Archive for the ‘travels & exploration’ Category
Weekend fun
This past weekend, we went to Heritage Square in downtown Phoenix and had lunch at a Victorian tearoom and then toured a Victorian house built in 1895. The girly grandchildren had “Children’s Tea” – they loved it! I had a chai latte (which I haven’t had since prepregnancy) and *delicious* veggie sandwhich. Yummmmm.
The tour was wonderful – it was supposed to be a 30 minute guided tour, but took an hour because the kids were so engaged and had a kabillion questions.
Here’s Jake, playing airplane with Mira…
Grandma so happy to see her baby! In the two months since she last saw him he went from barely creeping and rolling over to mobile, into EVERYTHING baby. She’s amazed at the changes!
Grandma Karen left yesterday. What fun, but a whirlwind! She’s back next month for a week – we’ll miss her in the meantime.
Here are a few pictures that I snagged off HER camera, which is cool because she caught some shots I would usually not get!
Here are a few from the Sunday afternoon tea party:
Waiting for the tea, was getting boring. I love this shot LOL – it shows perfectly how restless they were getting. (The littlest one is their three year old cousin, my SIL’s daughter)…
Ah, now they have “tea” (which was, in fact, hot cocoa lol)…
I was looking at Bailey at the “chldren’s table” that day and thinking how close she is to outgrowing that. This was probably one of the last occasions where she’s going to be one of the Little Girls. And HM is right on her heels. Wahhhhhh.
Not a fabulous pic, but a RARE candid of Scott, me AND Jake!
Here we are sitting down to dinner…
I love this photo of me and my boy. 
His silly side shows through a little here – he’s wearing Jake’s hat… Jake is technically in the photo, too – he’s on my back! 
And the gratuitous baby shot! He’s cruising around the outside of his walker (brakes engaged!)
Apache Trail adventure
For the third weekend in a row, we had a fun outdoors family excursion.
On Sunday, we loaded up the van and spent the day on the Apache Trail.
We had lunch at Tortilla Flats. We white knuckled through Fish Creek Canyon, a scary part of the drive that included tight hairpin curves, sheer drops off the edge of a one lane dirt road and… no guardrail!!
We stopped to check out Theodore Roosevelt Dam, which was a pretty impressive feat of engineering and then for the best part of the day: Tonto National Monument – a very cool ruin site of ancient cliff dwellings.
That cave is a 1/2 mile hike up a (paved) path – 350 vertical feet! <huff puff> with baby in sling. Hear me roar! I had to pace myself by walking very, very slowly. And I did not appreciate any of my children coming to a dead stop in front of me; maintaining a slow, steady slog was essential. This trail was *steep*.
Tonto National Monument consists of the ruins of two cliff dwellings established by the Salado Indians in about 1300 AD. The southeast-facing settlements were built quite high up a steep hillside within well-protected natural caves overlooking the Tonto Basin, which is now flooded forming Theodore Roosevelt Lake, though originally the Salt River flowed through the Basin which was therefore well irrigated and fertile. As with many other ancient peoples of the Southwest, the Salado appear to have abandoned their villages suddenly, early in the fifteenth century, for reasons which are not known.
The two-story ruin originally had 19 rooms; these are quite well-preserved and it is permitted to walk around the inside. Originally, the only access was by ladder leading to an entrance at the far left of the structure, which made the settlement easy to defend.
Here’s a pic of Mira doing the hike up to the ruins:
Here we are in the ruins:
See the wee little parking lot way down there??
Gorgeous Arizona:
The least enjoyable part of the trip was the drive through Globe-Miami – a copper mining town. Strip mining has really defaced the mountains in this area.
This is an interesting town, established in 1876 after a large globe-shaped boulder of silver was found nearby. Both copper and silver were later mined extensively, and several old buildings remain from the boom times around the turn of the century. A few miles west, huge copper ore extraction operations still continue around Miami, and US 60 passes several miles of tailings ponds and spoil heaps.
Visiting a ghost town (Goldfield)
Another gorgeous weekend in Arizona!
Yesterday was devoted to errands… first, we got the oil changed in my van, and while we were waiting, I snapped this lovely shot. 
Also, I ordered a new pair of prescription sunglasses that are oh-so-cool and superflattering Guccis. I can’t wait until the come in!
Today we spent the afternoon in Goldfield – a restored ghost town (read: tourist trap) just east of Apache Junction in the Superstition foothills.
We had an early dinner in the Saloon, checked out the live reptile exhibit, had some ice cream and rode a narrow gauge train. Oh, and we saw a gunfight!
Funny little touristy experience that is only about 20 minutes from our house. We’ll go back sometime for the goldmine tours and maybe a trail ride…
Of course, some pix!
We’re going to the zoo, zoo, zoo
There is no better day for the Phoenix Zoo than superbowl Sunday – the weather is usually comfortable and the place is practically deserted!
We had all the kids today, plus Superbowl Sunday (in 2005, that was Feb 6) is the anniversary of our first date (three years ago) and we chose the zoo as our first meeting place.
We also introduced our children to each other at the zoo, later that spring.
When Scott first saw me walking (so proudly lol) into the zoo with my children that first time, he said, “ahh, there you are – with your little ducklings all in a row.” So sweet. I feel all melty just thinking about it again. ♥
Here’s a pic from that day, almost three years ago:
Two years ago, when we were celebrating the first anniversary of our first date, we went to the zoo sans children, rented one of those bicycle surreys and debated whether or not we should have a baby together while we cycled around the zoo. I went off the pill mid-February and the TTC fun began.
I say, we sure have done a lot of living these past three years!!
Here are some pix from the day we had today. I can’t BELIEVE what a good time we had. Not one meltdown. Okay, Andrew really didn’t want to be there, but he was a good sport in spite of it. Yes, HM is wearing shorts. It was a gorgeous day!
Bailey, HM and Mira:
Getting back in my groove.
I don’t know why life suddenly seems so much more busy! Events ramped up over the holidays and just haven’t slowed down since.I hate when I fall off my blogging groove – it’s so hard to recoup, you know? And the more time that passes since my last entry, the more overwhelmed I get with the backlog of events I keep meaning to blog about! So, mainly so I can STOP feeling overwhelmed and just get on with it, here’s a bullet point summary of stuff going on lately:
- Christmas was fun, except for the part where I got mastitis.
We celebrated on the Sunday before Christmas, when we had all our family gathered ’round. I was feeling the mastitis coming on that day and I KNEW I should rest, but how could that happen, right? So I didn’t and it kicked my ass. I did bedrest the next day and the recovery started.
- We journeyed to Colorado with 5 of our 6 kids in tow on the 26th. Half the trip we spend at Keystone where Scott’s parents have a condo. The kids LOVED the snow. Scott and I got to have a date at the restaurant of the little ski lodge where we were married 2.5 years ago. Our first solo meal since Jake was born!
- We spent the second half of our trip in Pueblo visiting with family, particularly Scott’s grandparents, who got to meet Jake for the first time. Scott and I had a blast digging through old photographs and learning more of his family history. We also found this amazing photo of Scott’s dad when he was three months old. Look familiar??
- Jake is five months old now and nearly crawling. Noooooooooo – it’s too soon! He is a happy little man. He knows and loves his siblings. It’s so cute the way his face lights up when they pay any kind of attention to him. He was WONDERFUL on the plane. Our flights were fairly short and he slept most of the time. Getting though security with a baby, a stroller, a carseat plus the diaper bag was no joy, however. Not to mention all the other kids. Oy.
- I am ever more dissatisfied with my shape. I got a Garmin Forerunner in my stocking (I asked for it lol) and augmented that with a jogging stroller this past week. I need to get off my duff. Even if I don’t lose a pound (and I’m not likely to until little one is getting most of his nutrition from solids when he is 12+ months old), exercise will help me feel better about myself. I would be a lot more despairing if I hadn’t been through this before. I had a similar weight gain pattern after Mira was born – and I successfully lost the weight and got fit after her first birthday. I want to start with healthier habits NOW though – at least in the exercise department. I don’t know HOW I can curb these insane carb cravings when I’m nursing.
In fact, I’m going to upload my pictures, post this entry, dress the baby, gather up my gear and GET WALKING. Today. (Edited to update: Or maybe I will AFTER the baby wakes up from his nap. )
States I’ve visited
I have visited 32 states (62%) in the US. Plus I've been to Mexico (Sonora) and Canada (Quebec and Ontario)
From my Scott
Weekend trip to Tuscon Zoo
The weather here in AZ was PERFECT this weekend and we decided to load up the girls and take a road trip down to Tucson's Reid Park Zoo. (Phoenix Zoo members get in free
The girls and I had never been to Tuscon, so it was neat to see some of that city. It's much hillier and prettier in that area than I imagined.
Much like Phoenix, it's bordered to the north (and east?) with a large mountain range. A very impressive mountain range, too – the Catalinas – with a peak of over 9,000 feet, that range gets an average 180" snow per year. On our way back home, we drove by the entrance to the Catalina State Park. We're very interested in exploring that ara someday.
What a relaxing day we had. We didn't rush out the door, but took our time. Regardless of weather or size of zoo, we knew that between my third trimester endurance levels and typical kid behavior, we'd have maybe a 2-3 hour window of opportunity at the zoo anyway. So we headed out around 8:30 am, stopped at BK for a fast food breakfast and then hit I-10 for the two hour drive. I-10 sucks.
We loved the zoo! We're regulars at the Phoenix Zoo, so it was a fun and different contrast. Reid Park Zoo is a small, community zoo. It wasn't too crowded – nice to see the exhibits without all the jostling crowds. Also, the habitats were significantly smaller than you see in the larger metro zoos, so that means we were able to FIND the animals in nearly all the exhibits.
Anyway, it was such a small zoo that we saw the whole thing in two hours. Perfect! We were ready to go by then, anyway. We had a late lunch at PF Changs and took the back way (through Florence/Queen Creek) home. In all, a really nice day.
For the I-Can't-Take-Them-Anywhere file
The most intriguing exhibit, as far as the girls were concerned, was that of the polar bears.
On the glass of the enclosure, a small placard explained that you might find the polar bears engaged in mating behavior: nuzzling and nibbling, rubbing against each other, potentially we'd even see some mounting. If the zoo was lucky, they would breed and later there would be a little polar bear cub.
So we approached the exhibit, along with another mom and her preschooler. All my girls had to, of course, carefully read the sign out loud and observe, that yes! The bears were nuzzling and nibbling and rubbing and… "Oh look, he wants to mount! They're going to mount!"
"Okay, girls, let's move on… Yes, now. N O W."
(Anyway, our enjoyable Saturday was followed by an even more relaxing Sunday – including a visit from Andrea and McK for brunch. The girls had a good time playing with their baby cousin. The rest of the day we just hung out at home, needing to go nowhere.) It felt soooo good, that downtime.
Pregnancy progress: Sibling bonding
Here are a couple sweet belly bonding snaps from our visit to Tuscon's Reid Park Zoo yesterday afternoon (more about that and pix in a separate post later).
Weekend in Strawberry
Got up early on Saturday for some hiking and geocache adventuring. Before we met, Scott had logged some 40 caches (some of them with A), but this was a first for the girls and me. They were pretty excited by the idea of hunting for a goodie box in the middle of a wilderness hike. (Not that they whined any less about having to hike, of course.)
We chose the Fossil Creek (Lover's) Leap cache, thinking that it looked like a pretty easy hike. Well, it was… kinda. The trail/road that was supposed to be there was basically nonexistent, so the terrain was rather rougher than we were expecting – rocky and lots of fallen limbs/trees to navigate. Normally? NO big deal. For a pregnant lady used to an elevation of around 1200 feet? Well, this elevation was 6600 feet and that combined with pregnancy made the whole thing a little more strenuous than I was planning.
HM was SO solicitous during this hike. She insisted on hanging
back with me and if I faltered at all, she would pat my arm encouragingly. It was incredibly sweet. I'm really enjoying this golden mama-adoration stage she's going through right now. May it never end. 
She DID make me very nervous at the Rim, however. That girl was all about scrambling as close to the edge of an 800 foot drop (my heart, omg) as she possibly could.
Anyway, the hike was only 3 miles round trip, the weather was GORGEOUS and the view was completely amazing, amazing amazing and so completely worth the hassle of finding it.
In all, that adventure took several hours, after which we had a nice lunch at a local restaurant, visited the oldest standing schoolhouse in AZ as well as the Pine-Strawberry museum in Pine, AZ… before heading back to the cabin to crash (if you were 14 or older) and run shrieking wild outside with kids from the other cabins (if you were 11 or younger).
Then we had a simple sloppy joe dinner and an evening of board games before we called it a night. (I was completely wiped out by this time.)
Today we slept in a little, packed up and visited a neat ancient Indian ruin site (Shoo Fly Village) on the way home. We tried to log a geocache here, but it appeared the cache involved trudging for 3 miles roundtrip through some very high grass. Meh. Not interested, not this day. The site itself was fascinating, though, and – again – the views were just gorgeous.
Shoofly Village (managed by the U.S. Forest Service) was occupiedbetween A.D. 1000 and 1250 and consists of 79 surface rooms. Itis thought the occupants were an "autonomous variant of theHohokam."
We had a great time and in being there I discovered there's lots more I want to explore in the area: various trails and lakes, hot springs and swimming holes, the Tonto Natural Bridge (when I'm stronger and more fit again!).
QotD: In-Flight Entertainment
How do you pass the time during a flight? What do you bring in your carry-on?
I always take a book and usually also a magazine or two (something fluffy like People or US). Sometimes I do puzzles or sudoku. Sometimes I knit. Every once in a blue moon, I have a fun conversation with one of my seat mates.
Sometimes I watch the in-flight movie – but after my last experience, I doubt I ever will again. When I flew to Ohio earlier this month, I watched The Queen on the east-bound flight. I was really looking forward to that movie! But the audio just sucked 100% – and since no subtitles, I felt like I missed out on a lot of the nuances. I think I liked the movie, but I sure didn't enjoy the experience one bit.
I also always have lip balm, hand sanitizer, a small tube of hand lotion plus some sudafed if I'm even the tiniest bit congested (ear pain – OUCH). Emergency snack provisions. Tissues.
Mom to 4 kids and 2 stepkids, I am a writer writing in the heart of chaos. I am the co-founder and former editor of 
