Our May

Here is a look at our month of May 2020....looks a lot like April. 

Day trip to the woods

Tina's family was going camping for a few nights up near Payson and they invited us to drive up and spend the day with them. I like the idea of camping, but the reality of it is a little less appealing. Right now, most all campgrounds that have facilities (aka bathrooms) are closed too, so if you're tent camping, you are also peeing behind a tree or in a "bathroom tent" with a bucket like they had. Driving up for the day seemed like a great alternative to actually camping. We headed up this morning and met them at their campsite, which was just east of Payson in the same area we went on this day trip a few years ago. We actually hung out in this exact same spot at this same lake on that trip. Shortly after we arrived at their campsite, we headed over to the lake to do some fishing. It wasn't a good time of day to fish but it was still nice to sit by the water. It was a beautiful day!

Oldest and youngest doing some fishing. 

Tyler wasn't too interested in fishing, which is pretty typical. He's never been much of a fan, possibly because we've never really had much luck actually catching fish. It's hard to find the appeal when you don't even catch anything. 

If you look closely, you'll see Ava on the far left, then Josh, Matt and Dave. We had this whole area to ourselves for most of the time we were there. 

I looked back at the pictures of us from the previous visit to this lake and found this cute one of Ava. I'm not sure what she was sad about, but she was all smiles 6 years later. 

Dave was the first to catch a whopper...they were all about this size. 

One of my favorite pictures we've ever taken as a family was at this lake 6 years ago. It's crazy to think of how much kids can change in 6 years. Dave and I certainly haven't changed much, other than possibly being a few pounds lighter now thanks to all the changes we've made in that time. This was only about 4 months after I started flying.

Thanks for letting us join your camping adventure, Schomakers. I'm glad we didn't actually have to camp though. We enjoyed the day, and then slept in our beds. 

Tyler brought his One Wheel to try it out in the dirt. Josh and Matt both gave it a try around the campsite. It worked just fine, but this isn't the best place for someone to try it for the first time. Unstable ground with random rocks isn't the best place to learn. 

We had a big lunch after we got back from fishing and then hung out at the campsite and played some games, guitar, and relaxed. Just before dusk, the guys went back over to the lake to do some more fishing and Ava, Tina and I stayed behind. They caught a few more little fish, but not many. 

After they were done fishing and the sun was setting, it was time to head back down the mountain. We tried stopping at a restaurant near the campground, but the kitchen was already closed. None of us were too hungry though, so it was not a problem. We made it home around 10 pm after a fun day up north!

I have a few more pictures from the day, which you can find here. 

Memorial Day {Trapeze} Pool Party

We had a little party after trapeze today. We all brought food, George made his famous spaghetti, and then we hung out afterwards in the pool. I didn't take any photos except for this one, in which Rod is taking off his shorts. Little did we know at this moment, that his plan to was to belly flop into the "deep" end of the pool. I think it was probably the first time that's happened in this pool--and the closest thing you can get to diving into this shallow pool. 

Rod started something with his belly flop and George and Nadia followed. George's were by far the best!

Dave and the kids came after we got done flying and joined us for food and drinks. A few people went up and took swings while the others hung out under the net. It was a fun way to spend Memorial Day!

Random Saturday pics

Not much of a story here. Lacy is with us this weekend. I really love when she spends her weekends with us. She and Ava could seemingly spend days upon days together and never seem to fight or get sick of each other. They are so lucky to have each other! 

Garden update....still growing, but we aren't eating anything yet. It won't be long before the cherry tomatoes turn red. I'm sure Ava will eat them all up for us. Look at how those cucumber vines are traveling. 

We moved the blue chairs to the front yard this evening to watch the girls skateboard, and were treated to a pretty sunset too. Cheers to the weekend!

Payson hike

Kathy and her girls have been taking regular trips to Payson to go hiking, and joined them today. We left pretty early because the place we were going tends to fill up pretty quickly--hikes with waterfalls and swimming areas usually do. This was called Ellison Creek Cascades and it was just outside of Payson. It's a short hike to the water--only about 3/4 of a mile. The water and the skies were clear and it was in the 70s when we arrived. What a great place to spend a little time! There were only two other people there when we arrived, which made it even better. 

Hailey and her friend were the first to try to get into the cold water. 

Lacy did jump in (see the video here), but she got out immediately. Ava did not jump in after seeing how quickly Lacy scurried out of there. She did manage to wade over to this mermaid rock though. 

This place remained pretty quiet the entire time we were there, but when I say quiet, I'm only speaking in terms of the number of people there. Actually quiet, it was not. There was this couple that came in towards the end of our time there, and they had two little dogs. I had heard them barking from quite a ways away when I was exploring down the river a little ways, and sure enough, they brought their barky dogs over here and let them swim. The one dog was fine. It swam around in the water and kept quiet--the other one barked and barked and barked at the dog that was in the water, and of course, the owners did nothing to make him stop. They even let the dogs jump all over the only other 2 people that were there, and sitting right on the edge of the river. The dog even jumped on/over the one lady and scratched her legs! Still they did nothing. It totally ruined the last part of our visit. How do people not realize that their pet is being obnoxious? I will never understand. The left for awhile and were were very glad, but then they came back--so we left. 

Despite the annoying dog and it's careless owners, we had a nice morning and were back to town by about noon. It's always amazing to me to think that we can drive less then 90 minutes and be somewhere that looks like this. 

Josh's high school graduation

As with so many things right now, graduations all around the country were cancelled. These kids missed out on all of the traditional activities that go along with finishing out high school, the most notable being graduation. Schools had to try to find creative ways to recognize their grads without getting thousands of people together. For all of those thousands of people who would have otherwise been sitting in the heat waiting for hours to watch their loved one cross the stage, this new way of celebrating might have actually been more comfortable! Josh's high school did an online ceremony where each graduate had their name read while a photograph of them was shown on screen. I was at trapeze when it started at 7 pm, but turned it on when I remembered around 8:40 figuring I might have missed hearing Josh's name called. They were on the Js. Plenty of time! When you have over 900 graduates, it takes awhile to get through that list! Congratulations Joshua! We're all very proud of you and all of your amazing accomplishments. I'm sorry that your senior year ended the way it did, and that you're not likely to have the typical college freshman experience either. You have such a great attitude about it and seem to have taken it all in stride. I know you're going to do so well up at NAU next year! 

Here's a video--close your eyes and imagine him walking across the stage to accept his diploma. Congrats to the class of 2020! You're going to have some great stories to tell one day. 

Last day of school!

This isn't quite the last day of school that the kids would hope for, nor is it anything we would have ever predicted when we started this school year--or even when we left for Spring Break. The kids have now been doing online school for about 6 or 7 weeks, and had about 3 weeks off in March/April. They have both had to adjust to this new school routine which includes working by themselves at the computer, watching videos and doing assignments, occasional (rare) video check-ins with classmates and teachers, and sadly, very little interaction with their friends. It's not been ideal. I can't imagine how hard this must have been for teachers, or how much work they had to put in to converting their curriculum to an online environment in a very short period of time. I was a bit frustrated that there was not more "in-person" teaching of material, but I get the difficulty of this situation. I wish there would have been more actual teaching happening--it seemed as though it was mostly just a day filled with homework, with the kids learning the material on their own through readings, you tube links, or videos, and then doing the assignment. So much of what they learn is school includes the socialization and interaction with their peers, and that's just something that's tough to do in this environment. I know--I'm trying to figure out how to do it with our college students too. I know that the teachers all did their best given the crappy situation we've all been put in, and I can only hope that it's better in the fall--regardless of what the school year looks like.

The kids are mostly done with their work for the year, so just as if it were a "real" last day of school, they didn't have much to do today. I did manage to catch photos of them both in school on the last day. This is what the last 6 weeks of 5th and 8th grade looked like during the end of the 2020 school year. I hope this is the only time we have to learn like this.

And to keep with tradition, we had to take our annual "last day of school" picture. No uniforms required for this last day of school! Something tells me they're not smiling behind those masks. 

I'm so sorry that your school year ended like this, kids. I know it was not how any of us wanted these last few months to go. Tyler, I am especially sorry that you had to leave the school you've enjoyed so much without getting to say a proper good bye to your friends and teachers. I hate that you missed all of the end of the year parties and dances and celebrations. You left school for Spring Break on March 6 expecting to be coming back in a week, and our entire world changed. We've all had to sacrifice many things, and it's likely only the beginning. I hope we can all one day look back on this time in our life and remember all that went along with living through a global pandemic. What a crazy time to be alive. Here's hoping 9th and 6th grade start out a whole lot better than 8th and 5th ended. 

And in case you want a reminder of what they looked like on their first day of this school year, here it is. This seems like an awfully long time ago. A lot has happened since this day in August. Do you think I'll get Tyler to hold his sign on his first day of high school? 

This is summer

Summer 2020 looks a little different than most summers, but really, the kids still would have been spending quite a bit of time indoors and on their devices-it's sort of just the nature of summer break in the desert. They can't as easily just 'go outside and play' when it's over 100 degrees and we have no pool. The pandemic limits the places they can go, giving more justification for screen time. There are only so many puzzles, art projects, baking and crafts that you can do before you just want to play some Minecraft with your friends. Tyler jumps online most nights for a little while and plays different games with his buddies--it's really the only way he's kept in touch with friends this summer. Ava and Lacy get in on the fun sometimes too. These kids are very lucky to have access to so much technology--otherwise they'd be forced to do something crazy, like talk to each other in real life. Crazy!

A quick workout

I'm trying to keep up with the pull-ups, even though my April challenge is over. It's a little harder when I'm flying regularly, but I am going to do my best to do "the challenge" once a week. The other thing that makes this hard right now is that the garage is starting to heat up, and it's no fun doing this workout in the heat! I might have to either get up early and do it (although I've been enjoying my early morning bike rides), or even do it in the house using the pull up bar we keep on the door frame to the laundry room. 

I set up my camera in time lapse mode to catch the pull ups and push ups during this 30 minute workout. This was around 70 pull-ups and 148 push ups. Can you count them all?

If you look closely enough, you'll catch my little flex move at the end of the video--or I'll just share the screenshot for you. #thisisfortyone #strongisthenewpretty I'm not sure why I'm talking in hashtags. I have to share stuff like this now so that one day, when I'm looking back through the blog books on the shelf of my retirement home, I can remember that I could once do 70 pull ups in 30 minutes. 

Skater Girls

Ava and Lacy have a new interest--skateboarding! I'm not sure where this came from, You Tube videos more than likely, but I'm glad they've found a new activity that they can do together. They both picked out a skateboard they wanted to buy, as well as a sticker package that they planned to use to cover the bottom of their boards. 

Side note here--this is something the skateboards cannot do. Tyler's One Wheel can ride just fine over the rocks in our front yard. Pretty cool, huh?!

There was a lot of planning that went in to the making of their "Becoming a Skater Girl" in 24 hours video. You can watch the video below to see how that went. Tyler helped them out at the end when they were recording the final clips.

They were planning on adding stickers to their boards as part of the video, but Lacy's didn't arrive in time, and then I threw Ava's away accidentally. They were in an Amazon envelope with something else, and I threw the package away without checking inside first. Luckily, Amazon two day delivery to the rescue...Ava and Lacy both had their stickers soon enough to make another short video for their channel. Ava is really getting good at editing these videos, and the girls come up with some cute content! 

Ava and Lacy--Twin Telepathy

Ava and Lacy have lots of new ideas for videos for their channel this summer. I'm glad too because they definitely needs some things to keep them busy this summer. This video was fun! As a reminder, you can "like and subscribe" to their channel by finding it here. 

Garden growing

Our garden is progressing nicely! It made a big difference when we planted some plants that were already started. Waiting for them to grow from seeds took way too long! The tomato plant is growing like crazy, and the cucumbers from seeds took off as well. The pepper plants on the left side, as well as the basil were all started as plants. 

I definitely have a lot to learn about gardening, and I certainly don't have my grandma's green thumb, but we had to start somewhere! Dave has been the one that has done all of the work for this garden, so I really need to be sure to give him credit. I really only "planted the seed" about starting a garden, and he took it from there. We're not sure this is going to hold up much longer with the heat we're heading in to, but hopefully it won't get too fried. I'm looking forward to having more options to plant in the fall when the weather cools off--things we might actually eat. 

Dave added this trellis for the cucumbers to have somewhere to climb. Now that these have started growing, they've really taken off! Several people told us we planted too many cucumber seeds for this small space (3), and they were right! One would have been plenty. Live and learn, I guess!