Arizona Bell's

11 wonderful years

2010-10-22T13:46:00.000-07:00

Savana turned 11 on October 13. She is such a lovely young lady and we enjoyed celebrating her birthday on the way to Idaho for Tarmi's wedding on October 16th. We drove from Arizona to Orem Utah the night before and stayed with Uncle Haydn and Aunt Jozette. It was so much fun to see them. Then we toured BYU, stopped for lunch with Aunt Annette and Uncle Tony, and then headed on to Boise where Aunt Kirsten had made Savana a cake. Happy Birthday Savana!

This is Savana on the morning of her 11th Birthday

We stopped in Provo and took a tour of BYU Campus with the kids. It was fun!

Aunt Kirsten picked a pirate theme for Savana

She made Savana a Treasure Cake

The driveway was decorated with chalk when we got to Aunt Kirsten

Fall Break

2010-10-22T13:45:00.000-07:00

Our 3 week Fall Break was full of fun activities. We went to Lake Havasu again and had a great time. This time Clint, Jenn and their kids came with us. Gavin also got to bring a friend along. It was filled with good weather, good food and good times.

It is great to be 8

2010-10-22T07:54:00.000-07:00

Life marches along at a furious pace and proof of that lies in Carver. He turned 8 years old on September 25. This birthday has been greatly anticipated by Carver because 8 means a birthday party, cub scouts and a baptism. For the last year Carver would keep coming to Trent and I and giving us the new idea about what party he wants. We had: Pump it Up, Bowling, Gymnastics, Swim Party, Air Force Party in the back yard, and the list went on and on and on..... He decided to go with a swim party in Grandma's pool and it was a lot of fun.

Another great thing about turning 8 is that you get to start Cub Scouts.

Thats only 36 more Pack Meetings until we are done!

He came back from his first night of Cub Scouts very enthusiastic about going back next week.

Carver was baptized on October 9th. It was a lovely day filled with friends and family. He was baptized and confirmed by Trent. His cousin Kimberly played the piano while we were waiting for Carver and Trent to dress and come back for the confirmation.

So Happy Birthday Carver! It is great to be 8!

Gran

2010-09-19T11:21:00.000-07:00

I woke up to the news this morning that Gran had passed away during the night in South Africa. She was 90 years old and had been failing these last few years. As I went about my morning, I could not turn off the tears as I found my thoughts filled with her. I have so many good memories of the things she did. When I was a child, she once came to visit and surprised us with a puppy. She had taken a train from her home to ours and had smuggled the puppy in her purse so that the train conductor didn't see it. Us grandchildren were so surprised and delighted. I am not sure what my parents thought about our wonderful surprise though, but I imagine it would have been similar to mine if my mother or mother -in-law surprised my children with a puppy.

Gran had false teeth, and this was completely fascinating to me as a child. I would go and wish her good morning when she slept over and always take a good look at the teeth floating in the cup on the table by her bed. I used to love watching her talk without them in her mouth! Sometimes she would begin her day and then exclaim "Oh! I forgot my teeth!" Then she would go and put them in. I always found that very funny.
Gran always had tea and biscuits (cookies) at tea-time. She would give us milk or juice as she knew that we didn't drink tea.

My father loved his mother so much and she loved him. I admire her strength and that she took in her sisters child as a toddler and raised him as her own. She was grief stricken at my fathers funeral. I find comfort that they are reunited.

I regret that my children never had the opportunity to meet Gran. I am grateful for my life and family here in the United States, but have always keenly felt the missing parts of my family left in South Africa. My mom told me that they found a letter I had written to Gran for her 90th birthday last year tucked away in her Bible. It means a lot to me that she kept it. I have missed her and will miss her all the more, now that she is no longer among us. So my tears today are both happy and sad. I am happy she is no longer bound to a frail body. I am sad because there is nothing that can replace her, I love her and I will miss her.

Once Upon a Summer......Presents.......

2010-07-25T16:05:00.000-07:00

Once Upon a Mattress..........

Every summer my kids usually make a movie or make up a play and act it out. This year, I decided with so many cousins in town I would formalize things and do a "real" play for them. My sister Del has 5 kids. I have four kids. My sister-in-law Annette sent her two kids from Utah, and my brother-in -law Clint has 3 kids. Also add in 3 other friends and we have ourselves a cast! Okay so do the math, 17 kids, six of which are boys and all the rest girls. What play do you choose? Well, if you are me, you find a good script (once upon a matteress) and then you cast an Evil Queen (Kim), Princess Fred (Kayla), and Daunty (Prince Dauntless = Gavin). You then write in some ninja jesters: Carver, Matthew, Corbin, Michael, and Malachi, who by the queens command go to the nearest Princess Academy filled with Princesses: Rachel, Savana, Caitlyn, Avery, Karina, Farrah, Hailey, Mckei and Parker who are practicing princess skills and gaining pricess attributes. They kidnap the princesses drag them back to the castle where the queen auditions them to be Daunty's wife. Each princess displays a skill or talent and are all rejected until Princess Fred sleeps on the pea, light saber, hanger, nose picker, scythe and anything else Prince Dauntless can get under the mattress. then they lived happily ever after.... Oh yes, did I mention this is a musical, so they sang solos and songs. Whew.....

I wanted them to get the full effect, so we also had a couple of set days to design, build and paint the set. This involved making pink and gray castle walls. Pink for Princess academy. Making thrones, and planning costumes. The impressive thing is that they did all of this during a very busy two weeks. Aunt Del was music director and Grandma Bell was Ninja/Jester coordinator and this could not have happened without them! A shout out also goes to Aunt Jenn who finished painting the set in the garage when it was literally 106 degrees. Gavin, Kayla, Savana and Hailey ran warm ups and games before every rehearsal. It was so much fun!

This is a rehearsal before we had the set done.
The kids are doing warm ups and generally having a good time.

Queen Kim and her Ninjas/Jesters

Princess Academy

Princess Avery's Task: Proper Way to Eat a Cookie: Pinkies Up!

Evil Queen Kim and the Pea

Prince Dauntless putting everything sharp he can think of under the mattress.

Princess Fred counting sheep.

Chariots of Fire Moment followed by High 5!

We all had a great two weeks. No TV was watched at my house for the entire time we worked on this.

Would I do it again? Well...you will have to ask me next summer!

Swim like a Fish

2010-07-11T16:12:00.000-07:00

I had made a goal for each of our kids that they will all swim on a swim team for at least one summer. I want my children to know how to swim. I just didn't realize it would all be the same summer. I decided to put Gavin on a team. After going to his practice and watching all the kids swimming, I realized that I could probably put all of my kids on a swim team too. Gavin's team was full, so I went to a different pool and signed up the other 3 kids on a different team. And that is how I ended up leaving at 6:30am on Tuesday through Friday for a 7-8 am swim practice for Savana, Avery, and Carver, and also have a 8-9am swim practice at a different location for Gavin. While I sorely miss sleeping in, thanks to my sister and a couple of friends willing to help, I am very happy I did it. Swimming is a whole new world to us. The meets go fast and are very exciting. All of my children have improved their times significantly and I am so proud of them.

Summer Baby

2010-07-11T15:56:00.000-07:00

We kicked off our summer with a birthday party for Avery. She invited a couple of friends and a couple of cousins for some fun in the sun at Grandma Bell's pool.

It was a lot of fun.

Avery's 9 year old Birthday list!

1. You were the best class vice president in 2nd grade!

2. You joined basketball this year and were fabulous at it. You scored every game!

3. You also played soccer and were excellent at it.

4. Played a wonderful song at your piano recital.

5. Joined swim team and raced in your first swim meets.

6. Is thoroughly embarrased by dad.

7. You love food, eating it, making it and sharing it with everybody.

8. Earned the Gilly go Getter Award at school and got to eat lunch out with the priciple.

9. Is the best sister and daughter a family could ever have, we love you!

The Little Science Fair Project Who Could...

2010-03-29T08:11:00.000-07:00

Things got a little crazy around here because Gavin and Savana had Science Fair Projects due. They worked hard, Gavin did a project on rust and Savana did a project on storing pop corn. They both came out very well, good job guys!
Avery watched them put their projects together and looked a little left out, so I asked her if she wanted to do a little project too. We brainstormed different ideas, and she decided to do a project a friend of mine suggested. It was entitled "Which Cereal Gets Soggy The Fastest?" It was simple, something Avery, a 2nd grader could do on her own. I showed her how to follow the scientific method and she went with it. She got the whole thing done in a few hours on a Saturday morning. I got her a science board and printed pictures up of her project. She asked if she could take it to school to show her teacher and I said yes thinking it would be a show and tell type of deal.
Well, it turns out that Avery's teacher entered her project into the Science Fair at school and Avery won 1st place, qualifying her to enter into a regional Science Fair called Southern Arizona Regional Science Engineering Fair (SARSEF). This surprised me, and I thought maybe there weren't many 2nd grade projects entered so she sort of automatically did well. We started getting notes home asking to document our research and to write a science journal to include with her project for this competition. At this point I started to get nervous. Our research consisted of reading the side of the cereal box and using their recommendation for how much milk to use. Avery picked cereal she likes to eat. Our project only took a few hours, so journaling it didn't take very long.
Well, I had Avery go ahead and "document" our cereal box reading and make a cute journal.

During spring break we were notified that Avery's project had won an award and that we had to attend the Award Ceremony to see what she won.

Avery was awarded 2nd place in the Southern Arizona Regional Science and Engineering Fair (http://www.sarsef.org/) for her science fair project titled “Which cereal gets soggy fastest?” She received the award Thursday Mar 11 at the Tucson Convention Center. There were about 2000 projects competing overall. There were about 300 awards given out! Way to go Avery! If Avery had been a little older, winning this would have qualified her for a trip to Washington D.C. for the National Discovery Science Fair.
So there you go, the little science fair project who could and did, and whatever will we come up with next year?

A funny thing..

2010-03-28T19:55:00.000-07:00

Several years ago we went on vacation to Florida. We saw uncle Haydn and played on his beach. We visited Disney World, and basically had a great time. While we were there, Trent grew a beard/goatee/vandyke and until a few weeks ago, never shaved it off
One fine Sunday morning Trent decided to trim his beard/goatee/vandyke and had a little mishap which resulted in his having to shave it all off.

Here is a picture of Trent with his beard and a picture without!

I of course, knowing what a rare event this was knew it must be documented.

This is the kids reaction when they noticed! Here is the rare family picture of Trent without a beard.

The funny thing was Trent's brother also shave his beard off that day as he had been called to the Bishopric in his ward. Luckily, Trent got to grow his back and proceeded to do just that as fast as he could!

Wii Will Wii Will Party!

2010-03-27T21:44:00.000-07:00

Gavin celebrated his birthday with his friends. They went bowling and then came back to the house for cake and Wii games. It was loud, crazy and loads of fun. What a great bunch of boys.

January 2010

2010-03-27T20:42:00.000-07:00

On January 29th at 1:02PM Gavin Trent Bell turned 12 years old. Although his mother feels like she isn't old enough to have a 12 year old, it just went right ahead and happened anyway. Gavin, having you join our family 12 years ago was such a blessing for Dad and I. We love you and enjoy you so very much. Allright, enough with the mush!
Here is your 12 year old list!
1. You are the best big brother your little sibs could possibly wish for, funny, kind, patient, well... mostly patient!
2. You rocked your audition for Beauty and the Beast and scored the role of Gaston! Your drama teacher called and said "Mrs. Bell, Gavin blew us away with his audition!" Ya got chops!
3. You made the honor roll every quarter so far in 6th grade, and we forgive you for not letting us put the "I have an honor student at Desert Sky Middle School" bumper sticker on the van.
4. You have grown 6 inches and gone from size 10-12 to size 16-18 in 12 months. Way to go Too Tall.
5. You've developed a love for movie theater movies and take great pleasure in discussing (in great detail) all the ways the movie is different from the book.
6. This year you started having Friday game night at our house to hang out with your friends.
7. This year, you started ignoring your parents in public :) Dad and I find this quite funny.
8. You are famous in our house for the expression"oh no you diint".
9. Your favorite meal: anything and is there more?
10. You rock at playing the piano.
11. You missed the bus home for the first time this year and when you called me to come and get you I asked why you missed it, you said: Oh I was just chit chatting and lost track of time.
12. Bed time officiallychanged to 9:30PM. Yes, we know you stay up late to sneak in extra reading! You also know and have told every blonde joke ever invented, prompting your mother to dye her hair from blonde back to dark brown.

Gavin, this year has also had some challenges and you have dealt with them with maturity beyond your years. We are proud of you.

Thanksgiving 2009 Cabin Fever!

2009-12-15T14:31:00.000-08:00

We spent Thanksgiving up in the White Mountains with Trent's brother and family as well as Grandma and Grandpa. We stayed at a cabin, ate Thanksgiving Dinner and played lots of games. The kids spent hours outside. We got snow on the last night we were there. It was exciting. We hadn't seen the white stuff for a while! It was a wonderful trip! Savana spent hours outside building the fort! Even though it was cold.

Carver was "fixing" the fort. It took a long time.

Avery had a giant smile on her face the whole weekend and only came in for Hot Chocolate.

Gavin was "Master of all he surveyed!" He had a great time.

Halloween 2009!

2009-12-15T11:19:00.000-08:00

As always, Halloween was filled with fun costumes, fun trick or treating and waaaaay to much candy!! Need I say more?

Avery was Joan of Arc. Gavin was MIB. Carver was a Jedi Knight. Savana was a Pirate!

Horse Camp

2009-12-15T08:44:00.000-08:00

Savana and Avery went to horse camp during the Fall Break. It was Savana's second time so she was a pro this year! It was Avery's first time. She has always been a bit horse crazy, so this was a lot of fun for her. It was also a little bit intimidating, as the horses are large and there is one old horse named Sugar who walks around everywhere and tries to eat everyone's lunch! The girls were picked up by Miss Candace every morning at 7 AM at Safeway, and returned to us at 5PM. The days were long and packed full of learning to walk, care for and train horses. There were also many trailrides. Avery admits to a little homesickness, but still loved camp! Savana just loved camp and was never homesick!!

It was hot, dusty and a lot of flies, but still very fun!

It was a fun week and the girls look forward to doing it again next fall. Carver plans to go next year too!

Today Savana turned 10.

2009-10-13T15:37:00.000-07:00

It is hard to believe that it has already been ten years since a beautiful baby girl joined our family! Trent and I were so happy to have you, and in a blink of an eye, you are already ten. I decided to make you a top ten list of things to remember about Savana.

#1.... "I do it!!". From the moment you could talk you were telling us that you could do it. You could put on your own socks, put on your own shoes, get your own clothes on, comb your own hair... even if it took you forever! You can do it!

#2.....You are the cutest lady bug ever!!! For three years in a row you wanted to be a lady bug for Halloween. Adorable!!!!!

#3.... You are famous for the following expressions used in our family: Oooo Pricey, Oooo you've been schooled, and yes, Whatever!!!

#4..... You hate socks:)

#5..... You love to sing Hoedown Throwdown and sing it often.

#6.....You play the piano beautifully.

#7......You play a mean game of both canasta and Wyatt Earp!

#8......Your feet are superfast at soccer.

#9.....You are busy: You play the piano, soccer,you're in the band, choir, advanced math, activity days and ELP!

#10....You are a wonderful daughter and sister. WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!

Happy Birthday Savana.

More Lake Havasu Pictures

2009-10-07T20:28:00.001-07:00

Gavin driving the Boat.

Savana tubing!

Gavin tubing!

Gavin again

Carver ready to tube!

Pictures!

2009-10-07T20:18:00.000-07:00

Avery flying on the tube. Lake Havasu

Trent, Gavin Savana and Avery walking on the sandbar at Lake Havasu

Savana and Avery making sure the boat stays "parked" at Lake Havasu

Carver turned 7!!

Carver's Birthday Present!

2009-10-07T11:11:00.000-07:00

Well so much has happened over this last month that I haven't found time to write about it. So here we go. Sadly, Grandpa Mark passed away at the end of August. His funeral was on September 4th in Pocatello Idaho. We drove up in time for the viewing the night before the funeral. Although Mark has been ill for some time now and is in a better place, it was still emotional to say goodbye. He has been a good grandfather to my kids, and was certainly full of lots of advice for them and for Trent and I! Trent will miss playing cribbage with him. I will miss his love of birds, fishing and the great stories he liked to tell. He was buried with full military honors as he was a vet of WW II. He shared a story with us about when he had been called up to serve. He wanted to be a pilot but it turns out he was color blind and the military was picky about things like that. They wanted their pilots to be able to tell the difference between enemy uniforms. Well Mark waited in line to take his test and proceeded to memorize all the answers to the questions the soldiers ahead of him were asked. When it got to be his turn he answered all the questions the nurse asked. She laughed and told him that he got all the answers right, but it was for the wrong test. She had switched to a different test right as it was his turn. So he got to serve as an office clerk instead of a pilot during WWI.
We will miss him.

We had a lot of school activities leading up to the fall break. Savana had her 4th grade musical. It was all about being good to the earth. It was cute and fun. Gavin had a choir concert the same week and that was very enjoyable. He has a great low voice now, and unlike the rest of his family, he can carry a tune.

On September 25th Carver turned 7! It was a fun day and we love him so much! He had two birthday cakes because he couldn't decide vanilla or chocolate:). Here are 7 great things that happened to Carver this year!

1....Carver learned to swim this year! Like a Fish!

2....Carver gets to go to school full day and eat lunch in the Cafeteria!

3.. Famous Carver expression this year "That's weak dad".

4...Got the Family award for riding on the tube the longest at Lake Havasu.

5...Favorite meal is still Pasghetti!

6...Turned 7 and gets to go to bed at 8PM!

7...Is a great brother with a huge sense of humor!

We love you Carver.

We love year round school because it gives us a fabulous 3 week Fall break! We just got back from Lake Havasu last weekend. It was an enjoyable vacation just for our little family. We camped at the state park right at the beach on the lake. There was hardly anyone else there, and hardly any boats on the lake. The first day we hung out by the lake, swimming in the water ever time we got hot. It was so relaxing. We rented a boat for day two and three. The kids had a great time letting us pull them around the lake on a tube. Any time we got hot, we stopped the boat and jumped into the water. Lake Havasu has sand bars in the middle of it where you can pull your boat right on top of. We anchored on one of them and played in the ankle deep water. It difficult to describe the sensation of standing on a piece of sand, completely surrounded by deep water.

The only problem we had was when we tried to crash the boat by a lighthouse. Well we didn't exactly try. On day two of the boat, we backed it off the beach where we had "parked" it for the night. We got about a quarter mile from the beach and the boat cut out. No matter what we tried, it wouldn't start. We dropped the anchor, but soon noticed that the anchor was dragging along the bottom of the lake as we were dragged back toward the shore, yup toward the lighthouse and the rocks. Well, we decided to call the company we were renting the boat from to see what they would like us to do. The had us try a couple of different things, nothing worked. They then told us not to worry, they'd send someone over to help us.
It was hard not to panic as the boat kept being steadily swept to the shore and rocks. We drifted past some buoy's marking off a swim area, and I managed to grab a buoy and slip a rope around it. I held onto the rope for about 15 minutes, but the boat eventually just pulled away. It was probably a good thing as I don't know how much the state park was going to charge me for dragging off their swim area. Finally we saw someone pull up on the shore to help, right as the boat was minutes from the rock. A man got out of his truck and started running down to the light house. He was dropping car keys, wallet and whatever else was in his pocket as he ran. He climbed down the rocks and waited for us to get to the rocks. I'm not sure what his plan was, maybe to push us back of the rocks after we hit them? At this point, the boat takes one last swing sideways into the rocks and just stops. Apparently the anchor finally caught. Then the boat swings the other direction, away from the rocks, and away for the guy that's supposed to help us. He just wades into the water and swims out to the boat. At this point, relief is starting to set in. We were about 40 minutes into the ordeal and I am trying not to cry, when the guy gets on the boat, sits in the driver seat, and yup, starts the boat right up. Now, Trent and I had been frantically trying to start it every few minutes and it never worked for us, so we both felt a little upset when the boat started right up. The guy explained that since it had cooled down from the day before, the boat was cold and hard to start. Not for him apparently. He drove us around a bit and revved the engine a lot and then jumped back into the lake and swam back to shore. We then proceeded to drive right to the middle of the lake as far away from any light houses as possible! So there you have it. No crash, no sinking to the bottom of Lake Havasu, and we can't wait to try it all again next year.
Now we are just enjoying the last two weeks of our break. Pretty good stuff.

2009-08-23T15:42:00.000-07:00

This is the debut of our family blog. I am not really technically inclined so bear with me as I figure out how to do this! A few months ago I signed up on Facebook and have found people that I haven't had contact with for years. It is so wonderful to be able to find somebody with a click of a button. Many of you have asked if I have a blog and now I can say yes! So here we go:

The kids have been in school for a month now and instead of feeling organized, I feel like we keep scrambling to adjust our schedules to accommodate whatever new activity somebody in the family takes on. I guess that's the way it works in a large family. I love that the kids have so many things that interest and excite them. Now we just have to find a way to get everybody where they need to be!

So how are we doing? Despite the busy schedule, we are doing well. Trent has made a good adjustment to his new job here in Tucson. He enjoys the people he works with and especially loves Raytheon Friday's! He gets every other Friday off.
I love Tucson! It reminds me of where I grew up in South Africa. The sun shines most of the time. Monsoons are awesome and the Desert Blooms!
Somebody once told me that it takes a year after you move to feel like you belong somewhere. I have found this to be true. This year, my children felt so much more confident about beginning the school year. They have friends, know the teachers and know their way around the school.
I am proud of them for moving outside of their comfort zones and making an effort to make this move a success.

Hopefully I will figure out how to get picture's up and do that next!