Are you crazy?

Hello- my name is Kendra and I am honored and excited to be a part of this Feed the Fire Families Blog!  Now I wouldn’t consider myself as rugged and adventurous as the other contributors of this blog, but I do love to be out in nature, spending time with my awesome family. 
We live very close to some amazing national parks, one of which we go to a couple times a year.  This last month was my husbands birthday and I surprised him with a night stay in a hotel {see…not so rugged, but that’s how we roll in our family, especially with a newborn} in Springdale {the city right outside of Zion} and a day of hiking and fun in Zion! 

 

Now the reason I titled this post “Are you Crazy?” is because I know that is what people wanted to ask us during our time in Springdale and Zion.  Now if you have ever been to Zion you know that it isn’t swarming with Utahans.  It’s actually swarming with foreigners from all over the world.  It’s pretty cool to hear all the different languages while riding on the shuttle.  Anyway, having four kids, and one being a one month old, I think most people thought we were pretty crazy to be hiking around in Zion.  We felt like celebrities having everyone looking at us and asking us questions.  We had many comments from people like “Wow are they all yours?” or “How old is your oldest?” to “Wow, that is brave of you to bring all these kids on a big trip like this” {little do they know we don’t live very far away} and “Wow how old is your baby, I can’t believe you brought him”.

Funny story - One time during the day on our way back on the bus my husband had all four kids and I had ran to the bathroom.  When I walked on the bus I heard this big group of people shout out, “And there’s the mother!” in a very excited voice.  I guess when my husband walked on the bus they were in awe that we had SO MANY kids and were traveling with a 1 month old!  As I walked down the aisle to my seat I had all these old couples tell me how cute my kids were and that I was a brave mom to get out and come to Zion!  I just smiled and said “thank you”.  So I guess the answer to the question they really wanted to ask us is…”Are we crazy? Yes, I guess we are, but at least we have fun together!” 
We only ended up doing two hikes.  The River Walk {which the river was actually closed..bummer}, and the Weeping Rock.  While on the River Walk my husband was carrying our baby in a snugli pack.  And about 10 minutes into the hike our baby totally pooped out the side of his diaper and all over my husbands shirt, shorts and shoes.  I could not stop laughing.  If it would have happened to me I would have been ticked :)
So here is the extent of our ruggedness…

How to change a blow out diaper in the middle of the hike, with a SCREAMING baby and TONS of people walking past you giving you bad looks for even bringing a baby that small out in the wild.

• Lay him on a rock on his Snugli,
• Wipe him down with wet wipes and then completely run out of wet wipes :(
• Pray you shoved an extra onsie in the backpack…Yeah we did!
• Tell the people walking by, “Sorry for the screaming child, he had a blowout” {You would cry to if it happened to you}
• and be glad you brought the other pouch just in case. 
• Then nurse the baby and hike on!

 
Yup I totally nursed and hiked, there was no place to sit down and he was screaming so I had this sling that I carry him in a lot, but never thought I could nurse in it, but then realized I could.  I had a tank top under my shirt so I could stay modest!  It sure was an adventure with a 1 month old, but we did have a great time and will definitely go back again!!

Here is my son becoming “one with nature” on a rock!

And here we are finally at the river, the kids threw rocks in the river for almost an hour.  They LOVED it, what kid wouldn’t? 

So there you have it.  You see, we can Feed the Fire, even with a one month old! 

Irrigation

I'm currently reading the book Boys Should Be Boys by Meg Meeker. In it she describes how it's really important for boys to be able to play outside, to explore, to test their bodies, to run and jump and expend their energy doing boy things.

I'll be forever grateful to my parents who, when I was seven, decided to move to a new house, one with a gigantic, 1 acre yard. We had to work hard to keep the lawn mowed, the 18 cherry trees pruned, and the garden kept. But we also had fun. One of the best things about this yard is that we water it by irrigation. There is nothing more refreshing than playing in the irrigation on a hot summer day. Now we get to take our little kidlets to play in the water where they can explore bugs, try new tricks, and do all of the kinds of things that kids are supposed to do!

Why I Feed the Fire

The other day our little family went fishing. Well, it actually ended up that my husband Bill was fishing, and I was making sure the small children were not falling into the extremely high lake. With the 10 month old packed on my back, and the nearly 3 year old being so curious and inquisitive, we decided to go exploring...away from the lake. On our adventure we ended up playing in a little spring, tracking deer prints, tracking our own foot prints, and talking a little bit about what we would do in the mountains if we ever got "blost" (the way my daughter says lost...I hope she always says it that way). At one point in our conversation, out of the blue, my daughter looked up at me and said "Mom, you are my best friend I have ever seen!!"

It is not always easy to get out and be adventurous with these little tiny kiddos of mine. It sometimes means switching up activities from what the plan was, or from what I really want to do, but I tell you what, it doesn't get any better than this. I am a 3 year olds best friend she has ever seen, I am surrounded by pine trees a lake and the smell of campfire, and I am at peace. This is why I Feed the Fire!

Grand Finale: Moab and Arches

The last part of our family adventure was spent in Moab and at Arches. We LOVE Arches. We spent the second night in Moab at a campsite which had a pool. This was wonderful since it was pretty much blazing hot outside!! The kids had a lot of fun, and we finished the evening with a trip for ice cream at a local diner. In the morning after packing up camp, we headed to Arches and spent the morning and early afternoon hiking in Arches National Park. We hiked to Landscape Arch first, and then had lunch. We finished our Arches outing by hiking Sand Dune Arch which is a favorite of the kids. It is short, in the shade, and has a ton of sand for the kids to play in. We filled up water guns for the kids and let them play around with them. We tried to keep them from squirting other hikers coming through, but there were a few hikers who encouraged them to go ahead and squirt them. There were more than a couple people who commented on what a great idea water guns were, obviously wishing they had thought of it! :) It was a great trip! It would be fair and accurate to say that we fed the family fire on this one! What a blast.

Goblin Valley

What a cool place! Goblin Valley is such a fun place for kids. At first my seven year old didn't want to go. He started the morning off saying, "I want to go home." To which I replied, "You are home. Doesn't this look like a different planet? I'm pretty sure you must be an alien from here." Pretty soon he realized how awesome it was, and was climbing all over the place. He even found a couple spots that he said made a perfect "bed" for his home there in Goblin Valley. I even found a rock formation that looked exactly like a foot! Your imagination can go crazy in a place like that.

Maiden Voyage

This was the maiden voyage of our "new" old tent trailer. We have wanted to buy one since we first got married, and after eight years of waiting we decided that it was time to do it! Since we had a little extra money we paid cash and bought one that would fit the family budget. We found this cool 1995 Camplite trailer with a slide out and bought it for $2300 dollars off of KSL. It was a little more than we were planning on spending originally, but it is light enough for us to pull with our pilot which is a super important feature. And though it isn't fancy, with the slide out it has 1 queen, 2 full beds, and a twin. And the way our family is growing . . . it is perfect for us! So this was our first trip with our new tent trailer which I wanted the kids to name, but they thought that that was just way too silly. So it is yet to be named, but it is great. I decided that one of my favorite sounds in the world is when you get your kids to sleep while camping and then you stay up looking at the stars and listen to the fun night camp noises happening in all of the campsites around you. Maybe I am weird for thinking that. But I really do love it. I was lying there in the dark listening to the scouts yelling and having fun during the night, and I was thinking . . . "Is there anything better than this?"

Wild "Bug" Canyon

Okay, so really the hike was called Wild Horse Canyon . . . but the kids and I decided to rename it after the hike. It was our first stop after we set up the tent trailer at the Goblin Valley Campsite. We decided that Wild Horse Canyon would be the perfect hike for late in the afternoon since it would be nice and cool in the slot canyon. And it was a lot cooler for sure! The kids had fun climbing on every rock they could climb on and we had to keep telling them to stop climbing until on the way back or else we would never get through the hike before dark. They were having fun. Surprisingly my five year old was the most adventurous of the three. Usually he is the one saying, "Mom . . . can you just put me on your shoulders. I'm tired!" But not this time. We couldn't keep him from climbing. And every time he made it up something he would say, "Take a picture!" But he wouldn't smile, he had to make some sort of weird pose. He is funny. The Canyon was amazing. It was so beautiful. There were a few spots that were a little tight to fit through with my 5 month old in the stroller backpack but we made it through. It was fun. The only problem we ran into the whole hike, and it wasn't a small thing, was that for some reason there were a ton of these little black gnat like bugs that were flying in our faces. We were hiking and swatting bugs out of our faces as we went. At one point my 7 year old started whimpering because of the bugs. But we just kept smiling and trying to keep a good attitude saying things like, "Isn't this fun?" And "Wow come look at this! It looks like a maze." But I have to admit there were a few moments I felt like whimpering because of the bugs! :) The kids still had fun even if the bugs were completely annoying. We basically were power walking the last part of the hike trying to get back to the car because the bugs were basically trying to attack us. We hurried and got the kids in the car and shut the doors quick. On the way back to camp we asked the kids if they had fun and they said, "Yes, but we didn't like the bugs!" I agreed and then we renamed the hike Wild "Bug" Canyon. You never know what challenge you might come across during an outing with kids. But if I have one tip to ensure a successful trip it would be to make sure to tell the kids often how much fun they are having before, during, and after the hike. They are very convincable. Attitude is everything. I think it could have been very possible to choose to be miserable and complain about the bugs, but we didn't. While in the car I said, "That was so fun! What was your favorite part?" And believe it or not they all had a favorite part, and the bugs didn't win!

Putting Forth the Effort

When Lamon and I were first married we were advised by many people to take time before we had kids to just enjoy eachother . . . to "have fun." We decided we had better do that and we decided that we would wait a year before we had our first child. Well we both were looking forward to starting a family and the whole waiting a year thing didn't so much happen. After three months we decided, "Hey. Let's have a baby!" So we did. To say that people thought we were crazy is an understatement. I don't know how many times when speaking about having kids we heard people say, "We want to wait to have kids because we want to have fun first" as if implying that all fun would end after the children arrive. Not that I think that it is wrong for people to have fun first together before they have kids . . . that's great. But if there is anything that we try to do well it is to have fun . . . and believe it or not we do it "with" kids. One of our favorite things to do as a family is go to National Parks. We love to camp and hike and we just enjoy seeing the beautiful Earth that God has created. At each place that we go we try to bring home a magnet to put on our fridge. Some day we hope to cover the whole fridge with magnets just to remind us of how much fun we've had and how unboring we are! :)We've had a lot of fun. Is it always easy to go on adventures with kids? No. But is it impossible? No way! It's worth the effort.

Feeding the Fire

The soul purpose of this blog is to show how one extended family is choosing to "Feed the Fire". So what does it mean to feed the fire, and how are we doing it? The dictionary lists about 21 different meanings of fire, some verbs some nouns. Among those meanings are:
(v. t.) To cause to explode
(n.) Anything which destroys or affects like fire.
(n.) Torture by burning; severe trial or affliction.
(v. t.) To inflame; to irritate, as the passions; as, to fire the soul with anger, pride, or revenge.
(v. i.) To be irritated or inflamed with passion.
And these are not so much the kind of "fires" we are trying to feed. No . . . I like these ones a lot better:
(v. t.) To light up as if by fire; to illuminate.
(n.) Liveliness of imagination or fancy; intellectual and moral enthusiasm; capacity for ardor and zeal.
(n.) Splendor; brilliancy; luster; hence, a star.
(v. t.) To animate; to give life or spirit to; as, to fire the genius of a young man.
(v. t.) To feed or serve the fire of
So basically anytime we choose to put forth extra effort to do something in our families that will "illuminate", bring "liveliness of imagination or fancy" to, and perhaps cause "intellectual and moral enthusiasm" we are going to tell you about it! Or if we decided to forgo spending the day sitting in a vegitative state in front of the computer or t.v. and get out and do something that will bring "spledor, brilliancy, or luster" to our lives. Or if there is something that is going to "animate" and "give life or spirit to" us and we decide to do it and in turn "Feed or serve the fire" of our family . . . we basically are going to blog about it!
So hopefully if anyone happens upon our blog, even if it's just us, it will make them want to get out and have fun as a family and "Feed the Fire"!!!