Reason number 72 to keep a journal...

In our morning devotionals, we've been reading about an ancestor - Lucy Hanna White Flake. She married William Jordan Flake, founder of Snowflake, Arizona. (I think she did just as much work to found Snowflake as William did ;D) It has been very interesting to hear her tell of the pioneer lifestyle. She got married at around 16, William was only a few years older. Then he took a second wife after he and Lucy had already been married for 10 years (or was it 13? I can't remember). She explains how hard that was for both of them, but so far in the book has not ever been angry at God, William, or the second wife, Prudence for the decision. Of course, she had to consent to begin with. Wow. They had 4 children die - (so far) which I can only imagine seemed impossible to bear. They were asked by Brigham Young to colonize Arizona, so they went. Lucy talks about how this was much harder than moving from Nauvoo to Utah. At that point, they HAD to go. They were being forced out. But to move to Arizona! She said they could have made excuses... lots of other people did. She describes this move as the hardest thing that could have been asked of them. When they started to AZ, she had a 3 month old. Same age as Jubilee! :) The journey took 3 months. 2 months into it, she became a grandmother, as her oldest son had recently married and his wife had her baby prematurely. It was the coldest day of the season thus far (January) and in the middle of the night. She said she removed her breast from her 5 month old's mouth and went to help with the new baby. She didn't know what she was doing, but it had to be done. During the middle of a major move, with a 5 month old plus other kids, plus trying to feed everyone, she also had to take care of a newborn and new mother. She said after they were out of danger she nearly died herself because of all the stress. They had been living in Beaver, Utah. They first went to somewhere near what is now Brigham City and had a rough time for several months. The water was basically too muddy to be of any use to them. The people in this community were trying to live the United Order, and William had some trouble with that because of a situation where he was trying to help a traveler and he traded some communal property without the consent of the board. He decided to leave that place, and Lucy was sooooo glad - she couldn't wait to get out of there. They bought a farm in a place called Silver Lake and Lucy was thrilled to death to have the clean water! This is now Snowflake. I'm enjoying this book very much and would love to someday meet Lucy. She seems to me to be an amazing woman.

Rockhounds

Tuesday we went to Angels Camp to a store called "Stories in Stone". I had originally planned to take a tour of Mercer Caverns in Murphys, but it was a bit much for the budget. At $7.00 for kids over 3 and $12.00 for adults, it would have been nearly $50.00! So, instead we went to this store, and wow - was I impressed! The owner, Russ (I can't remember his last name) is about 80 years old and has been interested in rocks since he was 8. He owns some property near Bakersfield and has excavated extensively there, finding innumerable fossils of every sort of sea animal imaginable. He said he stopped counting shark teeth when he got to half a million! The things available at the store are incredible. The best part was an educational room where he does presentations for schools and other groups. He spent so much time and effort putting the room displays together. Unfortunately we were there a half hour before the store closed, so he didn't have time to do a presentation, (and I honestly don't know if he usually charges for it!) but he did give us a cook's tour of the room and kinda explained what he goes through in the actual presentation. It was a lot of information to absorb in a small amount of time, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Braeburn, Gala, and Cameo check out the display which shows what different chemical compounds make up the minerals which then make up the rocks. Russ was so knowledgeable. I love it when people are so passionate about things. It is so fun to speak with people like that.

Checking out some sedimentary rocks, fossils in the background.

Showing off a rock with sea fossils embedded in it.

He showed us some polished rocks with water in them! They just looked like normal polished rocks, but upon further inspection with a flashlight under the rock, there was the water sloshing around! They are made the same way as those fancy geodes you can crack open that have amethyst and other things inside. I'm not very good at explaining it, but apparently the volcano flow seals off some places so there is a cavity there and crystals grow in that open space. Very beautiful! He and his wife get a lot of their stock from Brazil. There is a photo in his warehouse that shows his wife standing next to some geodes that are taller than her!

Here is McIntosh with some smaller ones.

The warehouse was FILLED with rocks, fossils, gemstones, everything!

The girls didn't really get all that much out of our trip, I'm afraid. Pippin led the way in complaining with McIntosh and Cameo not far behind. (Gala had some moments, too) Fuji nearly had a couple tantrums as well. Braeburn wanted to know more about the fossils and rocks, but pretty much all the girls were interested in were playing with the magnet rocks and oohing and aahing at the pretty jewelry. However, I do have to say that Pippin and McIntosh asked a bjillion questions, so maybe they did get something out of it despite the complaining. Maybe Russ was used to it, because he seemed to take all the questions in stride and didn't get too freaked out when the girls tried to touch EVERYTHING. Fuji found a display of all sorts of little polished rocks and he was very patient when she asked what kind each one was. The funny thing is, she never actually asked him. She would turn around and hand him the rock and he would tell her what it was and then she would ask, "WHY?" Every time.

We did end up buying something... magnet rocks. They are great! They seem to be much stronger than regular fridge magnets and the kids spent a long time in the store playing with them. They were $1.00 each, unless you put a bunch into this little tiny bag - then they were only $6.00 for as many as could fit. We ended up getting 13.

It ended up being a good buy because they have pretty much played with them nonstop since then. It's a great way to keep them busy and discovering things. Cameo calls them her pet rocks. That's exactly the kind of pet I like - no hair and no poop.

The worst part of this field trip was that Tree had taken my camera to work for some car photos, and the camera I had only had an 8 mb card in it! So, these are the only photos I got - guess I should have had it on "economy". There's a gem and mineral show in Angels Camp this weekend. Maybe Braeburn and I will head back there and take the right camera!

LOUDNESS

Ever have one of those "loud" days? Everything seems overamplified. The littles wake up extra early and it all goes downhill from there. The kids want the music (ok, it's Scripture Scouts and Primary music) up at the max level on the stereo. Everything they say is a yell or a scream. They seem extra hyper all day, and the sound of them running on the wood floors through the house seems too much to bear. The baby doesn't want to be put down and protests loudly at every attempt to do so. Reading outloud to the gang is quite impossible because the words of the book cannot be heard over the conversations of the masses. No-one does their schoolwork or chores, and the only way to make oneself heard is to join in the loudness. A headache is inevitable. Even using the bathroom or taking a shower is no respite. Tree came home in the early afternoon for a few minutes and everything was in chaos. When Pippin asked him why he was home, he answered, "So I can get depressed". Hmph. When Tree comes home this evening I am going to escape. It's a nice day, so maybe I'll be able to take a book and go for a walk to a park or something. Somewhere nice and quiet. I gotta make dinner first though. Any quick ideas? I've got rocks on the brain, and can't think what to make for dinner - we've been studying geology. Ok, I've been studying geology - I can't get the kids to quiet down long enough to get any kind of book learning in. At least we've done a couple of field trips and they get excited when they see quartz.
The missionaries are scheduled to have dinner at our house tomorrow. DON'T LET ME FORGET! I've forgotten so many things lately. Things that are written in my planner, but I just forget to look at the dumb thing.

Retry

I've been inspired by several friends to try to blog again. But really, how do they have time??? I asked Braeburn how he thought they could do it, and he said, "Mom, you have 7 kids. I said, "Well, what about so-and-so? She has... oh yeah... two. Well what about this other so-and-so? She has... oh yeah... three. Well surely this other so-and-so... how does she do it? She has 5! Oh yeah... the youngest is 11 and she doesn't homeschool. Ok, so I could use this as an excuse. I really could. I just have too many kids under the age of 12, so I can't blog. That's 7, if you were wondering. But instead I'm going to try to keep up with the Joneses. You know why? Cause it's good for me, that's why! It gets me writing, which I rarely do, except for lists, like shopping and to-do. But, this is HARD. I should write more on Facebook, I should write letters to my family, I should write on my transformation.com blog. So now I'm adding another "should" to my list. When am I going to be able to write? Good question. I really have no idea. But I'm really good at adding "shoulds" to my to-do list. Thanks a lot, so-and-so. I appreciate your inspiration. Yeah, really I do. I could blog about the guilt factor I just inflicted upon myself. Why do women do this to themselves? All my journal entries in whatever form they take seem to start out this way: "Wow, it's been so long since I've written. I'm going to try really hard to be more consistent. I'm going to write every day or at least once a week." I wonder how many times I've written that!? I'm going to try to keep this blog focused on our school experiences, but I'm sure I'll violate that focus shortly. So bear with me, encourage me, whatever. Just know that I may not write a post for another year. 6 months from today is my birthday. I'll take stock at that time - see how I've done. GO MRS. APPLE!!