The Skate Park

The Anderson's have been coming up to visit quite a bit lately, so Heather can work on her rental house next door. One thing we like to do when they come, is to go to the skate park in Snowflake. We load up the kids, scooters and rip sticks and pray for protection, then hold our breath while the kids figure out what they are capable of.  I am a Nervous-Nelly when it comes to watching my kids do "Brave" things, but I know it's good for them and I am grateful they know how to have good clean fun. I'm also grateful no one has needed stitches...yet!

Camping at Grandma's House!

When My sister Lydia and I figured out that our kids had spring break at the same time, we knew we had to get together. Then, we found out that my sister Angela's mission farewell was scheduled on the Sunday of that week! We decided to ask our mom if we could all stay at my parents house and have some fun in the Valley of the sun!
My mom was happy to have us, but having 12 house guests in my parents small home is no easy feat. So, My parents set up their tent trailer in their backyard, and Lydia brought hers and we had a camp out at Grandmas! I mean,cousins are fun and Camping is fun and Grandma's house is fun, so put it all together and you get the best spring break ever!!!
 Angela did a great job on her talk.  We know she will be a great Missionary and she will be missed. The ward she goes to and spoke at was a singles ward so the kids were concerned that there wasn't going to be primary. We came up with Cousin primary! We all gathered in Grandmas living room and Eliza lead the music, Caleb gave a talk, Carolyn did Sharing time, Sarah shared a scripture, robert shared an article of faith and  Megan and Daniel offered prayers! It was wonderful!!

On Sunday Night we had a combined Family home evening at my brother Ben's Home. My mom Had planned a fun trivia game involving the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet. We knew she was planning the game so we had been studying and our family did great!

 On Monday we took all the kids on a hike. My Brother Paul even took his kids out of school for the day to enjoy some Cousin time!  We to hiked to Hieroglyphic Springs in the Superstition Mountains. It was a beautiful day and the kids had a great time. After climbing around for a bit, the kids discovered a natural water slide at one of the springs! They had a total blast in the water! An older couple who hiking there as well got out their camera and started taking pictures of our wild bunch! It was too funny.

Caleb

Eliza and Carolyn

Sarah and Megan

On Monday night, we joined up with all the Gurrs for a cookout at the lake. Heather and Richard had their boats and Grandpa and Tyler brought their Buggies! We made foil dinners and enjoyed being together.  Some of the kids knee boarded, but it was too cold for most of us grown-ups to get wet!

On Tuesday we took advantage of Family day at Amazing Jakes! All day fun passes and all you can eat!  This time it was Aunt Amanda who joined us and brought our nephew Braxton. We all had a blast!

I love this picture of Aunt Lydia on the Roller coaster with the Kids.

Sarah and Megan. These two were inseparable.

Eliza and Carolyn Tackled the rock wall every chance they got!

Caleb was the first one of my kids to make it to the top.

Eric, Lydia, Braxton and Amanda

 On Wednesday the kids took it easy at Grandma's house while the ladies did a little shopping. That evening,  we went to the Easter pageant at the Mesa Temple. My kids haven't been since they were toddlers, so it was their first time going that they could remember.

On Thursday Morning, my mom had an Easter Egg hunt for the Kids. Grandma always makes the best Easter Eggs!

That night we had a girls night with all the girls on the Burk side of the family. We got together to plan our annual Burk Family Women's Conference. I had a great time catching up with my aunts and cousins.

On Friday, we said goodbye and headed home to Taylor. We will always remember Camping at Grandma's and all the fun things we did!

A Fun Time in Albuquerque

Adam and the Girls took a trip to Albuquerque a while back, to return a Piano to Adam's sister Stacy.  Stacy Was given a beautiful piano when she was a young teenager. When she went away to college and got married she knew she would be moving around quite a bit and didn't want to have to move her piano around with her. It stayed at her parents house for a while, but then they moved to a smaller home and didn't have much room for it.
We had room for it and volunteered to "babysit" Stacy's piano until her husband finished school and they got settled somewhere.
We enjoyed having that beautiful piano in our home, but when Stacy got settled into her home in Albuquerque, we knew she was probably missing her Piano, so Adam and the girls took a quick trip one weekend to deliver it to her. Caleb had a basketball game so he and I had to miss out on the fun.
On the way to Stacy's house they stopped at El Malpais National park and had a picnic. There are some neat rock formations there, and they had a great time hiking around.

When they got to Albuquerque, Stacy was so happy to have her piano again.  She played some of our girls favorite John Shmidt tunes for them. I'm sure the piano never sounded that good at our house!

On Saturday, they went to the children's science museum. It sound's like they all had a great time together.

Grace

Mary

Sarah, Evelynn, and Eliza

We look foreword to going back with the whole family. Thanks for a fun day Dodds Family!!!

Lobo Basketball

Caleb enjoyed playing basketball this past winter. (and I'm just now getting around to blogging about it.)
He learned a lot about the game and sharpened his skills, but ultimately discovered that basketball just isn't his  game.
With that said, his team was UNDEFEATED!!! Yahoo!! They had a great coach who really knows the game (and has a son who will some day be playing for the NBA).
We sure enjoyed watching those guys play.
Basketball may not have been Caleb's game, but I am proud of him for sticking with it, never getting discouraged and doing his very best. Way to go Caleb!

Home: Part 3

You know how sometimes, when you make up your mind to go to the temple on a given day, every thing that can and will go wrong does go wrong....car troubles, babysitter falls thru, work runs late etc...and you know it's just Satan, trying to keep you from being where you need to be.

Well, that's how it kinda was for us, when we made up our minds to move to Taylor. The housing market collapsed,  which not only affected our ability to sell our home in the valley, but it also affected Adan's ability to  work and provide for our financial needs,  the Town of Taylor kept giving us the run around with our building permits and house plans, and to top it all off, while Adam was putting a roof on our 16ft tall detached garage, he fell and broke his back, which landed him in the hospital for a week and unable to work for a couple of months!

If we hadn't felt that Taylor was where The Lord wanted us to be, we likely would've thrown in the towel. Trust me, there were times we wanted to.

I remember one day, Adam and I were talking about what we were going to do for work once we got to Taylor.  Adam had just gotten his contractors license and we were in the process of setting up our own grading and excavating business. But as I mentioned, the housing market had just collapsed and it hit the Taylor/Snowflake area as hard as everywhere else.  We were also worried, because Adam's injury had set the building of our house back a couple of months which meant, we'd be living in our fifth wheel and trying to build as winter was setting in. These, among other concerns were weighing heavily on our minds. Adam left that evening to drive up to Taylor to try and get the building permit for our house approved and to work on setting up the "barn" (our detached garage) for us to move into. 

He called me late that night to let me know he had arrived safely and he told me about an experience he had while he was driving.  When he left our home he was feeling a lot of stress and despair. He felt as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders and was wondering what he was getting our family into. It was extra dark that night which only added to his dark mood. He plugged in his iPod  and decided a little Mormon tabernacle choir might help his mood.

He heard these words:

Lead kindly light amid the encircling gloom; lead thou me on!

The night is dark and I am far from home; lead thou me on!

Keep thou my feet ; I don't ask to see 

The distant scene,  one step enough for me.

He told me that as he heard those words the spirit spoke to him, and comforted him. He knew that although we couldn't  see what lay ahead for us, The Lord would guide us and provide for us along our way.  

As Adam told me of his experience, I felt the comforting spirit as well.  I knew things would O.K.  and moving to Taylor would be a blessing for our family.

From that moment on it was "Full steam ahead"! 

We never looked back.

Loving Life

February was a fun month.
The kids loved Valentines day and enjoyed their Giant sugar cookies that mom makes them every year.

We spent some time helping Heather fix up the little house next door and loved all of our visits with the Anderson Family.

Painting the fence.  Tom Sawyer Style!

We  also had a fun visit with Travis and Becky and their sweet girls in Febuary. Their girls are so cute and VERY entertaining.
We enjoyed some snowfall. We didn't seem to get as much as we usually do. We did get a lot of rain though so we are grateful for any precipitation we can get around here. A lot of snow fell on the mountains, so Adam was able to spend some quality time with his snowmobile.

Home. Part 2

      As I excitedly showed Adam the real estate brochures I'd collected from the Taylor/Snowflake area, he didn't seem to impressed. "I thought you wanted trees. All I see are shrubs."

"We can plant trees!"  I wasn't going to let him discourage me. If he would just go there with me maybe he'd see and feel what I did.  

    I didn't want to press the issue though. I know my husband, he doesn't respond well to being pressured. So, I played it cool.  Rather than force him to go through the all real estate booklets with me, I waited till he went to work each day and started inquiring about the building lots that I liked.

I called the number on one listing that sounded awesome. There were three adjoining lots for sale in a subdivision in Taylor. They were all the same price and within our price range. Each of them were 2.5-3 acre lots with horse privileges, no H.O.A. and  best of all, irrigation! Perfect for growing trees!  The guy on the phone gave me the address and directions to the lots. 

Now I just had to figure out how to convince Adam to make a trip to Taylor with me to check them out. 

   A short time later, Adam's dad asked him if he could go to Durango to help work on a cabin he was building there. I knew Taylor was on the way to Durango,  so I casually showed Adam the land listing and asked him if he wouldn't mind checking it out on his way. He said he would check it out, but he still wasn't as excited about it as I was.

   A few hours after Adam left for Durango (by way of Taylor) he called me. "This is it!" He said. He excitedly told me about the lots and the one he liked best.  About how it backed up to a wash where big cottonwoods were growing. He talked about having plenty of room for a detached garage, and all of his his equipment. He said there were bluffs on the other side of the wash covered with shrubby trees, offering a nice green backdrop to the property. Plus, it was on the way to Colorado! 

He  couldn't stay there long but said he wanted to come back up there with me so I could see the property for myself. I knew I didn't have to see it to know that he was right. This was it!

After Adam got home from Colorado, we made plans to take a day trip up to Taylor and see our lot together. (We were already calling it "our"lot.) but when I called the phone number on the listing a second time, and gave the realtor the listing number in my booklet, he was confused.  He said there was no listing with that number. I double checked the number and gave it to him again. Again, no listing. So I gave him the address I'd received. He looked it up. There was nothing for sale at the address I gave him. He asked me who I spoke with before. I couldn't remember. I didn't write it down.  So, I asked Adam if he remembered seeing an agents name on the for sale sign.  He said, "Thats what was weird, there was no "For Sale" sign."

Oh great! We fell in love with property that wasn't even for sale! 

We decided to drive up to Taylor anyway. The realtor said he could show us some other lots that fit our search criteria.  We didn't like any of the lots he showed us. It seemed like the realtor had his own agenda. He was showing us lots he wanted to sell, not other lots in the book that we wanted to see.

So, we thanked the realtor for his time, and called another realtor she said she could meet us in her office that afternoon. Before we met with her, Adam

Took us to the lot, our lot. The one we we wanted, but wasn't for sale.  As we walked around the land with our kids we felt a  bit like Brigham Young must have when he saw the great Salt lake valley and proclaimed "This is the place!"  This was our our place. We just knew it. 

We told the realtor of our predicament. We even took her out to "our" lot. She confirmed the fact that the lot wasn't listed for sale but, before we left, she said she would make some calls and see what she could find out.

While we waited for her call, we prayed. We told The Lord that we wanted to do his will, and that we believed it was his will for us to live in Taylor, and for some reason, on that land. We prayed for his help to make that possible.

Our realtor called back a couple days later. "Where did you see that property listed?" She asked. I told her which booklet it was in and the date listed at the top of the book. She explained that the listing must have been placed in the book by accident, because the listing had expired six months earlier. She went on to explain that the land had been listed for sale for quite some time, but that the owners got discouraged because it wasn't getting much interest. They let the listing expire and decided to just wait and try selling the property in another year or two. She spoke with the owners and they were more than willing to sell to us!!!  Yahoo! 

We knew it wasn't by accident that I saw that listing.  

We knew we found Home.