all to size herself & hot glued them together to form the hogan.

A hogan has six sides & is flat on the top.  I was amazed at how well she was able to do this with sticks.

When the sticks were in place, she made mud (from the backyard) & put it all over the hogan which is how the Native Americans still make hogans today.  Her hogan was GREAT.

I was very proud of her for doing it all herself & for being factual about what the hogan was made of.  She learned SO much from her research.  She did a great job.

Hero Day

During Drug Free week (in October) in UT, they did a series of "fun days" for school.  One of the kids' favorite days was 

HERO DAY.

On Hero Day the girls got to dress up like their favorite super hero.  They loved this!

Craiger wanted his picture taken.  What a cutie pie.

Cadence wanted to dress up like her favorite superhero:

BLACK WIDOW

She's really into the Avengers right now, though she's never seen the movie.  She loves the little Avengers cartoon they have on & she thinks Black Widow is SO COOL.  (I don't think she realizes Black Widow is more often a bad guy than a good guy.)

I was DONE making costumes for the year so she put this together all by herself using her own clothes, paper, leftover black felt, & sticks from the yard.  I thought it turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself.

Lorien made me cry when she came downstairs like this:

How absolutely adorable is that?  I'm her hero.  Made me cry.

Taya wanted her picture taken too just for being cute.

 

Playing In California

After driving for 5 hours in a jam packed van, we made it safe & sound to Southern CA where Trek's parents live.  We stayed 3 days there to break up the long trip for the kids.  

I'm happy to report that in those 3 days, U-Haul was able to make up for their mistakes & gave us the trailer we were earlier promised as well as a re-hook-up of the electric stuff so the trailer lights would work.  After getting that put on, finding a place for all our stuff was a breeze.  In fact, we unloaded part of Mom & Dad's garage into our U-Haul to take to Trek's brother Tuhk who just bought a house in Las Vegas.  We could stop by on our way to UT & take him all his furniture & boxes from Mom & Dad's house.  Double move!  Rock on!

We had fun there.  We got to go to a huge bounce house play place where the kids could run free & do whatever they wanted to.  They had a BLAST.

Bladen is proving to be quite the rock climber these days.  He can scale almost any rock wall put in front of him.  He loves it too.  He's going to be a rock climber like his daddy.

The girls had a blast with Grandma Kinsfather & Auntie Tarrish too.  There is always fun things to do at Oma & Opa's house.

After 3 days in CA we said our good-byes & headed out for UT.  We stopped in Vegas to see Tuhk's new house (which is beautiful) & so we could unload his boxes & furniture from CA.  Then we were off for our next adventure for 3 months in Spanish Fork, UT.

Nightmare Move

Wow.  Talk about being behind on my blog!  WOW.  I'm still blogging about September & it's January.  Yikes.  Plus I'm trying to move into our rental in VA knowing that we'll only be here for one or two months before we move into the house we are actually BUYING out here.

Anywho . . . 

This move from CA was seriously a nightmare. . . oh I'm sorry, an ADVENTURE.  ha ha ha

We were supposed to be getting a U-Haul trailer to pull behind the van since we were technically moving to UT (to my parent's home) for 3 months before we actually got to VA.  I had to pack whatever we needed to survive off of for those 3 months like clothes, some toys, & some necessities for Halloween & Christmas.  I also threw in my sewing & embroidery machine with my sewing supplies so I could work on Christmas presents & Halloween costumes while I was there.  Oh, & I HAD to have my fabulous memory foam bed topper because I just can't live without it.  (Okay so that was frivolous, but I'm pregnant & my back & legs go out. . . I needed to be comfortable right?  Excuses excuses.)

Well, U-Haul messed up & couldn't get us a trailer even after we reserved one weeks in advance.  Not only that, but they didn't hook up the electrical properly so even if they DID have a trailer for us it wouldn't have worked because they wired it all wrong.

Well, we had plenty of space when we were supposed to be getting that U-Haul.  But since we found out we couldn't have it THREE DAYS before we were scheduled to leave, we panicked.  We had to fit EVERYTHING into our van with 5 kids, 2 adults, & whatever spaces we could find between people, legs, seats, & ceiling.  I ended up having to go through my "three months of stuff" & cut it by more than a half.  It was depressing.  I could only take 1 weeks worth of clothes for each person, a couple toys to keep the kids occupied in the car, my sewing machine (but no supplies. . . I was sad leaving my embroidery machine behind), & my mattress topper.  (Yes, I'm spoiled.)

Trek did wonders with our mattress topper.  It's a king size topper that is 3 inches thick.  He folded it & then rolled it & wrapped it tight with a rope.  I was amazed at how small it got.  When we got to UT it unfolded & re-made itself into my heavenly wonderful mattress.

So, the movers came & packed us out for 2 days & left with all our stuff. . . sending it on it's merry way to VA where it would wait for 3 months until we got there.  These movers were our worst yet.  They refused to take anything out of drawers or cupboards so they literally made Trek & I take EVERYTHING OUT & put it on the floor.  THEN & ONLY THEN would they pack it.  We had to take everything off the walls & they made Trek take apart all the furniture.  (For those who are not military, when you move with the military, the movers are supposed to do EVERYTHING.  We've never had movers refuse to do any of it.  They're even supposed to put everything back together when they unload it for you.  It was the strangest situation ever.)  I was tired, sick (pregnant), & trying to balance the 5 kids who were obviously scared & worried when people were taking away all their stuff. It was hectic.  But they got done & left & we started packing up the van to move for good.  Everywhere we turned we were finding stuff the movers left. . . in closets, behind doors, it was a nightmare.  They left small furniture pieces that we had to give away in a rush because we couldn't fit it in the van. . . goodness!  They even forgot to pack Trek's guitar.  Somehow we had to fit that in the van too because it was too important to us to just give away.  It was super frustrating.  

But by some miracle, we got everything in the van.  (Talk about low riding tires)  It was time to move on.  Good-bye Monterey, CA.

Our first stop was Trek's parent's house in Santa Clarita, CA.

Taya & Oma's Birthday Breakfasts

While the family was in town we were able to celebrate both Taya's & Oma's birthdays with a FABULOUS POTTER FAMILY BIRTHDAY BREAKFAST.

Chocolate chip pancakes & ding dongs . . . Taya's favorite.

I still can't believe my baby girl is 5 years old.

Craiger REALLY likes ding dongs.

After the birthday breakfast, Taya got to unwrap her birthday presents from Opa & Oma.

She got a Brave figurine playset & a Brave Costume/Wig.

Yup, the costume fits her personality perfectly.  Sometimes I wonder why she isn't a fiery red head.  She's so funny.