Homer and the First Lost Tooth

Genevieve had her 11th grade Homerathon which is a party they have every year at their school and there was a competition for the best costume.  I put her hair in a crown braid and she hand painted some leaves from a garland that we used at her birthday party and pinned them in.  She won second place!

And my little Bobby, at age 7 years old, finally lost his first tooth!

 

Bob turned 7!

Bobby turned seven on our last full day in Red River, but the seven year old privilege around our house is an all boy (or all girl for our daughters) birthday party.  So we had a mini golf party with owl cupcakes and a cake as requested by this adorable, sweet boy a week later.  He's been reading Guardians of Ga'Hoole lately which inspired his owl cake request.

 

I love this smile!

Roman hung out indoors in the A/C because even in the evening it was a scorcher.

My Oreo-eyed Owls

They played miniature golf, ate pizza, drank a lot of lemonade, and devoured the cake.  It was simple and fun for my special boy which is all I could hope for!

Landscape Art Contest

The homeschool group that we are apart of had a landscape art competition.  All of the kids entered a piece.  I do not have Judah's available to put on here, but here are the rest of them.

Hannah's

Drew's

Bob's

 

Genevieve's

Isaac's

And the winner is this cutie!  Bob at age 6 won the 6-12 year old category with his moon/landscape.  The only help he got from me was showing him an example of how to paint the moon on YouTube, telling him what order to layer the paints, and recommending adding the strip of green at the bottom to make it an actual "land"scape.  He won a gift card to a frozen yogurt place and he is so pumped!

And the other winner is this pretty girl!  She won the 13-18 year old category!  (I had to reach way back to find a picture of her almost alone, so this is way back in the fall.)  She got a Fandango movie gift card.  I'm a proud Mama that the Smiths swept the whole contest.

Here is the screenshot of the page with the winners.

The Birthday Bob

Bob is super cuddly, but usually not with his daddy as much as with me.  Daddy always relishes when he comes up for a spontaneous cuddle.

Bobby's birthday requests this year were a Ninjago cake (which I have done before for Drew), a birthday party with his cousins at Aunt Kristen's pool, an ant farm, bowling, and our family restaurant dinner at MOD pizza.  The kids had never been to MOD pizza and they loved getting to choose their own pizza ingredients.

His Mimi made a somewhat last minute visit to come to his party.

He wanted to put his own candles on the cake.

One of his cousins couldn't make it, but we almost gave him just what he asked for this year.

 Although I haven't taken a picture of him with his ant farm, we did get it up and running no thanks to FedEx express shipping and the cold pack I paid even extra for.  I paid for two day shipping and it was delayed over a weekend so I got the ants in 6 days instead and all but 6 of the almost 30 were dead.  Unfortunately, the company hasn't responded to any of my emails.  The 6 we wrestled into the tiny whole have been with us about a month now and are tunneling away.  Just two days ago, we had one die, but otherwise they are going strong.  They do not have names like our string of caterpillar visitors this year.

These were the first two, but I think we are on number 13 or something now.  I feed them lettuce leaves and they grow huge and then die for some reason.  I imagine it's the kind of leaves I am giving them that makes them die eventually but feeding them the tomato leaves kind of defeats the purpose of hunting for them everyday and pulling them off my tomato plants.  These two were nameless, but we've had the likes of Gerard, Herbert, Dot, and still have Stripey, though we usually call him Fatso now.  We've had to silk worms perhaps that did cocoon, but these Hornworms just keep dying in our care.

The swimming, cake, and cousins, happened on our regular Sunday Family dinner day and then on his actual birthday Brian got home early from work and we went bowling as a family.  Then we headed to MOD pizza, and then home to get homemade cards and his ant farm.

We had the two lanes right next to each other that share a cock pit.

Happy birthday 6 year old!  I told him he needed to let me rock him and cry because I am so sad he's growing too fast, but he said no to that request.  Sigh.

Our RV Trip: Days 3-5

I had been refusing to sit in the front seat of the RV for the first two days of the driving because I thought it would be too nerve-wrecking.  However, riding in the back was really freaking me out.  Hannah sat in the front the second day and told me she thought I'd be more comfortable up there because it was a similar feel to our 12 passenger van.  So, on day 3 I tried it out and found she was so very right.  It was much easier for me to feel how long it would take him to stop and from then on I was much more comfortable even when I was in the back.

On day 3 we arrived at our friends' house in Phoenix, AZ.  We had not seen these friends since we moved to Germany the second time.  They were stationed with us in Germany the first time and again in Maryland/D.C..  It's been nearly six years since our families were together.  

They have kids the same age as Drew, Isaac, Genevieve, and Hannah so the kids had a great time getting re-acquainted, swimming, playing games, and the little ones put on plays.

We slept in the RV out on the street.  The original plan was to park it in their driveway, but the measurements that the guys had exchanged over the phone did not account for when we expand the RV for sleeping.  So we had to park it on the street.  Also, we thought originally that we'd be able to plug into their house for electricity and A/C, but when Brian picked up the RV they said if you used the RV it would trip the breaker on the house.  Sooo, we had to run the generator until 4am when Brian would have to get up and turn it off and plug back into their house so we could use our outlets and fans to keep cool the rest of the night.    The reason we couldn't run the generator all night was the RV rental company told us you needed to check the oil level every 8 hours of activity and it couldn't be checked while it was hot.  This whole RV thing had quite the learning curve, but I think we did okay in the end.

While at our friends' house, we had a graduation "party" for their oldest.  This included the extended family that our friends had staying with them when we arrived.  They had grandparents and an uncle and aunt with their two small kids.  We are so glad we decided against bringing our dog, because there was a total of five dogs there when we arrived.  Two lived there and three were from the extended family, two of which were puppies with a lot of energy.  They had a very full house!

They live right by their church, and we walked down to Mass at 7:30am in the morning on Sunday, day 4, and spent the rest of the day hanging out and catching up.  On Monday morning, we set out together to Sedona Pines, a resort with mini cabins and RV spots.  

We got settled and went swimming, had pizza that the guys picked up from town and played a very competitive game of putt putt golf where I was the ultimate score keeper for seven kids while teaching Bobby how to play.  It was his first time playing, and although he came in last place he wasn't far behind the rest of them.  He was actually quite good for a five year old that had never played before.

They had extra room in their cabin for two, so Genna and Bob slept there to enjoy a cooler night sleep in a big comfy bed.  We were up early the next day though for our next adventure!
 

Our RV Trip: Days 0-2

 So, day zero was the evening that we left and just tried to get a head start to Red River.  We stopped at a pre-selected place for the night, around midnight.  We were up with the sun and on our way so that we'd have an extra half day in Red River, NM.  At a gas station, everybody unbuckled and stood up to make the rounds to the bathroom.  Judah said, "I need to go to the bathroom.  Actually, I think I need to throw up."  I grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the camper as fast as I could.  We walked around the front of the camper and he started puking all over the ground.  This whole thing was quite embarrassing.  I'll spare you the details, but during COVID-19 having a puking kid in public is quite the attention getter.  Poor guy threw up for 10 minutes on and off and he looked so pale.  I carried him (he's almost 8, so this was quite the feat in itself) back to the RV and we put him up in the front seat for a while with cold A/C blasting in his face.  He thought it was pretty cool that he got to ride in the front seat for the first time.  My "Mission-focused" husband didn't want to wait until he felt better to get going, and really he needed the cold air and it was hot while we were sitting still.  Within thirty minutes he perked up and was feeling good again.  

Bob was reading a Larry Boy chapter book on the tablet while we drove at night.  He had never read a chapter book on the tablet and was absolutely fascinated by the page turning feature that simulates an actual book page turning.

Red River, NM is where I went almost every summer as a child.  We stayed in the valley then with my dad's good friend at their cabin.  When Drew was around 9 months old (That means 9 summers ago!), we took the kids to Red River for the first time to stay in a cabin that we rented for a week.  This time, we had to stay just outside of town because of the RV and not towing an extra vehicle.  We got the best lot in the RV park, all the way in the back, right next to the river.  

The last morning we were there the kids were playing volleyball and Isaac kicked it into the river.  Genna, Isaac, Judah, and Drew all took off after it.  Drew crossed the first bridge they came to and they were running alongside the river for a while until they were able to knock it to the side by throwing rocks at it.  I enjoyed seeing the teamwork involved to get back Genna's volleyball.  I think it was entertaining for the other people sitting outside their RV in the beautiful morning too.

When we arrived in the early afternoon, we set up and connected the RV and caught a free shuttle into town.  Town is just one long main street with some side streets in a valley.  

skipping rocks

In Town

This tree had been carved all over with initials.  So Brian added ours.

We got Brian a fishing license and did a little shopping.  We found out that there'd be no Western shoot outs because of COVID employee shortages.  Bob bought a gem, and Judah bought his first pocket knife.  

We had planned to go to my favorite Mexican restaurant in town that day, but we arrived when it was supposed to open and found out it was closed that day.  So we went to a place that is new since I was a kid, Red River Brewing Co.  

Walking back to the RV park after dinner, we stopped to pet the horses and feed them some dandelions.

This was Bob's bed.  He loves to read!

We were in need of a good night sleep and Genna was awake part of the night getting sick in our camper.  It passed quickly, and she felt great the next morning.  We never found out what that was about.  

Breakfast on Day 2 of our trip.  I made eggs and bacon tacos for everyone in my teeny tiny kitchen.

This camping enamel mug was an early anniversary gift for Brian so he could use it on the trip for his coffee.  This is my St. Alban drawing with a prayer added in text on the side.

Someone made me a daisy chain crown for my hair, and I was braiding Hannah's hair first thing in the morning

Reading by the river in the mornings for me was brief, but sweet!

We split up boys and girls for our only full day in Red River.  The girls and I went shopping the whole day and the boys and Brian went fishing the whole day.  We met up at their last fishing attempt at a small lake at the end of ton before dinner.  Then we walked to Sundance, that Mexican food place that we had tried to go to the night before.  However, we got there right when it opened and there was reservations filling the place up until 7pm.  I was dead set on going to this restaurant and so we made reservations for 7pm and went to get all the thirsty kiddos a drink at a small place nearby.  We were out of water by this time so everybody got cherry limeades.

Goin' Fishin'

Farewell, Red River!  Till we meet again!

Day 3, we were up and closing up the camper, ready to hit the road again toward Arizona.