4 kids, 4 states

 
Here we are at 4 Corners. Big indian market here for lots of cool stuff. 

Horses at Mesa Verde

 
These horses where just wandering around the visitor center. Untamed with their foal. 

Mesa Verde, CO

 
This is one of the major cliff dwelling sites at Mesa Verde. About a 1000 ft down. 

Beautiful Flower

 
We captured this lovely blossom in NM at a National Park of Cliff Dwellings. 

Zuni Dancers

 
These young people gave a great performance of a Zuni tribal dance. This was at an Peublo Indian Cultural Center in Albuquerque. 

Above the clouds and Albuquerque

 
We enjoyed the Sandia Mtns in Albuquerque. 5000 ft above the Rio Grande Valley 

Bale Grist Mill, Napa, CA

 
This is apparently the largerst wheel mill west of the Mississippi. Neat site and good flour. 

Nate and Hannah at Point Reyes Lighthouse, 302 steps down and 302 steps up.

  

Hannah at the Charles Schultz Museum. This picture was created uses small cartoon strips.

  

Roots of a giant Sequioa, WOW

  

Nate impersonating a Brown Bear in Yosemite

  

This shows Melissa's great artistic eye 

So long California

We are outa here. We are back in Phoenix now since California was a blah place for C.O. to work. We have enjoyed our time seeing awesome sites and visiting with our family and meeting some real nice folk. We are kinda glad to be headed back to the east. So We will post some stuff now that the connection is "wicked fast" and will let you see some things that we have seen.
The Wandering Williams

So long exceptional views 

Just how big can these monarches get? 

The description of the tree 

This is the tree described. The Gen Sherman

So long Chocolate fiestas (with Lindsey)

So long goofy friends

So long Snoopy

So long Family

So long San Fransisco

Sorta updated

I hope to have a good connection soon to be able to update more soon. Fresno has been somewhat of a disappointment but the area around in great. C.O. has fallen in love with the Sierra Mountains and will take a any opportunity to go there. We have visited Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon which right next to it. There are awesome sites which we hope to share with you soon. We may be soon leaving the area and could be headed to San Diego or L.A..
We are not sure at this point and it has been frustrating the way these Californian hospitals are acting. We have had several incidences of incredible rudness from people here in CA and we have such a "bitter taste" of CA now. So if we leave the state entirely for a different contract we won't mind leaving the rudness, but will definately miss the natural beauty.

Pictures

Fianlly I am able to put some new pictures. This one of Sam is great! The arch is from our visit with the Smith's in Moab, UT
More coming

Dateline: Bullhead City, AZ

We arrived here about 8:30 pm yesterday. We made good time from Albuquerque.
The time change is nice, the kids wake up and their bodies think it is 8am and yet local time is 7am, so we will leave rather earlier today than yesterday. We were going to try and stop at Hoover Dam and get some Dam pictures but when we turned on the radio and heard that the high today was going to be 106 degrees, we said "gotta go gotta go gotta go."
Talk later, not sure how much recption for the wireless we will have in Yosemite.
CYA

Update

We are here in Albuquerque and will be leaving on the 26th to go to Santa Rosa, CA, near San Francisco. The computer/internet connection at our current site is blah and I am trying to get more pictures up.
Last weekend we went to Moab, UT to visit Patty and Mike Smith, old old friends from way back. Great time guys, thanks. We will soon have some pictures from there up.
Talk later,
C.O.

Pictures for your enjoyment: It was going to be more pics but the %$#@&^^* connection would not take more.

We enjoyed some games and fun with Great Grandma Gatten. And had alot of fun at Jimmy and Liz's wedding.

Update time

Here are some new pics from the last month. Jimmy and Liz got married, and we got to see C.O.'s brother Rich and Patricia his wife as well as their family, Thanks for the fun guys. Also we got to spend time with Grandpa and Grandma Gatten as well as Great Grandma Gatten.

Reply to Comments

Hey All
Heather, Just outside of Strawberry, Fossil Creek Road, Trail to Fossil Springs.
Good luck, and take plenty of H2O, Park beyond where you think you should park.
Look at the Picture of Sam at the Petrified Forest.

Good to hear from you Anita, hope you are having a good summer.Take care

Gwen, The kids are sitting in a mining shovel that was used in AZ for strip mining. They told us the shovel that replaced it was twice as big. WOW!

Love talking to youse all,
G'Night

Albuquerque, NM

Hello All,
We are in DUSTY Albuquerque. What a windy city. We arrived here on the 21st of May after stopping in a couple of sites on the way here, like the Petrified Forest and Sunset Crater parks, and C.O. started work the next day. He is working at the University of NM hospital. Big downtown teaching hospital with a nice crew to work with. We are looking forward to seeing and learning about the native American nations around this area and also the history of this rough and tumble state.

Why Did You Do It?

Well....The decision to go full time of course was based on long research and study of what was entailed, making sure that we could get the amount of $ for our house, and all those serious considerations. Then we said, why not? C.O. is an R.N. and works 13 week contracts that allow us to stay around an area and see the sites. The kids get a lot of "osmotic" education. We have always tried to make all of our activities educational, even going to the pool, zoo, state houses, hikes down to the boonies to swim in a great swimming hole. National and some state parks are great resources for learning thru their junior ranger programs.
Our children are very precocious and make friends, young and old very easily. They adjust very quickly to new areas and look forward (after some gripping like all kids) to seeing and learning new adventures. We both agree that the mainstream is not a place that we want to have our kids. We have always homeschooled and this was a way to expose them to regional and cultural differences and allow them to stretch their comfort zone. It has been very interesting for us to be around here in Phoenix, with all of the immigration issues right at our door and letting them experience it close.
It is fun too. We are both around 40 and feel that doing this now with the kids will provide a foundation for our family relationship that will be broad and deep. Sounds "cheesy' perhaps, yet we are seeing a lot of growth from our travels that would not have been available back in our wonderful 200 plus years old home with the 1/2 acre. We certainly miss the "comfort" of that at times yet it is comforting to be living in the same house everyday, we just can move this one as we like.
Well I have blabbed a lot and hope this will give some help, feel free to write and enjoy the web page.
The Wandering Williams

Idiot and Beauty

So "The Idiot" decides that we should take a nice hike to one of the best swimming holes in the back country (which face it the vast majority of AZ is) of AZ as decided by Backpacker Magazine. Well the drive was rough and then the hike was about 2 miles longer than noted. Pretty country though. Then there was trouble with the enthusiasm of going down the mountain to the swimming hole, as evidenced by the additional 30# on C.O.'s back. We then were able to enjoy ( after a loooonnngggg walk down) this swimming hole which is fed by a spring that literally roils water out of the earth, good to drink (so far) too! Then the long sojourn back up the mountain, which Senor Idioto had been dreading the whole time that we were "enjoying" the swimming hole. Well wonders never cease, the dog walked all the way up with lots of encouragement and even Sam had to be carried only a couple of times. WOW! We got to the truck just a really dark pitch black was settling on Central AZ and drove as quick as we could and stopped at a great Mexican Restaurant in Payson. Now it is 1am and we are going to bed.
The Wandering Williams