This is a flashback to April. Life gets so busy sometimes that blogging has been put on the back burner. Now I'm playing catch-up and I hate that. So I'll just have to insert some flashbacks every now and then.
Back at the first part of April we took advantage of Karl Jarvis being out of town to go and visit some of our favorite friends: Sarah, Noah, and Max. I flew in Friday afternoon from South Carolina, was picked up at the airport by Dan, retrieved the kids from Dan and Brandee's, went straight to the Church to help with our Young Women fundraiser event, ditched out on the clean-up due to me and the kids being totally exhausted, and got up early the next morning to set off to Arizona.
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| Packed and ready to go, with trays full of books, toys, coloring, snacks, and a DVD player for movies. They did not realize how long of a drive it would be. 9-10 hours. We all did pretty well, considering. |
It was horrendously windy during the drive. A few times I thought my bike might just blow off the top of the vehicle, or we would be blown off the road. Thank goodness that didn't happen. The kids took naps at different times, read books, colored, played with toys, and watched movies. We did have a few pit stops in the middle of nowhere and had to pull over a few more times than I was happy about to retrieve some toy or change a DVD. By the time we got to Arizona I was so ready to be out of the car. Sarah, recognizing how I felt told me to go for a run. Gladly!!
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| Going to the park on our bikes. My kids hadn't yet dealt with hills. Eric and Rubie each crashed once and then became a better biker for it. |
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| The pro shows us how it is done. |
One fun thing we did was visit Walnut Canyon. It was a beautiful day with sunshine and pretty warm. We explored the trail at the top of the canyon for a few minutes before descending down below.
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| Everyone wanted to make sure we read all the signs. |
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| Eric was fascinated with his shadow. |
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| I can't remember what exactly this was called, but basically it is the pit house/latrine/bathroom. |
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| Foundation of an ancient home. |
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| This stick looks like antlers. |
A little history:
Walnut Canyon has a long human history. Artifacts show that Archaic peoples, who traveled throughout the Southwest thousands of years ago, occupied the canyon at times.
Artwork by Michael Hampshire
An artist's recreation of life in a Walnut Canyon cliff dwelling
Later came the first permanent inhabitants, who flourished in the region from about A.D. 600 until 1400. Archeologists labeled this prehistoric culture Sinagua, from the old Spanish name for the region,
Sierra de Sin Agua, or “mountains without water.”
Scattered families farmed the canyon rims for centuries, growing small gardens of corn, squash, and beans. During the 1100s, many moved into limestone alcoves below the canyon rim, where they constructed the cliff dwellings we see today. The Walnut Canyon community thrived for another 150 years before the people moved on.
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| There were a lot of steps on this hike. |
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| I don't think I can make it any farther! |
We took advantage of a gorgeous day to visit Slide Rock State Park in Sedona. This place reminded me of Zion. It was beautiful. We had a great time. The water was still cold, but the sunshine was warm.
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| Of course there were lots of baths and Max and Rubie are always hilarious in the bath. |
Noah's preschool had a safety bike ride day. We all came to join in on the fun.
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| We discovered that Max really likes pink and purple. Rubie has lots of pink and purple clothes. |
Max and Noah showed us how fun a skate park can be. We had never thought of going to one to ride our bikes before.
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| Eric even tried out the skateboard. |
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| He really wanted to ride it while standing, but didn't quite make it. |
Though most days were not quite summer weather, we thought winter was behind us. Not so. We woke up Saturday morning to this:
So we decided to stay another day, play in the snow. And drive home when it had melted off the roads. We had a great time. And though Flagstaff is 10 hours away, we will definitely visit again.
