Trip to Arizona

Gracee and I recently returned from a 10-day trip to AZ. It was so much fun seeing grandma, great grandman, cousins, friends, and Aunts. Here are some of the pictures from it.

this bow is the first one I've EVER liked on Gracee! We had a magnificent photo shoot at Micaela's with some of Gracee's new little friends.
Afterwards, we had a swim party and Gracee made her usual concerned look at the water....but after being with grandma and seeing a handsome face, she was her usual flirty happy self in no time!

She also got to meet some more new friends--Christie, Emily, Brooke, and Erin--it was so good to see you!
She also got to meet her great Grandma Ione for the first time!
Then we headed up to the White Mountains to stay with Steph's family.
She got to meet her great Aunt Pam and Uncle Starl--and she got to see one of my dad's classic laughing fits. Love to see you laugh dad!
She had her first pony ride!
She got to have lots of cousin bonding time!
Aunt Sandy even came to say goodbye before we left for the airport.
She had lots of fun charming everyone on the airplane. I may have already mentioned this but she does this thing where she will make noises or shout at someone until they look at her. Once she has caught their eye, she engages them in a full head shaking, nose-scrunching, laughing conversation. Needless to say, she had a lot of friends by the end.
First plane ride. Lots of firsts. She did awesome and was so much fun. She really missed her daddy though. We were so happy to be home.

Livin' off the land...

For me, life's sweetest joys have always been the simple ones; getting a good deal, relaxing after a hard day's work, being sore from a good workout, harvesting food that I have grown, or cloth diapering--even with its challenges.
We began cloth diapers as soon as our 5 month supply of generously-gifted diapers ran out, and as you can see, we had a bit of a rough start. Russ has reiterated his feelings about these little cloth creations. It is no secret that if it were entirely up to him, we'd be using disposables.


When I was out of town for 3 weeks, I used disposables. It was a nice break but it reminded me of why I have been enjoying the cloth diaper world. It is for the same reason that I love to get up at dawn and go for an invigorating run. It is for the same reason I love to work and sweat out in the yard all day. It is for the same reason I LOVED working out in the wilderness with troubled teens and learning from nature--All of these give some sort of feeling that I am living off the land. I usually rinse the diaper covers out by hand and hang them out to dry. When I need a fresh one, I'll go and get one off of the line out back. It reminds me of when I lived in Vanuatu and we would just go grab some island cabbage out of our garden in the back when we needed it. Last night I just grabbed a huge thing of broccoli out of our garden for dinner and once again had that invigorating 'livin off the land' rush and remembered I wanted to do this post today. Sometimes, for me, convenience is only second to feeling like I REALLY experienced something. Go ahead, call me crazy. Many do.