A few times a year we go to Sedona for the day for a long hike. Yesterday was so beautiful I thought I would share some photos of our hike.
There's a sinkhole partway into the hike. Here, everyone is precariously perched on the edge -- well, it's too close for my comfort, anyway.
We stopped for a snack beside the "maiden pools."
During this time of year, you just have to imagine clear pools of water. The butterflies really enjoyed the water, though.
The day was brilliantly sunny with temperatures in the upper 60s.
I'm not quite sure what happened to all of the trees in this area -- fire, maybe, or disease. It looks kind of spooky.
This is the view from the top of our hike. As with all of the Gardner-Hajek adventures, we ended up at our favorite Sedona restaurant, Javelina Cantina, before heading back home.
Can you smell it in the air? No, it's not the first flowers of Spring. It's baseball season! The Cactus League is in full swing here, but the best league around is, of course, Little League. Annie, now in her second season of t-ball is our only Little Leaguer this season. She's also the only girl on her team, but she doesn't seem to mind much.
She's number 6 on the Hurricanes. The t-ball rules changed a little this year. The coach pitches 3 times to each player and then brings out the tee if he or she doesn't hit it on the fly. Annie hit the pitches both times!
That gentleman walked across every one of my videos yesterday. He's kind of like Alfred Hitchcock, only not really.
Annie remained attentive while she was running bases.
And was right there in "ready position" when she needed to be.
The game seemed to be a little early for the boys.
They insisted on coming, though.
I'm sure they only came to cheer on their sister.
It's really just all about the snow cones, though, isn't it?
In other news:
We had an emergency visit from the Tooth Fairy last night!
If you're wondering what Michael is trying to communicate in this picture, just think Roman numerals.
That's right! Michael is now ten years old. Yesterday morning (much earlier than I had hoped) Michael was up and ready to celebrate.
While I prepared the cupcakes and pizza crust for Michael's party (consisting of one overnight guest), Tim took the kids to ride on bumper boats. I think he got more than he bargained for!
The kids had a great time.
Apparently, Michael managed to get that kid underneath the waterfall after Tim stopped taping.
Michael had one of his close friends, who declined to be blogged, to stay overnight. After the guest arrived, a spirited nerf gun war ensued. Then we had pizza, cupcakes, and ice cream (all vegan, soy-free, gluten free, of course). Dinner was followed by a viewing of Tales of Narnia --Prince Caspian, which all seemed to enjoy -- partially because all of the kids are going to be in a production of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in May.
After a surprisingly good night of sleep, there were bagels, more nerf gun wars, some playing of Life, etc. All in all, I think a very good 10th birtday.
I went outside to talk to Jay and was greeted with this:
Before I had the presence of mind to get the video going, Annie talked to the snake explaining that our house was not the place for it. As soon as she talked to it, it turned around and went back to the rocks. The kids think it is a gopher snake, which is not a bad thing to have in the yard. But it would be a horrible thing to have in my house!
As I promised in the last post, I went out to watch the sledding. Tim asked the concierge at the hotel where the best sledding is and we were told that the "locals" go to the Cardinals' practice field. Our regular readers will remember we went there last summer to watch the Cardinals.
As you can see, it was pretty crowded, although not as crowded as the official snow park on the north side of Flagstaff (we tried going there last year on Presidents' Day weekend and had to leave because the wait was too long just to park the car -- and there's substantially more snow this year). Jay says that he has become an "adrenaline junky." This is his pose just before the video below.
I was actually planning on trying this hill out until Tim told me the following story. After I took Annie and Michael to a more sedate part of the sledding area, Tim decided to sled down along with Jay. He had watched Jay several times and decided that if they went down a certain way, he wouldn't catch any air and it would be fun. They started down together fine, but suddenly Tim couldn't see Jay anymore and saw that he had veered to the left and was heading toward a ramp. He couldn't stop and became airborne. He hit the frozen tundra headfirst, much to the delight of the crowd on top of the hill. Then, a small child on a toboggan ran over his crumpled body. As he listened to the cheers of viewing audience, he checked to see he still had all of his teeth. Jay assured him that no blood was in evidence, and, aside from a small cut on the inside of his lip and a bruised chin (and ego), he's none the worse for the adventure.
Michael ventured off while all this was happening to start on his snowman project. Here, he's standing by his biggest snow character.
As always, Annie has to be the queen of something and this time it was "Queen of the big Snowball."
These are some of Michael's smaller characters. I think he built 15 of these.
It's a little hard to make out, but, apparently, the fifteen little guys were chasing the big guy, screaming, toward a precipice.
After the sledding adventure, we headed out to our favorite downtown restaurant, San Felipe's. Unfortunately, it was closed "Until Further Notice." We decided not to wait and ended up at a nice Indian Restaurant. The day was cloudy again, so we did not end up going to the observatory.
Tim and the kids got up this morning and went to the sledding area again while I packed up and got us ready to go home. Everyone is already talking about staying in Flagstaff next summer again!
We're in Flagstaff again, but the weather is much different from the last time we were here!
This is the view from the hotel room, where I'm spending most of my time. Tim and the kids are out in it, though.
Annie is quite the winter fashion plate. Notice the pink camo boots!
Yes, you read right. 9 degrees Fahrenheit. The kids have never been so cold.
A Flagstaff vacation is not complete without breakfast at Denny's. I'm not sure what Jay is making a face at in this photo, though.
I'm going to go out to watch the sledding today. If it's clear, we'll go to Lowell Observatory, but it doesn't look good. Maybe it will snow a bit tonight and the kids can see it.
