Thinking of you...

I've been hammered today with memories of my dear grandparents George Kilburn Rockwood and Mary Elizabeth Flemming-Rockwood. I feel them so close today, the veil is thin. My grandparents were wonderful people. Mary took great care of me as an infant and a toddler. My parents were so incredibly young when I was born, I am so grateful my grandmothers stepped in to help. Most babies in my situation would have been given up for adoption back then.

Mary was a very creative and loving influence in my life, I can attribute so much of who I am to her and her example. She viewed her family through rose colored lenses. Every child, grandchild and great-grandchild was perfect in her eyes. I can still here her voice over the phone on her birthday Jan. 2ND 1997 when Zachary was born, "Do you have a birthday present for me?" Then her infectious giggle followed. George was an intelligent and responsible man who loved music (big band, the blues and dixieland jazz), and he loved it loud. You always knew when George Rockwood was home from work. No matter the hour of the day or night he cranked his tunes so loud, the WHOLE neighborhood could hear it. He also loved God, philosophy and religion and helped me through my journey to find my own personal salvation, and I hope to help him with his someday. Miss you Grandma and Grandpa Rockwood.

Desert Rat Detour

Yup that desert rat is me alright! I went up to Park City Utah earlier this week to work on a pilot with special guest Zac Amidan, Freestyle Arielist on the U.S. Ski Team and Olympic hopeful. He was nice enough to give the crew posters signed by the entire team. My Zach dug the gesture, he put it in his room next to his Agassi tennis ball.We were lucky enough to be escorted around the 2002 Olympic Park's restricted areas. What these monkeys do is quite impressive! There is no way you could get me to slide down one of these ramps on my bum, much less on a pair of skis..

Of course, being the desert rat that I am I have no idea how to ski, or make a decent snow ball, heck I had to borrow a coat from someone else to survive the snow. Really, the weather and scenery was quite beautiful.

Through the river and over the woods..

...to grandpa Doyle's house we go! Well we had a great Easter time. This will be the 5th year in a row we have spent at Mike's Dad's place in Tonto Basin Arizona. This year the clan consisted of our family, the Ward's, Uncle Justin and Mary's parents joined us on Saturday. The there are the usual country folk in the area who drop by, hang out and have some great food. The weather was great and the hills were in bloom. To get there you have to drive through a river, literally!

It's kinda like camping, except there is a house, plumbing and a kitchen. Yeah baby, my kinda "camping".

As usual the kids have a grand old time getting dirty, chasing cows, peacocks, chickens and dogs, feeding the fish, flying kites, cruisin in the ranger, hanging by the campfire, coloring and hunting for easter eggs. Oh! they even saw a rattlesnake! The adults enjoy eating lots of bbq and other good foods, catching up and relaxing in the beautiful weather. Here are some pictures of the weekend.Seth sharing his cute little smile and Joel showing how dirty he managed to get!

David by the coi pond and one of the calves the kids chased around.

Easter baskets galore!

The kids colored eggs and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows.

Raegan and her Papa flying a kite and Zachary enduring bear hugs from his Nana.Auntie Lori and Rae, Mary's Mom and Mary chillin in the great weather.Relaxing by the pond with Uncle J and Indian girl Rae of Sunshine.

Bubble Gum Bubble Gum in a dish...

...how many wishes can you wish? Zach wanted me to post his impressive bubble.

Front Page News!!

It can be exciting to make the news, as long as it's not your arrest report or news of your wrong doings or tragedies. Thursday the Boulder City View is published and delivered to our door. Raegan's sweet face was on the cover. Here she is... uh.. listening? ignoring? spacing out? as the mayor reads to the kids as school.

(EDITED TO ADD) I just have to say, how fun a ward family can be. Upon arrival at church yesterday Raegan the local celebrity was greeted with numerous hugs and smiles (in regards to her being in the paper) from many grandmas and grandpas in our ward. They were so excited for her. A few even brought her their own copies so we can send them to grandparents. Of course she paraded the papers around through all the meetings to inform those who weren't aware of her debut.

Renaissance Ditch Day

Today Zach's class went to a Renaissance Faire ALL DAY LONG! Mary was a parent chaperone to a group of 5 boys in his class. Luckily Christian was in our group. There was a plethora of medieval games, food and shopping. The boys had a great time playing "Fight a Knight". They had all these foam tipped weapons to choose from. If you were touched on the arm or leg in battle you had to stop using it by holding your arm behind your back or going down on your knees. If you were touched on your chest or back, you're dead. The line for this game was LONG, the kids loved it. Zachary managed to win a game, which was rare being the family that ran it battled all day long and almost always won. Congrats Sir Zach!

She works hard for the money!

Had a great day at work yesterday. One of my best friends Miss Amy Tobler was on set with me. Its always a good gig with Amy on board. We worked on a commercial for CiCi's Pizza. Normally I do not take pictures with the celebs I work with, I find it a bit cheezy, desperate and all too civilian. But I couldnt help myself this time, I think I have a new celebrity favorite, this is Pat Crawford Brown, she has been on so many television shows I cannot even start to list them, you may recognize her. She was also a nun in the sister act movies. She was so sweet and was breaking into song all day long, telling me about her family and making me miss my grandmothers. And so funny delivering her lines. We laughed and laughed. Which was a relief from director "Grumpy Pants" (as Josalene the stylist called him). Can't wait to see the results.

Ace America Crabtree turns 4

It is Ace's (the 5 th Crabtree) birthday month. Happy Birthday Ace-a-nator, Acey, Acey-boo-boo! Ace came into our family four years ago. We adopted him as therapy for Zachary who was severly afraid of dogs, cats, birds, etc. His fear began when he was quite little with a couple of traumatizing experiences with mean dogs. At 7 years old it was escalating and we knew we had to do something, so we decided we needed a family pet. We searched and searched for a dog, we visited many shelters and considered a few dogs, it was really hard for Zach to visit each place, he just couldn't look at all those dogs. Finally on a Saturday at Pets Mart, the Nye County Shelter had rescue dogs in the store. Ace was just as timid as Zachary. Ace buried his nose in my arm, he just couldn't look at all those people. We took him to a quiet corner of the store to see how they would react, Zach was peeking out from behind Mike and Ace was peeking out from behind me. He was 4 months old and a perfect match. So we took him home. You can see Zachary's aprehension, we had to coax him next to Ace in this picture, this is the day we brought him home.And as you can see, it worked... We love our dandelion, doggie!!

He has been a good puppy, aside from being way too furry, he has never bitten anyone, had and accident in the house or torn anything up in the house. Ace is also a celebrity, click on this link and you will see his modeling debut as an Inspirada ad family dog, in the green section bottom right. http://www.inspirada.com/hb.home.html He's been in the paper a few times too.

Weekend Warriors

Last weekend was a busy one. Mary drove 13 hours each way to Carlsbad NM to attend her high school best friend Nicole's wedding. She picked up her mom along the way and they had a good time catching up, listening to books on cd and eating a TON of junk food. Raegan spent the night with her Grandma Suzan, whom she loves so much, in fact she told Mary "I don't think I'm going to miss you, I'll be staying with Grandma Suzan, I'll just be way too busy to think about it." And, Zach and Mike went to Scout Day Camp at the Werley Mines in Nelson Nevada. Here are some pictures of them working on Zach's Webelos activities. Zachary invited is good friend Christian along, who was stoked because he will be able to pass off these things too. Oh and kudos to Mike for coming in first place (by one second) in our ward on the obstacle course.

Well Traveled

One of the many blessings we have in regards to our kids is that they travel well. In part due to technology, we have a portable dvd player we use exclusively for road trips, in an effort to keep the experience a novelty. Here is Zach with his Nintendo DS, we didn't hear a single "Are we there yet? while he was plugged in.
Raegan is always prepared when she travels, pillow, blanket, stuffed animal and a hat to cover her face. We were traveling to Disneyland and she was adamant about trying to rest up so she had energy the following day at the park. We are maybe 20 miles out of Vegas at this point. :-)

Habitat Happenings

Raegan had to do a report on seals for school. Here is an impressive habitat she made to go along with her report. She made the seals from salt dough. I made one seal and she made the rest. it was her idea to make them look like they were swimming in the water. Rae is such a talent and really knows how to use her imagination and make it happen.
Although, I have to admit I did shoot down the walkie talkie idea when she told me she needed a car battery, two cell phones and cable wire! When I told her I couldnt afford these things and she would have to invent something with what we had, she was so disapointed she hung her drawn out plans on the wall with a big X through them and a picture of herself being sad saying "TOO BAD, NO WALKIE TALKIES!" I shouldve taken a picture.

Newsies "Read all about it!"

One of Mike's pleasures in life is reading the newspaper. Well he has managed to pass it on to the kids. And its a good thing!

Rae loves the funnies of course and Zach , the sports page "What else!"

Recital Reminiscing

Back in December Zachary and Raegan had their first piano recital. Raegan was the first student to play as she was the newest and youngest. She played "Jingle Bells" which was beyond her level and "Old Mac Donald" (which she played 4 times in a row, she said there are more than one animal on a farm so she couldnt just play it one time through)

Zachary had been taking lessons for about 9 months. He really is a natural. His teacher Brittany (a shy young lady from our ward) says he has amazing fluidity for his age. Zach played "Ode to Joy" and "The Indian Song". His fingers do impress me, he can even type correctly. Did I mention I failed typewriting in high school..

This whole piano thing started a few years back when we were visiting Grandpa Teddy and Grandma Kathy. They had a beautiful old (Im talking 100 years old) piano that Zach couldnt keep his hands off, not to mention a guitar. They said if Zach ever wanted to learn he could have the piano. Well he really really wants to learn to play the guitar, but the piano comes easy to him. Mary has sought advice from the many musicians she works with about how old Zach should be before learning the guitar. The advice is the same time and time again, "Have him learn the piano first!" Grandpa Teddy delived the piano to Zachary about a year ago. So Grandma Kathy and Aunt Frannie came to the piano recital, it was very small and quaint, but we were so happy to have them with us, since they were an instrument in the whole piano thing.

Ballet days

Raegan is taking ballet this year. Mom decided she needed to work on her form. This is taken on parents observation day. She came home last week upset because her ballet teacher cracked down on the class, the recital is only 6 weeks away. I explained to her that is normal. Quite frankly I thought her ballet teacher was way too leinient on parents day. My ballet teacher was a bear...

At home with the Crabtrees

I just uploaded months of pictures off my camera. So, I figured i would play catch up here. Here we have Miss Rae donning her domestic garb. I asked her to help me clean up the kitchen and she replied, "Sure, I'll get ready!" And boy did she. She looks like Poor Cinderella to me here, the singing really added to the moment.Zachary and Mike have bonded over football. Here they are resuming their game watching positions, and not real happy about who is winning.. Zach is particularly invested in the game. I call this image "Football Blues".