Pardon the Interruption

Wyatt needs to interrupt the regularly scheduled post about our awesome vacation because he has some really good news to share with you all. For a little guy this is some pretty cool stuff!! He is now taking steps and just tonight he walked all over the living room. In fact he was so fast that all the pictures turned out blurry!! He is pretty proud of himself, if you couldn't tell from his "Guy Smiley" face!! He has been taking steps for about two weeks now. He actually took his first step for my Dad in Idaho and I missed it. My Dad told me if I wanted to see him take his first steps then I was too late!! He was 11 months old at the time. I bet by the time he is One (in three weeks) he will be walking all over the place, and then nothing will be safe!!

He only uses this contraption to walk alongside it. Heck half the time he is walking in front of it and dragging it!!

Looking pretty cute here!!! I can't believe how fast time is flying. I don't want him to turn 1 already. I wish I could slow things down a bit. Oh, he is so much fun right now. He has learned the art of fake crying while trying to throw a fit to get what he wants. It is actually pretty fun to watch!! He doesn't see the humor in it, he really thinks it is suppose to work!! Boy howdy, we love this kid to death!!

Ramah take 2

(My mom with her Aunt Lucile & Uncle Rankin, and cousin Carol)

On our last day in Ramah we got to visit some of my mother's family that still lives there. We started the day off by going to church. My mom was spying people who she knew and people were sizing us up too. My Dad was confused as being one of the Lewis' instead of my mom. It was fun. After church we met at my mom's cousin's house for a lunch and time to visit!! The kids loved the backyard and all the fun things to explore and do. We enjoyed good food and great company. It was a blessing to visit with family that I hadn't remembered ever seeing before. I am so glad that we made the stop in Ramah. Thanks Mom for showing us a good time!!

What's in a Whistle?

When I was a kid growing up there were some hard fast rules. One being that if I heard my Dad whistle, I was to hurry home on the double. If he had to whistle twice you were in BIG trouble!! His whistle could be heard from across town so we couldn't use the excuse that we hadn't heard it. Everyone heard it!! While camping out one of those first nights on our trip the little guys had gone up in the trees to explore. When it was time for dinner, Dad whistled for them to come. Some listened and some didn't. Really out of ignorance of the importance of "the whistle"!! They came to understand right away how important it was. Then once dinner was done the kids wanted to know how Grandpa does it. So the lesson on whistling began!! My sister-in-law Lana was determined to learn for herself. It kind of ended up being somewhat of an anatomy lesson!! Comparing the inside of her mouth to my Dad's. I had to take pictures, it was too fun to watch!!

All the grandkids now know how important a whistle can be, and some may even learn one day how to do it!!

Ramah

(My grandparents Cecil and Lila Lewis, 1943)
Our first real stop on this grand adventure was Ramah, New Mexico. A small town about an hour east of Gallup. My grandfather, Cecil Lewis, grew up there and my mom lived there for about 12 years. My mother had not been to Ramah for some time and she wanted to see some of her aunts and uncles that still live there. She wanted to show her grandkids where she lived and tell them of the things she did there. First stop was the Ramah Museum. It is only open on Fridays and Saturdays for 4 hours each day. We had a nice man gives us a tour and he and my mom got to talking about family. What you have to realize is that we are related to half the town and my grandfather's family has lived there for a long time!! The kids enjoyed checking out all the old things and looking at the native American room that had actual Indian pottery from a very long time ago. Ayden found a picture of Padad (what we called my grandfather) in the military room. It had pictures of all the men or women who were from Ramah and served in any of the wars from WWI through the current war in the middle east. My Padad served in WWII on the USS Enterprise. Ayden and Padad share a birthday and Ayden feels a connection to him because of that. He was pretty excited to find a picture of someone he knew in a museum.

Papa Chip (my dad) explaining how the horse drawn plow and planter worked.

All the yawhoos except for one or two of the babies. They were actually really good about not touching anything while in the museum. I am amazed that we made it out of the that small house without something breaking!!

There are vultures that live in the really tall trees around the museum and the kids had fun finding the feathers. Meysa sure knows how to pose already!!

Wyatt liked having Papa Chip's hat on. It kept the sun of of his bald head!! JD was Wyatt's buddy too!!

After the museum my mom wanted to show us where she lived while in Ramah as a kid. The kids thought it was pretty cool to see where their grandma lived when she was their age. Ramah is so small the house number is just 04. Yup just the number four!!

This old house was built by one of my great or great-great grandfathers. It is a really nice house for the area and it seems so large compared to most of the other homes too. As a kid my mom took piano lessons from the lady whose family lived in it. I got out of my car to take this picture so I could closer to it. Just as I got back into my car the homeowner came out I think to find out what the heck I was doing. But by the time I saw him I was already on down the road!!

This is the old Indian trading post owned originally by two brothers. Right now though it is owned by my mom's cousin Tami. They have town dances and other community functions there. She lives in the little house attached to it on the side.

El Morro

We wanted to do something with the kids in the afternoon so we first went to check out the ice caves that are just about 20 miles from where we camped. Sadly once we got there we found out that the cost to get in for a tribe like ours was way too much. So we decided to check out the national monument named El Morro that was on the other side of our camp ground. El Morro is kind of what Chimney Rock is to the Oregon Trail. El Morro was a place that explorers, settlers and the native people left there mark on. The puebloans that lived there over 2000 years left petroglyphs of animals, suns, mountains and such. The Spansih explorers left inscriptions as early as the 1500's. Then the American's who were traveling to California left their mark as well. There were also ruins found in the 1950's that were from the early Puebloans. It is thought that the Zuni Indians are decedents of those people. It was fascinating to see what the people left behind. Some of the inscriptions were ornate calligraphy and some were mere scratches in the rock. Also because of the how the rock formed, there were run offs from the rain water so there were oasis' in the midst of deserts and they saved many people from dying of thirst. It was a beautiful place. The kids loved looking at all the inscriptions and petroglyphs.

A very cool thing was that you can hike all the way to the top of El Morro and see the ruins. I don't think we quite knew what we were getting ourselves into when we decide to hike to the top. It was a steep trail and once on top you were looking out over a cliff. I kept calling it a mountain but it was really a cliff. Now imagine having 12 kids, 9 of who were under the age of 8, climbing a cliff. Once on top you had to stay on the trail that was cut into the rock for us to follow. We had to stagger the adults so that no child could just run off by themselves, and miraculously we all made it down alive. The kids were so proud of themselves for accomplishing that. It was truly beautiful from the top and I am really glad that we did the hike!! The kids are still talking about it. Meysa wanted to go and hike it the next day!!

This is the troop making their way to the inscription trail. It took us around to see all the inscriptions on the face of the cliff. The park has a booklet to share with you the stories of the people that left their mark there. It made it really interesting.

It is starting to get a little bit more steep as we head up to the trail head to take us to the top. After visiting with my great uncle Rankin, we learned that my grandfather, two of his brothers and I believe a cousin built the trail that we hiked on. They cut stairs and cut lines for a trail so you walk on the safest part of the cliff. Pretty cool to have a family connection to the wonderful place.

Here is a petroglyph of a big horn sheep or something of that sort. (click on the picture to see it larger)

This is looking up from the trail floor to the top of the cliff. Water runs off the edge and collects into a pool. I wish we could have seen the water falls after a good rain!!

We hiked across the top of that cliff. Once on top we had to cross the top and come down the other side. Now you can see why we were a bit nervous with all the kids on top.

This was coming around the corner before we headed up the switch backs to get us to the top!! I thought the rock just looked cool. It looks like it is barely hanging on and could fall at any moment.

The whole troop before the hike really starts to get hard. There was another large family that was wanting us to take their picture so we traded cameras and recorded that we were in fact there!!

This is the top of the cliff. We are looking out across this open area. Imagine kind of a horse shoe and we had to walk around the open area before heading back down.

This was a rock standing in the middle of the horse shoe. Pretty amazing scenery.

This is that rock that is barely hanging on but from the top of the cliff. We are pretty high at this point!!

This one of the ruins left behind by the Puebloans. It was really neat to see rooms built down into the rock like they were. I am guessing they chose to build their homes on a cliff to be able to see their enemy coming better. It didn't last long. They eventually moved off the rock and onto flat land.

We made it!! I wish I had taken more pictures at the top with all of us walking across this rock but I was a tad busy keeping kids alive. I think my mom took some, so if I get those I'll post them later. Papa Chip has Wyatt on his shoulders and Quiara at his side. We got down off the cliff just in time for the park to close!!

This is the gang a we were heading out of town a few days later. We just wanted to give a different perspective of the size of that thing. It was so much fun and a unique experience for all of those kids.

MIA

For those of my many loyal readers (seriously kidding here) who have been wondering where I have been for the last three weeks, I am back!!! I have been to a family reunion in Arizona, scaled a cliff in New Mexico and spent many a days without a shower as I camped!! I have so many pictures to go through and post about, my intention is to chronicle it day by day or event by event. This has become my family journal so bear with me while I get through them all.


To start off with I came to Idaho on June 23rd to pack up with my family for the trek to Arizona. The traveling party was myself and my 4 kids, my brother, his wife and his 5 kids, my older sister's older 3 kids and my other brother's 5 kids. My parents were also going down. The grand total was 17 kids and 5 adults. Kind of a scary ratio!! We were driving down in two large vans! I drove one and Aaron, my brother, drove the other one. My parents drove their fifth wheel trailer!! We left early on June 25th trying to make it to Layton, Utah the first night. To say the least it was going to be a LONG drive the first day!! As you can imagine with that many kids we had more than a few potty breaks. It didn't matter if we made everyone go when we stopped invariably someone would have to go again 20 minutes later. We could have seriously saved like 2 hours if we hadn't of stopped as often as we did. Sometimes it was in a rest stop, sometimes it was off the side of the rode!! Oh, the joys of driving long distances with children!! Miraculously we made it to Layton at about 8pm after driving 12-13 hours. We still had to check into the hotel and feed the masses. It was 10:30 before everyone was fed and in bed. We slept in our clothes because the work to unpack the crammed vans and then repack in the morning was not worth it. Little did I know that that would set a precedent for the rest of the trip. The hotel rooms also only had ONE King bed so I piled in with the older three kids and it was like sleeping with a bunch of octopuses!! Not one of my best nights sleep!!


We woke up the next morning to the horrific (sense the sarcasm please) news that Michael Jackson had passed away!! Don't get me wrong I like some of his songs, but I was not in love with him and didn't think he was a good example for my kids. As we were sitting in the dining area of the hotel eating our breakfast and watching the news Ayden pipes up and says..."Michael Jackson died, we don't care!!" I think he was just wishing he could watch cartoons, but it made me chuckle just the same!! After we ate our breakfast, we piled back into the cars and headed toward the next destination, which was Ramah, New Mexico!! It was to be another 12-13 hour drive!! The kids were being troopers and so far we had no major fights or quarrels!!

The ride was uneventful except for the road itself. My parent's poor trailer, it took a beating!! We drove through a lot of road construction and when we arrived at our destination we walked into the trailer and found that a glass bottle of vanilla had fallen out of a cupboard and shattered, a honey jar had catapulted to the front of the trailer and the cupboard had emptied it's contents back behind the tip-out!! We got to camp at dusk, and had to set up tents and also feed the kids, who were starving!! It quickly got dark and we didn't have the tents set up yet. My tent that I haven't used since I lived in Iowa didn't have a rain fly and the zipper was broken. So I ended up piling in with my brother and his family. We had no time to fix dinner so we ended up having cold cereal all squished into the trailer!!! After a real nutritious dinner all the girls headed to the potty and on the way back I happened to look up and I saw the most beautiful sky full of stars. It had been a LONG time since I had seen such a clear starry night. All the craziness of setting up camp seemed to fade as I looked at the beauty above us!!

My brother Aaron is wondering..."are we having fun yet?"

Do you think we could fit a few more bodies in here?!! We were thankful to have had the trailer or we would have been eating in the dark!!

Up next exciting Ramah!!!!