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Well, we finally did it. We mustered up enough courage to take Kaiya camping. It is something that Jamie & I have loved doing since we were first married, and it was an exciting prospect to share our love of camping with Miss Kaiya. We started planning the trip with the Churchwells months ago, and decided to go to Palo Duro Canyon, which is the second largest canyon in the United States. It is located about an hour outside of Amarillo (aka the middle of nowhere) so to save gas, we loaded all of us up in the Pilot & got a U-haul for all the gear.
The Intrepid Explorers
The canyon is gorgeous and we had a beautiful campsite. Here is Haylee climbing around on the boulders in the middle of camp, it isn't hard to see why Kaiya learned a new word while we were there, "Rock!" They were everywhere! Haylee loved to climb to the top of the rocks & boulders, and then say "You can see the whole universe from up here!!!"
Jamie & Rick set up camp, I had purchased us a new tent, since our old one wasn't big enough for 2 grown ups & a pack & play & I was so excited to try it out. Here is the picture from the website...
The first night we were there, the weather was beautiful, the temperature was in the mid 60's and there was a little rain, but the tent fared beautifully, and in the morning we were ready to start a fun filled day!
We took a lovely hike out along the "river" which mostly a bunch of red mud with a little bit of water.
On the way back to camp, Kaiya was so exhausted, we put the screen on the buggy down to help keep the sun off, and she fell fast asleep.
Here we are in front of an extremely scenic view from the visitor's center (please try not to be distracted by my beauty...I don't wear makeup when I camp, which is a policy I am seriously questioning now that there is photographic evidence).
Another uh, "interesting" part of the trip was seeing my first tarantula without the benefit of protective glass between us. I consider myself a fairly cool headed individual, however, I admit, I freaked out when a tarantula crawled right through the middle of our camp. We surely are in Texas now...here's the proof.
The later that evening, the park host rode up on his little gator and warned us that there was some severe weather rolling in, and we could expect winds up to 50 miles an hour. So we started to batten down the hatches.
Unfortunately here is where the fabulous bargain I got on our "family tent" turns out to be not such a great deal after all. The winds started kicking up, but were probably only gusting to 10 or 15 miles an hour, and the "front porch" part of our tent collapses & bends one of the poles. Scoutmaster Jamie fixes it up with some extra rope and super special knots, but unfortunately the design of the tent...well, it stunk. In the end, there was nothing to do to prepare for the coming storm other than take the poles out of the front porch part and lash it down at an angle. Unfortunately this essentially made our tent a giant sail.
Here is a picture of Jamie & Rick trying to rework the tent (with Hannah & Haylee acting as job supervisors of course) as the sky begins to look a little less friendly.
The impending storm also brought with it a beautiful, if not somewhat menacing, sunset.
We put Kaiya down for the night, and hoped for the best. The storm didn't get bad until after 10 or so, but when it got going, holy moley! Our whole tent was basically one giant wind funnel, and the wind would whip the tent sides in and out. There was thunder and lightning, but the scariest part was our crazy tent. I kept waiting for it to collapse in on us! During the worst of the storm we were being blown around so hard, that while I was laying on my cot next to the tent wall, the tent bowed in so much that it would completely cover me. I can't even explain it. The whole time, Jamie & I kept saying to each other, well when Kaiya wakes up, we will just run to the car and wait out the storm there. We packed up what we would need and prepared to go as soon as the storm woke her up. Well, she slept like an angel through the WHOLE THING!!! The storm finally let up about 3:30am and we were able to get a little sleep. It was crazy. Needless to say, our dastardly tent is being returned to the store ASAP!!!
Kaiya really did amazingly well the entire time. When we started planning the trip, we assumed that Kaiya would be walking by now, which of course, she is not. So we spent a lot of time like this...
And surprisingly enough we only had one "incident". Kaiya did one spectacular face plant, right in the dirt, but she shook it off pretty quickly.
Overall, this was a fabulous trip, and I couldn't have wished for a more fun family to go with. We always have fun with the Churchwells, and Hannah & Haylee are so sweet to Kaiya. It was a perfect first camp out for the Kaiya-bird and family.
Yes, we live in Texas, yes it was 101 degrees on Monday, and yes, we went to the Zoo anyway. And we also had some serious fun.
They had a new habitat open up with penguins, and Kaiya loved it! They would swim by her, and she would just shriek! Can you see the penguin right over her head in this picture? We had a really hard time getting her to look at the camera, she wanted to see the penguins!
Of course we also had to stop and feed the birds. We had quite a lot of excitement too, because Hannah, Haylee and Jen all got the birds to hop on their feed sticks. Unfortunately, the only one with a good picture of the bird on the stick is Haylee, because whenever anyone else got one to hop on, she would run up to them all excited and scare the bird away! An event which you can see in action in Jen's picture.
Kaiya and I went on the carousel as well, she rode on a pony for a little while, but kept wanting to turn around and look at Hannah & Haylee who were on the ponies behind us, which freaked me out just a little, so we moved to a stationary buckboard halfway through the ride.
We also rode the train at the zoo, which Kaiya & I hadn't done before, and that was quite fun. It also resulted in my favorite picture of the day of Hannah, Kaiya & Haylee.
If I had to make a list of my top 5 favorite things to do, I think one of those things would have to be shopping with friends. I don't know exactly why I like it so much, but there is something about walking around a store with a friend, looking at the merchandise, debating on buying things, talking about life and solving the worlds problems. I firmly believe that we could have peace if the world leaders would just go try on expensive shoes together.
This week I went with Hattie, Lauryn & Eliana on our first shopping expedition, it was only to Babies-R-Us (no Christian Louboutin heels this time) but we can make an adventure out of anything...
Just the girls...shopping up a storm!
I love to be crafty, there is so much inherent satisfaction in creating something attractive and/or useful out of a pile of stuff. Now, while I do love to make things, I generally do not come up with my own ideas on what to make...yes, I admit, My name is Tristen, and I am a craft-lifter.
I have found a new (well at least new to me) site that has given me some fabulous ideas. It is called Etsy, and it is "A place to buy and sell all things handmade". It is based in NYC (of course, everything fabulous comes out of NYC...sigh...) and there are some FABULOUS ideas. I saw somebody who has a shop there on Martha Stewart and I love it! So here it is...the link: www.etsy.com
and here is the link to the Black Apple dolls from Martha that brought me to this lovely site
and here is the link to that person's Etsy shop
Enjoy & be inspired!!!
Okay, so those of you who know me, know I think motorcycles are fabulous, and I also love all things kitschy. So what is the perfect combination of the two??? Well a pink Vespa style scooter of course! When Kaiya & I went to go have lunch with my mom today, we passed one in the parking garage, and I got very excited. So I said to my mom "Lets take Kaiya's picture on it!" My mom is the most honest person that I have ever known, and I could see the internal dialog going on in her head, but she agreed to be a co-conspirator anyway. Right before she put Kaiya on the seat she said "OK, get ready in case the alarm goes off." So I got set with the camera, she sat Kaiya on and I snapped the picture!
I do have to say though, even if we had gotten caught by the owner, I don't think she would have been upset, we are probably kindred spirits. Besides, I don't think you ride that scooter because you want to be inconspicuous.
So for the last week there hasn't been much to post, because we haven't been doing much of anything. Kaiya has been having a rough time getting in her 4 pre-molars at the same time (those are the ones in back of your pointy teeth). She had a fever of about 102 for a few days and was just miserable, so needless to say, we just took it easy around the house for the most part.
However, she is now back to her normal sweet self, and since she is such a big 1 year old girl now, I decided I probably haven't been letting her do enough for herself while she is eating. So for lunch I made her half a ham and cheese sandwich, cut it into quarters and let her go at it. She did really well, and seemed to enjoy doing it herself.
So she did so well for lunch, we let her feed herself with a spoon at dinner!This is a classic Kaiya move, and one of the reasons we call her Kaiya Bird, because she opens her mouth up enormous, like a baby bird waiting for a worm.
Yummy!
Here's even a little video we shot, because she did amazingly well for her first foray into feeding herself...
The first night we were there, the weather was beautiful, the temperature was in the mid 60's and there was a little rain, but the tent fared beautifully, and in the morning we were ready to start a fun filled day!
