This wild ride of motherhood has certainly kept me busy and well entertained! It's always been true the older you get, the faster time seems to go. I'd like to have a magic " pause" button in order to just cherish the time I have left with my kids at home. Then again, there a certainly times when a "fast forward" button would be quite handy. ha ha
As far as updating I'm not quite sure where to begin. Let's start with today and move backwards. We just got back from having breakfast at one of my favorite out door eating places called Crackers & Company. They had a fabulous breakfast menu. Every time we go there I force myself to try something different. Today I had the Onassis Omelet. It was darn tasty!! The kids both had homemade french toast with a side of scrambled eggs and sausage. John had his usual,2 eggs over easy, bacon and toast. He's getting old..not too adventuresome in the food department anymore!
Because we are only 3 weeks away from school being over all the programs are happening. Michael had a choir concert and fundraising dinner on Tuesday evening. The kid has a voice and is actually a pretty talented singer and dancer. He's looking forward to auditioning for Grease this Summer. I sure hope he gets to play one of the main parts. I remember when I moved to Tempe and lived with my Aunt Darlene and Uncle Ray, Trish, Joe and Tena could recite every line of the Grease movie. It would just me hysterical to see Michael play one of the tough guys!
Last weekend John was looking through Craigslist trying to find a used truck to purchase for Robert at work. He's been driving a 2000 Toyota Tacoma and it now has over 170,000 miles on it. We were planning to make this Mackenzie's first car. Well, sometimes things happen for a reason and I guess that's how I am looking at the events of last weekend. Mackenzie walked up and said " Dad why aren't you checking out the VW's for me?!' Well, then John started going through cars and ended up on the Auto Trader website where there was a 2007 Gecko Green VW with only 3,600 miles on it. Mackenzie was having some friends over to work on a project so John and I decided to go take a look at the car. The woman had purchased it as a extra vehicle. She had one growing up and always loved it. Well, her husband passed away and she was down sizing to a smaller home next to one of her daughters and wasn't going to have garage space for the VW anymore. I took it for a test drive and knew it was meant to be. Honestly, I don't want Mackenzie to drive the car, I want it to be MINE!!!! We ended up offering the woman less than what she was asking and she took it saying she felt in her heart it was going to the right family:). Here's a few pictures of our new baby.
Mackenzie and her best friend McKinzie checking out the features of the car and planning on how McKinzie needs to find a red VW for herself and Richard wants a black one! Not sure how comfortable Richard will be in this car since he is 6' 8" tall.
So enough about the car....let's move on to more important things!!! Like the hike to Phantom Ranch. As most of you know I'd been training to hike down to Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The plan was for us to head up to the canyon on Friday and be there by 4pm to drop off our duffles at the livery stables in order for the mules to take our bags down. We were planning on just hiking with our day packs. So we head up to Flagstaff and the weather was starting to get stormy. It had been bad all week long. We stopped in Flagstaff on our way up to eat lunch. As we were approaching the canyon we were noticing the temperature outside was 27 degrees. Soon we saw snowflakes and i was seriously questioning if I had packed the appropriate clothing. Here's a photo of Nancy as we were dropping off our packs. Check out the snowflakes.
After dropping off our packs we decided to check into the hotel and have a few cocktails before dinner.
Here's the crew besides me...Piot, Nancy, Lynelle and Jackie.
Then we headed to the lodge to have some dinner before hiking the next day. After dinner we noticed the temp had warmed up to 34 degrees so we were hoping the next day was going to be pleasant. We had witnessed some of the hikers coming out of the canyon that afternoon with beat red legs and obviously exhausted. At this point I can honestly tell you I was a bit nervous about the next day.
Here's a picture of the canyon the afternoon we arrived. You can see the cloud cover.
We decided the next morning we were going to go have a good breakfast and not worry about being on the trail right at 8am. The weather ended up being absolutely beautiful and we hit the trail about 10:30am with temps in the 60's. Here's a picture of all of us before we headed out to the bottom.
We hiked down on Saturday on the South Kaibab trail which is a bit steeper than the Bright Angel trail but much shorter at only 6.2 miles. Our goal was to get to the bottom before the Cantina closed so we could have a beer. We made it on time and boy a beer never tasted so good!!
As you can see the wildflowers were everywhere. It was absolutely beautiful. Seriously, I was having a hard time watching my step and taking in all the sights. The decent happens very rapidly and we were all feeling our age on Sunday morning! Thank goodness the girls have all done this trip before and knew a day off at the bottom was highly recommended before hiking out.
This picture really shows how steep the trail is and how it winds down to the Colorado River where we cross and go into the campground.
Here we are at the Catina having our Tecate and wine.
Here I am trying out my new chair that requires a bit of balance and is a bit tricky to get out of but sure keeps you off the ground.
Did I mention we camped right by a river that runs through the campground. It was absolutely beautiful. At night we went to a lecture by one of the park rangers on bats and found out how important they are to our ecosystem. The weather at the bottom of the canyon is much like it is in Phoenix. I think we went from an elevation of 7200 feet at the south rim to an elevation of 2400 feet at the bottom of the canyon. Below you can see some of the river rafters heading down the Colorado. We went and sat on the bank and watched them come in for a brief stop before heading down river again. The river was extremely cold. Talking to one of the rafters they said the rapids were very challenging (level 8) this year due to all our snow and rain.
Here we are heading out of the canyon on Monday. The bright Angel trail is 9 miles long and takes you through streams and up to Indian Gardens before it actually gets really tough the last 1.5 miles. It is also a much busier trail. At times I was hiking by myself because I was trying to keep a good pace and was a bit worried about the last part of the hike. I went around one corner and found two deer grazing off to my left. They were like little statues. Again, the canyon from this perspective is amazing. They say that only 1% of the people who visit the canyon ever see it from the bottom up.
Here we are all safely out of the canyon. We left at 7:30 am. Jackie was out by 11:10. She didn't stop at Indian Gardens like the rest of us. Piot, Nancy and I stopped and ate lunch and waited for Lynelle to catch up. I started stiffening up and headed out a little before the others. I was out by 1pm, Piot and Nancy by 1:20 and Lynelle by 2pm. Our goal was to all by out by 2 and we made it!!! Enough about the canyon! It's one more thing off the bucket list for me.
As far as other updates....Mackenzie became a member of NJS and here's a few pictures from the ceremony.
Steven is still into his skateboarding and mountain biking. He's going to take a Summer Camp at the indoor skate park. I'm just praying we have no broken bones this Summer! He also got selected to go on a trip to California where they visited some museums and aquariums in the San Diego and LA region. Other than sleeping on the bus, he had a fabulous time. This past week at school the 6th grade has been running the Challenger Space Mission at school. In a few weeks he will be having his promotion ceremony and he will be moving on to Brimhall Jr. High. Hopefully, he will still love his mom and dad when he hits puberty. Which he informed me he's already in a stage of puberty......the smelly stage! haha I thought I was going to die laughing. Thank god for showers.
Well, I'm sure there's more to update but I'm getting thirsty and think I should head in for a bit of lemonade.
Have a great day everyone! Happy Mother's Day.
