Plane ride=meet Niece

On May 9, 2018May 25, 2018 By AdventureForthIn Family, Travel1 Comment

Saturday the 5th at 3:20 am I am woken up by my alarm. Yay, I get to go “home” today. The checklist in my head begins with coffee, toothbrush, power charger, bags then wake boys up. I have energy because I know that in 12 hours I will be in Spokane.

I am not the type that worries or gets nervous but I was nervous. I was nervous because I didn’t know how Aveyah, who never wants to sit still and is not quiet, would do on my lap on airplanes for hours. I also feared her running off at the airport during check in or during our layover at the huge, busy, Dallas airport. I asked my friend for ideas and made sure I had all the toys and snacks she suggested. I also had my carrier and stroller. I was armed but nervous. Her best advice was that she told me she always prays about how she wants it to go and for who she has to sit next to. So I started praying whenever I started thinking about the what if’s. Praise God the flights were just as I prayed and I didn’t have anyone sit next to us on either flight, Aveyah didn’t scream very much, she didn’t want to run up and down the isles and she stayed in the stroller at the airports. Aww. I was so thankful for the reminder to pray and allow God to work out the details that I can’t control. She ate her snacks, looked at her book, colored, napped and played on my phone. The seatbelt and safety brochure were probably her favorite things though

Saturday evening my mom when to my Brother and Sister in Laws to meet my niece. She is the smallest baby, only 5-15lbs, that I have ever held. She is so cute and has long fingers and legs and soft blond hair. She sleep good and gaining her weight now. I am so glad that I got the opportunity to come home, see family and friends and meet Addi.

Aveyah is loving all the one on one attention she gets. She just runs around my moms house, jumps on the couch, want to always go outside and pet Nicki.

The boys have been in Tennessee playing and working with Scott. He has the huge task of packing up and hauling our home to a storage unit all before picking up his parents from the airport then going to a cabin for a week of vacation. I am excited to get back and see his parents and they are excited to soak up some Aveyah snuggles.

Hard times in life part 2

On July 30, 2017August 31, 2017 By AdventureForthIn Family, Plans, TravelLeave a comment

One tough decision we have been tossing around is whether or not we should keep our dog Diesel. She is a great dog and we have trained her to handle our life, kids and travel. She has been our sense of security (even though she welcomes anyone to pet her) and a companion among all our changes and moving. She loves to go on hikes with us and runs along on bike rides. We feel bad that she has to live in the back of the trailer or on a leash at all times. The day before we left Spokane to head to Missoula then to Colorado I mentioned to my friend that we were pretty sure Diesel would be better with another family. My friend has a friend who is looking for a dog:) and she has kids:)…perfect. We knew that if we were going to find her a new home it had to be to someone we know or someone recommend. We couldn’t do a stranger off Craigslist. We thought it was perfect but just wrong timing because we were leaving and going to be gone for over a year. Well my friend’s friend was super interested and her daughter really wanted Diesel. We were in Missoula getting ready to start our drive that day to Colorado when we talked to Stephanie on the phone. She said they definitely want her and could leave Spokane at noon if we. Hold meet them half way. Shucks. We wanted to be on the road headed east by noon not headed the opposite direction for another 3 hours of driving;but we knew we wouldn’t find her a better family and we knew we couldn’t really do the next year of traveling with her. So we got our stuff ready , found all of her stuff and records and loaded the truck up to drive and meet Stephanie and her kids.

It was such a bittersweet drive. We all talked about our times with her and what we love about her. We talked about responsibilities of having her and what her life is like with us traveling. We talked to the boys about sometimes hard decisions have to be made for the better of others not ourselves. We all knew that going to be with this new family who were so excited for her, had a yard and 2 acres, who would take her to the lake and camping was better for her then always being in a leash. Our biggest concern was her attaching and adjusting.

Stephanie has since then sent us many pictures and we can tell that she is super loved and attaching to them great. She even has a pool and got a haircut!!

Spokane for the week.

On June 24, 2017June 28, 2017 By AdventureForthIn Family, TravelLeave a comment

Driving to Spokane for the week. We will be staying at my moms. We have a few dentist appointments and friends to hang out with. Hope to see lots of people. Contact us to hang out.

On our stop we switched drivers. She loves it.

Will post more pics from our week. Tomorrow we are going to cheer my sister in law on at her first half iron man in CDA.

Spokane and Missoula fun!

On May 26, 2017September 18, 2018 By AdventureForthIn Family, TravelLeave a comment

Here are some pictures to show what we have done in Missoula and Spokane.

Hiking with friends
Going to Leavenworth
Aveyah crawling and getting into everything
Mother’s Day
Outdoor adventures =Aveyah eating rocks and grass

We are enjoying every moment while we are here in the PNW. Love it here. Soon we are headed to Canada.

Oh Missoula How We Have Missed You

On May 8, 2017February 21, 2023 By AdventureForthIn Family, TravelLeave a comment

We got to Missoula Tuesday the 24th. It was a great trip getting here. We left phoenix on the 21st and since that is my birthday I wanted to see if I could get free coffees along the way. I forgot that we can’t just go anywhere and park to get coffee. I did get one free one and only had to block part of a parking lot. We went to Lone Rock at Lake Powell what a beautiful place. We stayed right on the shore. Our neighbor was an awesome lady that let us have a bonfire with her and even made metal hangers into marshmallow sticks for the boys. She took some photos that actually had all 6 of us in them but sadly she never sent them to me. Makes me wonder if I gave her the wrong number.

We camped at Walmart next to a swampy “pond” and Brayton found a lot of worms.

Next we made it to Fairmont Hot Springs and spent the evening swimming and going down the water slide.

Since being in Missoula we have moved 3 times and now enjoy a great view parked at our friends ranch.

The weekend of Mothers Days and that week we will be in Spokane,WA.

Now to add some pictures…

Destination Phoenix AZ

On February 1, 2017September 18, 2018 By AdventureForthIn Family, TravelLeave a comment

We packed up all the stuff we needed from my mom’s house into 2 carry on bags and one checked bag plus each boys personal bag, and headed to Missoula. While in Missoula we got to see so many friends and family before we headed south. It was busy but great. Shane and Brayton also has their Birthdays.

Sunday morning we headed for the airport. Here is a picture to try to capture what it looked like for us to move to Phoenix in via airplane. 2 adults, 4 kids, 1 suitcase, 2 large backpacks, 4 little back packs, one heavy laptop bag, 2 small DVD bags, 1 stroller,1 baby carrier,2 booster seats, 1 car seat and 1 infant car seat with base.

( Bad picture, Blake is trying to make a shocked face at all our stuff, Shane and I are looking at a different camera)

Thankfully we made it through everything without losing anything or any one this time.

We have been in Phoenix a few days and have had some fun times. Play date at the park. Kids jumping on the trampoline and riding bikes all day. Birthday dinner celebration with friends. Good coffee from Elevate. We are also experiencing some not so good things. First our truck batteries were dead(2 big batteries). We had to replace those immediate because Scott was to work in the office the next day. The master bedroom closet slide out is broken so we can’t get to, or in pack our clothes, so they stay in a suitcase on the floor. The dirt bikes leaked oil in the back room and the oil is so sticky I can’t even clean it up. I have tried lemon oil, baking soda and scrubbing. That’s a bummer because the boys can’t play back there.

Then last night we had to evacuate our trailer in the middle of the night due to a toxic smell Scott and I had smelt all night. After investigating where the sulfur smell was coming from Scott checked the outside of the trailer and found the batteries were not working right and the sulfur gas was being off gassed which just happens to be under the master bedroom. I guess it’s highly flammable and super poisonous if touched. It’s bad to breath to and since we are confined into such a small space we knew we couldn’t stay in there so we packed everyone out and into our friends house at 3:45am. We need to pray over our home. Sitting for 4 months has been hard in it.

Some things we are looking forwards to is getting to have our dog Diesel back. Blake’s birthday on Thursday. A party on Saturday and getting to go to Church Sunday.

The Adventure continues.

Here are some pics. Aww maybe not…Still learning how to make them under 2MB.

Our 2016

On December 21, 2016June 28, 2017 By AdventureForthIn Family, TravelLeave a comment

Now that 2016 is coming to a close, I like to spend time thinking about all that has happened over the year. For us we always have so much change each year

I don’t really think about all of it until I start to list it out.

Travel from AZ to MT
Buy a truck that Scott and Blake drove back to AZ
Scott working full time
Pregnancy
Move into house on church site that we remodeled Nov and Dec of 2015
Boys turn 2, 5, 7
Buy a 5th wheel
Travel 11 states
Move in with with my mom
Find a church and community here
Have a baby
Frequent visits to Missoula
Holidays
Prepare to go back to AZ.
Plus all the fun adventure we go on as a family off-roading, camping, exploring, traveling, and seeing friends.

I want to make a video of our pictures as a little recap/reminder of our year. So I started the video and got all the way to July and had over 300 pictures in it and the shortest I could make it is 12 minutes. I made part 1. January- June 2016. OH NO. The file is to big for this web page…

Things I need to do:

learn how to make images and videos smaller so they work on this blog
make part 2 of 2016 video

Baby #4 is here

On December 3, 2016June 28, 2017 By AdventureForthIn Family, TravelLeave a comment

Baby #4 is here! Born on our 11th anniversary August 7th 2016 at 2:54am. To everyone’s surprise but to most folks hopes our baby GIRL was born. She was born at home in the birth pool. I had contractions that started and stopped all day, Scott’s parents came over in the afternoon, but around 11:30pm with no contractions happening we all went to bed. At midnight (now our anniversary which we truly didn’t want to share) labor stated. A little shy of 3 hours later Scott proudly announces, “Cari, we have a little girl!”