February 22, 2009

Natalyn loves to go on walks with Lexie and show her the flowers.

There are some really pretty purple flowers in bloom here.

Natalyn took this photo, I thought it was great work for a 2 days shy of 5 year old.

David and Dallin looking at a lizard.

The lizard David and Dallin were watching.

What a cute little cub! J-cub!

Quartzsite has some very interesting shops.

A nice vendor gave each of the kids a Hot Wheels car.

We stopped to see the Hi Jolly Monument.

Jacob loves the pattern blocks, we only give him the big ones because he is still at the age he can't tell a pattern block from a cheese burger.

If you chance to meet a frown do not let it stay ...

Quickly turn it upside down and smile that frown away!

Work

I am getting really excited about progress on the Spelling Castle game. This week I got through a lot of code I had been putting off. The game is taking really great shape. It will not be the fanciest game ever made by far, but the game is turning out better than my original target. Saturday, I had a flash of excitement remembering my excitement last year when I started the venture and realizing that even though I have blown the schedule and the budget for the project, I may actually come out with a marketable product that could overcome the schedule and fiscal over-runs. Maybe not, but I do know that I am going to be very happy with my work and in some ways that makes everything worth it on its own.

I have been beating myself up a lot over the last 6 months over how slow I have been with the development. I know it is a waste of energy, but my mind does the attacks anyway. I have been working a lot lately to reframe my thinking into the present and looking forward, but not too far forward. If I look too far back I get discouraged, if I look to far ahead I get discouraged, but keeping my overall target in mind and taking the steps in front of me one at a time I am finding work very enjoyable.

I feel a lot of pressure to be successful in my venture, if for no other reason than I am spoiled right now in terms of my work environment. The thought of going back to a work environment that doesn't offer three meals a day with the family and a window office in any part of the continent I choose, doesn't hold much appeal for me. With that said, if I need go back to cube jail to put meals on the table, I will; I just hope I don't have to. The other side of the coin is. it really is a lot more fun to gripe about a manager for his screw-ups when he doesn't look back at you in the mirror, and of course having income in the budget as well as expenses is always an alluring idea.

Half Baked Conspiracy Theory

I mentioned when I wrote 25 things about myself earlier that I entertain, but do not develop or pursue conspiracy theories. This week I have decided to share one of my raw and undeveloped theories. Calling it a theory is probably an abuse of the word. Let's rather call it a collection of ideas that might be facts. I am not very bright with respect to the way the world works so this is extremely simple. Even though it is simple, it gives a bit for the mind to chew on, well, at least my mind. OK, here are my collection of "facts." 1) The war in Iraq has cost about 735 Billion dollars to date. 2) The US has about 1 trillion (1000 billion) dollars in public debt. 3) China holds 2 trillion dollars in foreign treasury bonds 4) China is the largest foreign holder of US bonds.

Am I putting the dots together incorrectly if I conclude that the invasion of Iraq was funded by China? Could be, that's what makes it a half-baked theory. I am not sure I even have my facts correct. With that said, if I were playing a game of, "Let's see if I can dominate the world" and one player wanted to borrow money from me to attack another player, from a strategic point of view I would be pretty quick to loan the money, because I would be gaining power on two players at once. The kind of point in the game that I realize I am starting to win because everyone else on the board is starting to lose their grip on the game. If I could devalue my currency to tip a trade balance in my favor while I was at it, all the better. I am not saying anything negative about China. I am just throwing out that China and Iraq may have a connection I hadn't previously considered. Sometimes I wish I hadn't ever read, "Animal Farm" or "1984." On the other hand, I find a lot of in-sight in the books.

As far as my assertion that there are people lusting to dominate the world, I feel pretty comfortable with the knowledge I gain in the history classes, I slept through during my school years, that there have been such people in the world before. I don't think I am making a really large jump in guessing we may have one or two of those type of people crawling about on our little rock now.

OK, that's about the end of my energy for conspiracy theory. I may throw out some ideas about North Korea in the future. Well, one right now... Something I hadn't put together until much after I had lived in South Korea and done some reading about the Korean War, was that the Korean War had as much or more to do with a war between the US and China than it did to do with a war between North and South Korea. Again, working on partial facts with a likely misunderstanding about the facts I am stating, but trying to put another puzzle piece on the table to see if any of the colors and shapes match well with any of the others. In the end, I am not sure how much it matters. I have trouble knowing what I would do with a pieced together puzzle, I just find it interesting to look at every now and then.

 

 

February 15, 2009

Family Fishing Day

Out for a nice day fishing.

This Saturday in Parker Arizona, (about 35 miles north of our Quartzsite campsite) the Arizona BLM and Fish and Game put on a "take a kid fishing" day. I had never been to anything like it. The day was fantastic. The organizers provided rods, reels, bait and hooks for all of the kids. They stalked two ponds with somewhere between 2000 and 3500 fish; I heard both numbers. They provided free hot dogs and soda pops and held a drawing at the end to give away several fishing poles, tents and camp chairs. The weather was about as good as I have ever experienced. I didn't see a thermometer, but I would guess we were in the high 60's or low 70's. It was very comfortable to be out in a T-Shirt, at least for someone who has lived in Idaho as long as I have. I joked to Lexie that we should have brought coats so we would look like the locals.

Something that was challenging about the event was that it was so popular that people were basically shoulder to shoulder at the fish ponds. That, on it's own, is an issue, compile that with the fact many of the people were 5-10 years old and casting a fishing pole for the first time and you'll get an image of some of the types of problems that might arise. I didn't see it, but I heard that a kid did get hooked in the face. One of Ty's scout buddies hooked his mom in the arm, and Natalyn had firmly hooked Dallin's clothes before the event was over. Something the organizers did that I thought was very smart was they gave out very small hooks. This did minimize what could have been much more severe problems. I was very impressed that almost as soon as the kids lost a hook in a tangle an event person offered them a new hook. They didn't even need to walk back to the main table to be up and fishing again.

In general, I am not a very patient fisherman. Yesterday was pretty much the general. With that said, I do like being outdoors and I do like being near water. I just get frustrated quickly when it comes to dealing with fishing line. After David and Dallin had their lines in and out of the water a couple of times, I realized how logistically tricky things were going to be, I was ready to give up on fishing and go catch a hot dog. Lexie was helping Ty and Natalyn with their rigging. Almost as soon as Natalyn got her line in the water she had a fish hooked. Lexie helped her reel it in. It was fun to watch Natalyn bring the fish in. She was very excited and looked a bit scared of the fish. Natalyn's catch got my interest back into the fishing for a while. I rigged a line for David and got a couple of bites, but wasn't successful in bringing in a fish. Tyrell caught a fish early on. Killing Natalyn's fish had been a bit clumsy. My usual method to kill caught fish is to use a rock. In as much as this event was held on the edge of a park, there weren't any rocks handy. I also hadn't thought ahead to bring pliers for getting the hook out. Having managed mostly dealing with Natalyn's fish and still not knowing how I was going to clean it (I was also short a knife), upon seeing Tyrell having the fish hooked, I know my decision to let Tyrell bring the fish in on his own was biased by my thought that if he did lose the fish, I wouldn't have to clean it. As it was, he didn't lose the fish and I found yet one more reason to be delighted with the event. Just behind where we were fishing there was a booth setup where you could take the fish you caught to be cleaned and bagged for you.

Since Dan and I (Lexie here now) have very different opinions of fishing, it seems appropriate to put in my version of the day. It was one of the very best days I have had since coming to Quartzsite. I love fishing, and have since I was a little girl. I remember fishing as a family in Swan Valley and again as we were camping for three days somewhere that has remained a mystery to me, but seemed to be in the middle of nowhere and the best place in the world to camp. I don't remember if I caught anything on those trips, but I had a ball. I love the feel of casting the line and reeling it in. I love watching the water, seeing it ripple, and watching the sun reflect off it. I did a lot of fishing during college, but since marrying Dan can count on one hand the number of times we have been out. I'm not blaming him for this. He does an amazing amount to please me and help me do what I want to do. There are just other things that we have in common that so we do those things more often. Another reason we haven't been so much is that I really don't like deep-sea or shore fishing in the ocean. After fishing several times in Alaska, I just didn't get back into fishing after moving back home. Anyway, I had a great time Saturday and I am looking forward to taking advantage of living next to the lake in Oregon all summer.

Natalyn Catches a Fish!

After Natalyn and Ty's catches, the fishing slowed down quite a bit. Even though the fish stopped biting, I enjoyed helping the kids get their lines in the water. I enjoyed the enthusiasm the kids had for fishing. At the end of the fishing event they had a drawing using the numbers the kids were given when they registered. With about 500 people participating they gave out somewhere around 50 prizes. We felt fortunate to win two. Both Natalyn and David were drawn to win new fishing poles. David was funny in that he was fast asleep when his number was called. Lexie carried him up to the stage and came back with him without him having any knowledge of what was happening. When the event was over and we were walking away from it, he was finally awake. The look of surprise in his eyes when we told him he won a fishing pole was great. I am sure that it wonderful when life works out that way, take a nap and wake up with a new toy. Lexie and I are both very softened to the idea of getting Oregon fishing licenses this summer based on our positive experience yesterday and owning two new fishing poles.

Didn't everyone make blue bat cookies for Valentine's Day?

Natalyn and David showing off Their Hat Stack

Ty Reading, Jacob Napping

Dallin Reading

 

Get to know the Kids a Little bit Better

I had a good time visiting with a couple of the kids this evening while Dan found pictures for this week's blog. I asked David what his favorite thing was. He got out a book and said, "Read to me." It doesn't surprise me that reading is one of his favorite things. He will listen to anyone that will read to him, or he'll just look at books himself. Nursery leaders have been surprised at how much he wants to just listen to stories instead of playing with the toys that are very abundant.

Tyrell was mentioning how he likes to put himself in the past and think about what life was like a long time ago and pretend he is there. He mentioned pretending he was a Native American hunting with a bow and arrow and a farmer back in the Roman times. When I asked him which section in science he wanted to study next he said he wanted to learn about astronomy. He mentioned wanting to know more about anthropology as well. He didn't know at first what it was called, but that is what he described to me. He really keeps me on my toes in respect to any movie that we have seen. He will randomly ask a question about a movie, or quote a line from it, even if it was three years ago that we saw it! I find myself asking a lot, "What is that from?"

Dallin is interested in chemistry. He has been having fun with our, "Icky Sticky Slime Lab" book and wants to continue doing more experiments from it. This doesn't surprise me at all. He's often wanting to make new recipes also. If I remember correctly, the first recipe he did was back when he was two (with Tyrell as his assistant) was the underwear soup experiment! His latest recipe was a lot like mountain of eggs (also known as German pancakes or Dutch babies), but with more sugar in it and very different ratios. He called it cake and we had it for breakfast one morning. We all decided that the first couple of bites were edible if you were really hungry, but it was too heavy to eat as a meal.

Natalyn's new favorite game is to dress up in a jacket, hat, and backpack and pretend she is going to school. She has been very service oriented and loves going to the church on, "service day." She was able to help glue pictures on card stalk to make picture books. We cut out puppets together, and our next project is to cut out hats. I don't have my sewing machine with me, so we bring home the fabric and cut them out during the week, then someone else sews them up. Natalyn is very persistent in making sure I don't delay on our part. She is so bright and happy helping me pin the pattern on the material. Her favorite service to give to Jacob is cleaning the lint from between his toes. I don't particularly like her doing this, because I worry that she pulls his toes too far apart, but she glows and says, "I'm doing service!" I did see her cleaning between David's toes yesterday. It makes me laugh because I won't touch anyone's feet! (Okay, I do kiss Jacob's, but that's all).

February 8, 2009

Jacob says Hi!

Natalyn and David having fun recording themselves.

Tyrell reading to his brothers and sister.

If Family Home Evening Were a Sport ...

For readers of my blog, not aquatinted with the Mormon church, I'll explain the context of this clip a little. In the church, members are instructed to reserve Monday night as a special night for the family, which includes a lesson on a spiritual topic, a family activity and often a treat. In practice, although simple instruction, it can be difficult to get Family Home Evenings to work quite as well as they do in the church videos, or appear they might from the church curriculum. Most of the time we have a great experience as a family in the time we share in Family Home Evening. Ever since the kids could tell a Monday from a Tuesday they have all be consistently excited for Mondays, because a Monday meant we would have Family Home Evening.

The following link is a little audio satire I did about how Family Home Evening feels sometimes, which I think turned out pretty cute.

If Family Home Evening Were a Sport.

Maricopa

During our travel, Jacob has fallen a bit behind in his immunizations. After some calling around, we found that Yuma was the closest place to get immunizations at a reasonable price. However, in Yuma, proof of residency is required. Blythe was out of immunizations. The Quartzsite clinic doesn't see patients under the age of ten years old. It didn't take too long to think about Jennifer and wonder how she and Wade immunize their children. We decided to take a trip to Maricopa to catch Jacob up on his immunizations and buy cheddar cheese (it's not available here either).I think I mention it in the blog every time after we move camp after being in place for a long time, but it seems to surprise me a new each time how quickly we can pack up and move everything. The joy of pulling into a random campsite or parking lot and announcing "Kids, we're home!" hasn't lost much luster in a year on the road.

In as much as our visit was during the work week, I spent my Maricopa time in the trailer working while Lexie made day trips to run in- town errands and visit with her sister. I really enjoyed the silence of sending the kids and cell phone with Lexie. I was able to get through a bunch of bugs that have been eluding me for the last several weeks. Lexie really enjoyed the time she got with her sister and the kids really enjoyed being able to play with their cousins.

We are going back to Maricopa in a few weeks for follow up immunizations. I hope to be able to visit with Wade and Jen when we make that trip. Dallin is hoping to celebrate his birthday with his cousins!

Chilling with the cousins.

Hind sight is 40/40

Yesterday, marked one year that the family has been living in the travel trailer. When I was leaving work I told people I didn't really know what it would be like to live in a place as small as a 21 foot trailer, but in six months we'd be either picking a spot to never move from again, or putting new tires on the trailer to keep the wheels rolling. It seems things have developed into the latter situation. We all really love the mobile life style (you can even ask the kids) and we have needed to replace two trailer tires within the last 12 months. The main thing that bothers me about the last year is my failure to have my game completed and marketed by now. When I was doing my planning I was thinking I could have had two or three done by now.

Looking back over the last year I asked myself; "if you were to go back to Feb. 1, 2008 and redo the last year, what would you do differently?" The answer I came up with was nothing. That means to me that the year really hasn't taught me much, in as much as not making any decisions differently would yield the same results that I have now. I really do believe that I thought things through carefully last year. It is just that not all of my decisions focused around work and money. Looking back the part that is fuzzy is whether they should have or not. I can buy into the idea that I should have been a lot more concerned about getting in longer hours and spending less money. I can also buy into the idea that I shouldn't have worried about work and money as much as I did and I should have held more enjoyment for the great experiences I was able to have. A quick analysis would be to think the answer would be somewhere in the middle. The middle of more than I did, and less than I did, is the amount that I did.

So, into 2009, with new experience and knowledge, ready to do the same thing all over again. In some ways that really worries me. In other ways, I think that if 2009 can be anywhere near as good as 2008 than things are going to be great. I wouldn't want to repeat everything from 2008. I had some of my life's darkest time in 2008, I also had some of my brightest time in 2008. It does seem that higher "ups" do just get followed by lower "downs," but that isn't a reason to avoid trying to live a full life. I would like to think that I will be better prepared emotionally for negative experiences. The presence of both the positive and negative experiences appears to be a fixed part of life. I am led to believe that a key to happiness is soaking up as much of the positive that is available while it is available, and discarding as much of the negative as possible, when negative is all that seems to be available.

The idea of discarding negative experience isn't as obvious to practice as it is to think about. People have an affinity for intense emotion. People are not picky about whether the emotion is positive or negative, but tend to gravitate toward the most intense emotions. If a negative emotion is the most intense, it will stick with the person for quite a while if they do not make a great effort to sacrifice the emotion and let it go. Just today, for possibly the first time in my life, I was offended by a local church leader. Even as I am thinking and writing about the incident now I can feel myself sort of enjoying the return of the anger I felt at the time of being offended. Stupid, I know, that just seems to be the way we are wired. Oh, if you were curious what offended me, I'll just leave it out in public that I was right and he was wrong. Now that I have calmed down, I have resolved that people are allowed to be wrong 1,233,542 times in their lifetime and I should feel honored that a person of his age, who would almost undoubtedly be pushing that limit by now, would choose to spend one of his precious, "allowed to be wrongs" on me.

Facebook

The next two sections are also on Facebook, but since all three of our blog readers aren't all on Facebook, I am going to post the sections here as well. If you do decide to get over your aversion to Facebook and send us a friend request, we'll be your friend. I have decided that I like Facebook. It is a lot more fluid for staying in touch than e-mail. The downside, of course, is that information on Facebook is extremely public. My philosophy is that as long as a person isn't trying to hide from an unconvicted felony, or harboring nuclear levels of bigotry that would not be containable were they to express an opinion in a public forum, a person will be just fine on Facebook. Many people choose to put up a picture other than their own, or use a shortened version of their name as a way to hide. I think that is just dandy. Something to be aware of, if you do join, is that the profiles and comments are very public. If you join any networks (you will automatically be included in a network as you fill out where you live when you sign up) anyone in your network is able to view your profile. It is easy to unjoin a network after signing up. It is even easier to not put any information online that you do not want the world to know. If you are a Cowboys fan, and don't want everyone to know, then don't put that you are a Cowboys fan in your profile. If you are Cowboys fan and want everyone to know, then hurray for Facebook, you have more place to shout it. Overall, I think the way Facebook enables people to communicate is excellent. I have been thrilled to get in touch with the in-laws, some of my cousins, and to hear from a mission companion I served with in Korea.

Oh yeah, by the way, if list you are a Cowboys fan in your profile and want me to accept a friend request from you, you will need to also list at least two socially redeeming qualities about yourself in your profile J/K LOL. (That's Just Kidding Laughing Out Loud).

For many people born in or after the mid 80's Facebook seems to be the best, if not the only way to communicate with them. I imagine text messages would be a great communication vehicle as well, but I am not up for adding text to my phone plan in the near future. So the twitter world will need to wait a while longer for Dan Gordon.

25 Things About Lexie

1. I have five beautiful children, the oldest is 8 and the youngest is 5 months - 4 boys, and 1 girl smack in the middle.

2. Exactly a year ago Dan and I sold our five bedroom house and moved the family into a travel trailer so we can travel North and South America. We are going slower than we planned, but there are just so many cool things to see everywhere we go! We also had to slow down a bit for Jacob to be born. I didn't want to go into labor on the Alaskan-Canadian highway. He was kind and was born a week late.: - )

3. I homeschool my kids and actually think it's fun! - most days.

4. I love drive-in movies and it's about the only time I eat Whoppers.

5. I enjoy the desert and the ocean, but love to be in the pine trees.

6. I have climbed three mountains in Alaska and got to the saddle of the Grand Teton. Next time I will get to the top. One of my favorite parts about the climbs is the guilt-free bowl of ice-cream at the end.

7. My appendix got removed two years ago and I would not wish that on anyone else.

8. My wonderful husband, Dan, can still make me laugh several times everyday after 11 great years of marriage.

9. I got my B.S. in Sports Science and a cognitive study in dance.

10. I have been to Korea, Italy, Canada, and a border town in Mexico.

11. I am terrified of devil rodents-aka-mice. Even the ones in pet stores.

12. I love thunder and lightening storms.

13. I think its funny that my three year old favorite song is, "Who Am I," from the musical, Les Miserables (not some thing normal like "Old McDonald").

14. The chore I hate most of all in the whole world is folding laundry.

15. My favorite color was blue until I had my girl, and now it seems to change with each kid (weird). My favorite color is currently sage green.

16. I love to play UNO with my kids.

17. I love to read. Are there any recommendations for good books? Fiction or non fiction, I just can’t stomach anything where children are hurt…

18. My favorite movie is still, “Ever After.”

19. I just took it on as a personal challenge to make all of our food from scratch. I don’t know how long this will last, but I’ve had a lot of fun with it, and my family loves the homemade bread and homemade pasta.

20. I don’t understand mother-in-law jokes. I have the coolest mother-in-law ever.

21. We are always looking for someone to go rock climbing with, to take turns watching kids. Landon, I promise if you come again, we’ll let you go first five times! We’ll be in Yosemite in April or May and next to Smith Rock in Oregon over the summer. Anyone interested let me know.

22. I had braces twice, at least I still have all my teeth.

23. I am going to make a deal with Dan that someday I’ll to a pro football game with him if he’ll go to Olympic figure skating with me.

24. One of my favorite things to do each year is to go to the state fair.

25. I am planning on doing some graduate school work after my kids are older.

25 Things About Dan

1. I hate, “forward this thing to one million people” messages with almost a religious zeal. I am doing this because I love my wife and she asked me to do it.

2. I have already forgiven you if you ignore the instructions at the heading of this note.

3. I don’t have 25 friends on facebook, is that bad?

4. When I was in elementary school, I used to fantasize about catching a touchdown pass in a Super Bowl. Sometimes when I am in a reflective mood or just feeling a little sorry for myself I retrace my life and try to figure out the exact moment that the fantasy lost all of its possibility of fruition, when I was born, the 4th grade, the 8th grade, the 12th grade, am I denying myself a dream now because I am lazy or scared …

5. Another one of my elementary school fantasies was to be so rich that I could build a house with a swimming pool in the middle that had a diving board and a water slide. The house would also have a go kart track and an arcade. I still hope that I get that rich, however, when I do, I hope that before I spend money on that kind of stuff I will spend a lot of money drilling wells and building schools in Africa.

6. I respect the effort of public education, but I am frustrated by its focus on institutionalization over individualized education and enhancement.

7. I was married to my wife by the time we had known each other three months; Lexie is the best thing that has happened to me in my life, since being born.

8. I fear wasting my life more than I fear death.

9. I would like to travel to all seven continents before I die.

10. I don’t really know what kind of music I like; most genres have something about them that offends me. In general, I like inspirational music. Whitney Houston’si “One Moment In Time” has been ringing in my head a lot lately.

11. I am within three months of finishing my first educational software title “The Spelling Castle.”

12. I have five great children.

13. A year ago I quit my job and sold my house to support development of a new educational software business. I now live in a travel trailer with my family so that we can show the kids the United States and Canada while I do my software development work.

14. When I was younger, my dream was to become an engineer or an astronaut. I decided that being an astronaut sounded to difficult, so I became an engineer. I placate myself now by thinking of myself as an inner space explorer wandering around in my Jayco rover.

15. I am interested in astronomy.

16. I served a mission for the LDS church in Seoul, Korea.

17. I got my bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from the University of Idaho.

18. When I get enough money that I can take a few years off I am planning on getting a PhD in educational psychology.

19. I am slowly working toward running a marathon, but so far I am finding knee pain to be limiting my distances.

20. I like to climb mountains, but back to the risk of wasting my life as opposed to the risk of dying, I am limiting myself to mountains that are not very likely to kill me, at least until I have met some of my grand kids. Mt. Raineer is right on the border line of the amount of risk I am willing to take.

21. I am frustrated and fascinated at the same time by the number of secrets the world holds.

22. I enjoy and entertain several conspiracy theories, but I don’t really develop or follow them very closely.

23. My greatest hope in life is that by the time I die the world is better for me having lived in it.

24. Cherry Garcia bars by Ben and Jerry’s ice cream or Hageen Daaz Almond and Chocolate vanilla ice cream bars are probably my favorite treats.

25. I lived on the Navajo Indian reservation as a kid. We played cowboys and Indians with a little more excitement than most kids. It was all in good fun.

A heavy rain put a small stream in the wash. The kids had fun playing with boats.

 

February 1, 2009

Natalyn has taken to calling herself Super-Jack

David having fun on a roll out piano.

The kids got a chance to learn how to pan for gold.

(they got to keep some real gold)

Campfires are fun

Most people don't know that I (Lexie) actually comment on most of the blogs, filling in details, helping with captions, or adding my own thoughts. Yes, it just seems easier to write about myself in third person than confuse people with a lot of switching. Dan does the bulk of the writing still. He gets credit for just about anything witty, clever, funny, political, scandalous, or misspelled. With all that said, I have been asked to make an appearance, so I am (this once) giving up my anonymity of hiding behind Dan.

I have had a love-hate thing going on with the desert. We are in an isolated part of the desert here in Quartzsite, made even more isolated by our goal of "grounding" ourselves until our game is finished. That includes jaunts into bigger towns that are further away. We both get distracted easily and it is much easier to stay focused if we stay put. Part of the love-hate thing I've had with the desert has been self-inflicted by our personal "grounding." I have felt somewhat trapped (go figure). I guess that's the distracted part of me wanting to be distracted and get moving again. The land here is quite barren here, and I have always been more of a pine-tree person. Even after spending months last year by the California coast (as beautiful as that was) I was at peace again with myself when we got back into pines. Now to the part that I love about the desert - I have been looking for things to enjoy about living here and my list is finally getting long enough to list.

Wildlife here is about as sparse as the plants, but our wildlife list has started coming along. We have seen a tarantula, the lizards are fun to watch, jack-rabbits, coyotes, and Dan and the two oldest boys saw some white tailed deer. I am really hoping to see a desert tortoise before we leave.

The sunsets are magnificent.

I have discovered the amazing smell of rain. The smell is so different from rain in the city or in the pines. I had never experienced a desert rain before, but if Downey could somehow capture the fragrance...

We have met an eclectic group of people here who have all been wonderful to visit with and learn from. I'm always amazed at what I can learn from other people, and how we need other people for our lives to be fulfilled. I believe it was Mother Theresa who said something about a life not being complete without other people. For as much as I like to serve other people and try to help, I'm always behind as so many are sharing with us and giving back even more.

My favorite part of living here has been the campfires. We often talked about putting a fire-pit in our backyard before we sold everything. Once a year, it seems, we would have a marshmallow roast in our garden after we had harvested what we wanted. Here we have been able to enjoy wonderful campfires as a family and with friends. The weather is just chilly enough in the evening that it is comfortable to sit around the campfire and enjoy it, but not so cold that everyone is just huddled near the fire wondering when we can go in to get warm. There is something about a campfire that leads one to reflection and higher thinking. It seems that many barriers go down in conversations and things take on a deeper meaning. Not always, of course. One of the kids' favorite games is to start a story, with each person taking a turn and then ending after it has gone around the fire with everyone having a turn. These times are just plain silly.

Blip, January is Gone!

(Dan writing) In case it has passed anyone's attention, I will announce here that January has passed. The year 2009 is only 11 months long now. The illusion I start every year with, about how many things I will be able to accomplish in the new year, is already fading into the reality of the way time rapidly slips away. With that said, I think I kept this year's goals modest enough that I will still be able to get them, I just have one less month than I did before.

This week in particular just seemed to evaporate. Monday I was working on catching up on basic infrastructure. For the last several weeks the kids have had flat tires on their bikes. I started the day with the thought I would take a couple of hours and get the bike tires patched. At the end of the day, and 10 patches later, we still had two flat tires. Tuesday didn't seem to be much more efficient. By Wednesday I was simply going out of my skin and decided it would be a good time to finally hike the little mountain near our camp. My knees haven't been letting me run much over a mile lately. Hiking the mountain, in lieu of a run, was a good idea. It was the best work out I have had in a long time. I have a theory, well I can't call it my theory, I'm sure there are really theories about this, I just have a mental model, that the body builds up emotional toxins if it doesn't get good exercise. It was nice to get the poison drained a little.

When I got back from the mountain I started the generator. The cord must have been worn out because it pulled all the way out as I started the generator. Since I didn't know how long it would be before I would be able to start the generator again I left it running to try to get a good charge on the batteries. I am not very mechanically inclined, so whenever I do anything kind of mechanical repair I feel a little extra excitement at having cheated my nature. I was very pleased that, with a little help over the phone from my brother, Robert that I was able to get the generator running the next morning. The prospect of being left without power didn't really sit well as a prospect for continuing my work. Even before I broke the generator I had made a 90% decision that I would by a small 1000 watt generator to charge batteries and run the laptops. Most of the work I do uses much less than 1000 watts, but since batteries are so slow to charge, I wind up running the generator several hours a day. It would be nice to have something a little quieter that uses less fuel.

Palm Canyon Hike

Ever since the first time I read about it, sometime last year, I have been intrigued by a place in the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge called Palm Canyon. The canyon harbors some of, if not the only, native palm trees in Arizona. After all of the time we have been here, Saturday finally seemed to offer a good opportunity to take a hike of the canyon. The area to view the palm trees is a nice trail of about half a mile. We hiked up to the viewing area and had lunch there. The children had a lot of fun exploring a little cave-like tunnel near the viewing area.

Viewing the palms brought to mind several feelings that I haven't yet been able to form into thoughts. The isolation of the palms is fascinating in that there aren't any others native palm trees near them. The little pocket high up the canyon is possibly the only place around that palm tress could natively survive. I don't think it is resolved as to whether the trees got there by animals transporting seeds, or if the grove is left over from the last ice age. Either way, thinking of the small little cluster of tress huddled together surviving in the only place in the area that they could, evokes a very unique emotion in me. As I looked at the palm trees I felt like there was something I could learn from them. I just couldn't, and still can't, quite form the thought. The thought is something of the same flavor as thinking about the way the earth sits alone in a very vast and empty looking universe.

After lunch we continued up the canyon a little farther. The trail mostly disappeared and left a lot of scrambling. The children did really well on it and had fun showing me how far they could jump off rocks. The canyon walls are quite magnificent. I am not a good judge of height, but I would guess some of the cliffs were somewhere between 150 and 300 feet tall. It was the kind of scenery that brings the soul a reverence for its creator. When we were almost to the point I had in mind turning around, we started to hear rocks falling down the canyon. I took the guess that there was an idiot farther up the canyon throwing rocks to listen to their echo. At any rate, I took it as a strong sign that it was time for an immediate turn around.

If palm canyon were any closer to a population center, I am sure it would be much more widely publicized. I had thoughts myself of not mentioning our hike on the blog for fear that it might loose some of its appeal if too many people went there. I decided to write about it, with the selfish motivation that with the way things are now there are not enough people visiting the canyon to make it reasonable for the BLM to put a bathroom by it, but there are too many people visiting the canyon to make needs of that nature very convenient. My conclusion is we need just enough more people to visit the canyon to justify one of those stinky little outhouses, and then the rest of the world can continue to exist without knowledge of the canyon's presence. The 9 mile drive over a bumpy dirt road on the way out was a bit difficult on a full bladder.

Hiking to view the palm trees.

Not a high quality picture, but it shows the isolated grove in which the palms grow.

It has been really nice to get some hiking in this week.

We had a nice lunch at the palm tree viewing spot.

The kids had fun scrambling on the rocks.

Hiking up the trail.

David stopped for a drink.

My pictures don't do the canyon justice. It is absolutely breath taking.