J Tree/Carefree/Phoenix

Hello everyone, im sorry it's been awhile since our last confession! We are reaching you in the olympic spirit, GO CANADA!! Of course Mark and Rryla, especially, are awaiting that hockey game tomorrow between the US and CANADA. So thats what we'll be doing in our RV tomorrow afternoon. We are blessed to of gotten a descrambler and are finally getting some olympic coverage.
Well it's been an experience this past week. Lets see, Teaghen last blogged in Apple Valley, where it was cold but not an apple tree in sight. From their we hugged and kissed our relatives goodbye just as it looked like a storm was on the brew and we headed for Joshua Tree. We were on a mission because Mark was desperate to climb and we had to meet Al in Kerri on tues. We arrived late in J Tree found a funky coffee shop, and some great advice on some free camping for the night. It was a cold and windy night their. I made abit of a homemade soup and we had some breads and dips and played sculpting cranium by candlelite, it was fun. ( Im pretty sure in the end Rryla, myself and Aidan came out notorious!) The next day Mark and the girls climbed. They did so well. Even the little ones had a turn. Everyone braved the freezing cold temp and the wind to enjoy the heights out on the rock. I was very impressed with Teag and Rryla's ability to climb, they were like pros. Mark was a bit of a daredevil and had my heart racing a couple of times. I left them to continue and headed for the RV with the little ones to do some cleaning, while they watched a movie. Around dinner time we headed back on the road after some fried egg sandwiches and soup towards Phoenix, dodging rabbits on the road the whole way.
We arrived in Carefree just past midnight and found a spot on the side of the road for the night. In the am we hooked up with Al and Kerri at a great resort just down the road. We stayed by the pool for most of the day, swam had showers and a hot tub. In the pm the adults had a great dinner out for the night and the kids enjoyed pizza in the rv. We came home, put all the kids to bed and tucked in early. The next day Mark and Al went climbing while Kerri, myself and the kids did some shopping. Carefree is right next door to another community called Cave Creek and it had some great little shops that we all enjoyed. Teag and Rry picked up a couple of great shirts in one boutique and i got some great soups and hotsauce in another store. We grabbed some lunch and headed back to the resort for a hot tub. The guys met back up with us, told us their tales from the cactus filled desert excursion. How they conquered a massive rock and also how they got kicked off a the rock by mafia looking dudes because they were on private property. It was all in the name of fun and fame though because people were out taking pictures of the guys and their climbing. After the tales of the day we all headed to "the Buffalo Chip" for some dinner and to watch some good ol fashion bull riding!! WOW, this was crazy, it was awesome....and we were only their for amatuer night. Professional night happens on friday night. We were impressed though. Their were fire pits and music and real life cowboys riding bulls. Everyone enjoyed themselves. Kerri and Al headed off to dinseyland the next day (thursday) and we headed to Phoenix to get our awning and fix the fridge.
So here we are in Phoenix, and what can i say, it's big and intimidating. We are staying at the "The covered wagon rv park" it's not in a great neighborhood so for those of you that know me well can imagine that my sleep is lacking!! We did, however, get our new awning, its fabulous, and our fridge part will be in on monday. (I can't wait to not have to trip over the cooler everyday) Mark took the rv in to have our awning put on this morning and the kids and i hung out in the rv park in our tent. We went to a park today, and the little ones rode thier bikes. Our time here is not one of the highlights of our trip, but it is times like this that make the good times that much better. We are all getting a little restless and fed up with living on top of each other so to speak, or maybe thats just me because i havn;t been sleeping, but either way the awning will allow us to enlarge our living space when we hit the beaches of Mexico for extended periods of time.
We are now a month into this trip, and i have to say that i hang onto something Graham said to me and thats, "after a month you are going to want to come home, fight the feeling, power through it and things will be amazing" I will power through this part G.K.! We are planning on crossing the border on tuesday. At this point we are trying to decide between the Lukeville crossing and the crossing at Nosgalas. Either way our planned, first night stay in Mexico on tuesday evening, will be at Guaymas. Hopefully we'll have wifi and we'll get a blog out to you all then.
We continue to meet amazing people on our journey, nice, helpful people, who have touched our lives in one way or another. I would like to thank those people for coming into our lives. And to all of you, we think of you all each day on our journey, we miss you and hold you all close to our hearts. May this reach you all in the olympic spirit and in happiness and in health.
All our love
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Pics will follow