Alexa's Pioneer Trek

One of the things that I love about our church is the history.  If you know anything about the LDS church (or Mormon church) you will know that the early members were driven from their homes for people who were against our religion and who hated mormons.  Members were killed, homes were burned and they were forced to leave and find a new place to settle.  Their faith kept them going which led them on a trek to Utah.  It was a long hard experience.  They had very little food and men, women, and children died along the way.  They pushed handcarts with all their belongings and walked the entire way. 

Our church leaders put together a week long event for the youth to have a small sampling of the experiences of the early saints.  They had to wear pioneer clothes, pull a handcart, and experience things such as Indians and mobs coming along the way.  It was a learning experience for Alexa and she loved every minute of it.  She said it was hard but I could tell in that short time that she grew as a person.  Her sweet spirit had been strengthened and her testimony of the gospel grew. 

Here we are picking her up.  I sure missed her.

 Isn't she beautiful - even without showering for a week?

 The girls wanted to make sure she felt welcome when she came home.  They missed her too.

 

McKenna's 5th Birthday

I can hardly believe that our little baby is 5.  She is getting to be such a big girl and is SO MUCH FUN!  When we got to Grandma's house after driving on Route 66 on McKenna's birthday, Grandpa had bought a cake.  What a fun surprise.   A nice ending after a long day.

 The next day we headed home.  Here they are enjoying a movie.

 Can you say, Tired?

 Of course, we had to decorate her door. 

 Look at this cute face.  I wish she would stop growing.  I wish she could stay little forever. 

McKenna is such a joy to our family.  I couldn't imagine life without her.

Opening presents!

 McKenna picked strawberry shortcake with blueberries.  Yummy!

 

We got our kicks on Route 66!

A few days after school ended Alexa went on a Pioneer Trek for a week and the girls and I went with my mom to CA.  Her friend from Australia that she has known since she was about 12 years old was coming to the States and my mom needed to pick her up and bring her back to Prescott.  So the girls and I came to keep her company on the drive. 

Since Tim's parents were on the way, we dropped the girls off while my mom and I drove into Santa Monica.  They had a great time taking a break from the drive.

 

The drive back, Sue (my mom's friend) wanted to take Route 66 back to AZ.  We decided to give it a try.  Since it goes right through my home town, we got to reminisce a little. 

Upland High School

Lady Madonna - If I remember right, there are only 13 or so statues like this in the US.  I grew up driving by this almost every day.  

This is a picture heading out of Upland.  It has changed a lot.  This used to be a railroad track that went over the street.  It look so much nicer.



We were trying to decide on where to stay for the night.  These tee pee hotel looked like fun.  Unfortunately they didn't work out for us.  Maybe another time.

We then came to this Bottle Tree farm out in the middle of no where. We thought it was great.  There was nothing around for miles.  The gate was open so you could just go in and walk around and look at everything.  Definitely one of the high lights.

We stayed in Bartsow and then the next day we hit the road again.  This little girl got this big pink pin from Grandma Gibb.  It was a special day - Her Birthday!  What screams fun for your 5th birthday than driving across Route 66.  She made the best of it.

 Here's them passing the time.

We stopped at a Route 66 museum.  The girls that this Indian was awesome and had to get a picture with him.

 We got to Amboy and had to stop to see this crater.  It was pretty impressive.  I had to add this picture because it totally looks like my mom is about to hit me.  (She really wasn't though.)

 My mom grew up living all over.  Amazingly enough she lived off of Route 66 a few times.  We stopped at this one where she lived off of Saltus Road.  This is pretty much all that is there now.  Not much was there before either. 

 We had to stop in Needles - another place where my mom lived.  Here is the house they lived in.  It's changed a lot.  It used to only be one story and a different color - but since my mom has such a great memory she new that this was the place.

 We stopped for a little birthday celebration lunch/dinner at this little pizza parlor.  It was actually quite good - we weren't sure what to expect, after all we were in Needles.

 Grandma, Mommy and the Birthday girl

 The highlight of the trip was this place called Snow Cap.  Someone told my mom that we needed to stop there.  It was getting late and we wanted to get home to my parents but we decided to stop anyway.  So glad we did.  We want to go back.  It was a funny place and the people were even funnier.  The girls couldn't get enough of it.

 They had quite a few cars like this with eyes painted on them.  We all thought we were on the set of the movie, Cars.

 And of course, Grandma had to treat them to some ice cream.

It was a fun trip and the girls actually did quite well.  I have to say that I have never had such a great appreciation for freeways. 

8th Grade Promotion

Is it true?  Did Alexa really finish Jr. High and is now in High School?  Time has flown by.  This girl just amazes me.  She is so fun to have around and we just love her quirky sense of humor.  She is a good example to her little sisters and to all who come in contact with her.  Doing what is right seems to come natural to her. 

Alexa has always been a good student.  She has really done well with going to different schools.  She's had to keep up and still make new friends.  This year she went to Legacy Traditional School.  A charter school that actually is K-8.  Her 8th grade class consisted of 25 kids.  It was a small group and they became the best of friends.  She had excellent teachers also who held the bar high for their students but also knew how to enjoy them and let them be 8th graders.  The following are pictures from their promotion.  The only disappointment was that Tim came and had to leave right away after the event and so I didn't make sure to get a picture of all of us.  Oh well.  We can do that in 4 years.  YIKES!  4 years - that seems way too soon.

 

 Alexa and Mrs. Fitzsimmons (the Vice Principal.)

 Alexa's biggest fan - McKenna

 Daddy and daughter

 Mommy and Daughter

 Alexa, Kaylee Wallentine, JuliaWilson, Crystal Padilla

 

 Chad Roberts and Alexa (he played Daddy Warbucks in the school play.)

 Alexa and Jens Peterson

 Mr. Rassmussen and Alexa

Her history teacher.  He was one of her favorites.

 Alexa and Mrs. Spanier (English/Lit teacher)

She was one of my favorites.  She says it like it is and has high expectations of her students. 

No slacking in her class.

It was a great year and it's been a great 9 years.  Can't wait to see what's to come from this intelligent beautiful girl of ours.

Random Pictures

I have a problem.  I will admit, I am sometimes a little OCD.  I LOVE things in chronological order.  I pretty much organize everthing that way.  I tried once to file my pictures on my computer by child but I just couldn't.  They are back to months and years.  Tim's mom just gave me a whole box of letters that they wrote to him while on his mission.  I thoroughly enjoyed myself while I sat and put 2 years worth of letters in chronological order.  Today, I am stepping out and making a little change to this blog.  I forget about the pictures on my phone when I do my blog and I happened to remember that I hadn't looked at them for a while.  I just found a few pictures that my kids took that I didn't know about.  They were from the end of last school year.

 

Alexa and Olivia - I think they were modeling and the hallway was there runway.

 Someone caught McKenna red handed climbing up the pantry.

(Seeing this picture makes me really appreciate my new pantry.)

 A Self-photograph

 

 Who knows why this was taken.  But I know who did it.  (Check photo above.)

Maybe I'll download some more pictures from my phone and throw some more in - just randomly.  What a big step for me.

Preschool 2012

The High School in our area teaches a course on child development/preschool.  The second semester they students plan and teach a preschool class under the supervision of their teacher.  It's super cheap and I knew that McKenna would love it.  Since none of my girls ever went to preschool (we just did "mommy school" as they called it.) they were pretty jealous of her.  They wanted to know about everything she did.  At the end of the semester they had a little "graduation".

Here's McKenna's little friend that we carpooled with.  He's so darling, isn't he?

 McKenna

Singing the ABC's.  You can definitely hear McKenna singing.

 

 

Too cute.  Now off to Kindergarten.  Is that really true?  Can my youngest be going into kindergarten?  Wow, does time fly.