Finishing Up March, With Adventures Both Outdoors And In

Our biggest adventure in March, probably, was our family's awesome camping trip in Grand Canyon National Park. But we had time after that for a couple more adventures in nature...and other places besides. Since I am waaay behind on blogging, I hope to list them all off quickly!

By the time the second week of our Spring Break rolled around, we were mostly recovered from our camping trip and looking for something else to do. As luck would have it, our friends the Powells also had the week off of school, and we decided to go on a small hike with them in Madera Canyon.

The Powells moved to nearby Vail a couple of years ago, so we don't get to see them as often as we used to. But their kids (particularly Hyrum, who is Lorelai's age, and Ella, who is Celeste's age) are good buddies with ours and it is always fun to see them again. It also helps that the Powell family is very outdoors-y; they love camping, hiking, picnicking, and anything else that gets them out of the house. After meeting up with them for a picnic lunch, we hiked for a short time up the canyon creek.

There wasn't much water in the creek at that time of year, but that didn't stop my girls from stripping down to their swimsuits and splashing around whenever they could. Tiffany, the mom of the large Powell clan, was a great trouper for escorting six kids along a mostly-unpaved path, while being 20+ weeks pregnant herself! I wish I could be as tough as Tiffany; just herding around my three kids always wears me out.

The Powells have lived in the Sahuarita/Green Valley area for so many years that they know all the "good spots" to have fun outdoors. But there was one spot the well-traveled Powells had never before visited...the hidden waterfall at the mouth of Madera Canyon! Our family was lucky enough to introduce them to it.

We almost couldn't believe they had never been there before (although we'd only discovered it ourselves last year). The hike to the waterfall is a very short one, so both families were game to try it out.

 

My girls, having visited before, were quick to strip to their swimsuits and splash around in the pool. The Powell kids, who didn't come with swimsuits, contented themselves with soaking their feet and finding some local wildlife for my kids to play with.

 

 

 

These tiny toads kept my girls fascinated for several minutes, before it was time to hike back to our cars and head home. It is always great to see the Powells; we miss seeing them regularly, and hope we get to touch base with them sometime this summer.

Just one day later, we were outdoors again...but this time, we were in the middle of thousands of people, watching an outdoor pageant in Mesa, Arizona. It was the Mesa LDS Temple's annual Easter pageant, something Nathan and I had only attended once before--when I was pregnant with Lorelai.

The stage is that shadowy lump in the middle of the picture. We were still able to see everything, though!

The pageant weekend doesn't usually coincide with our Spring Break, so we thought it would be a nice opportunity to take the kids to see it. We also invited Grandma Barrett, who had also never seen the show. We went out to dinner in Mesa beforehand, then found some seats and settled down to watch the show.

The pageant started late, so not all the kids made it through the whole thing. Celeste fell asleep at the very end, so she missed the triumphant resurrection of Jesus Christ, complete with a crowd of heavenly angels and the actor playing Christ suspended on wires in the air! She was bummed to have missed it at first, but then she just fell asleep in the car on the way home so it didn't really matter anyway. The other two girls liked it fine, but I don't know if it will be an experience they always cherish or not. In any case, we were all happy to have the experience together. Perhaps in a few more years, we will take them again when they are a bit older and can more easily pick out the scriptural references.

Spring Break ended with a flurry of small things...several play dates, a ward service auction, a friend's baptism, another friend's birthday party, and finally an Easter Sunday dinner with Sandy Barrett. But right after school began, Celeste and I had one more nice "outdoor adventure" with her second-grade class...

...we all visited the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum on a field trip. I was a chaperone for the day, and I got to hang around Celeste and her friend Skylar for a few hours while they checked out all kinds of neat creatures.

New to the Desert Museum was this small aquarium area, mostly featuring sea life found in either Baja California or the Gulf Coast. There was also a "touching pool," and the kids got to pet starfish and other tiny creatures. It was a pretty neat addition to the museum, and Celeste really enjoyed it.

We also had to keep an eye out for the prairie dog exhibit. Each kid in Celeste's class had been assigned to do a report on one desert animal that month. Celeste's assigned animal was the black-tailed prairie dog, so she was very interested in seeing many of them up close.

Speaking as someone who saw a lot of prairie dogs in my childhood (growing up in Colorado, they were everywhere), these were some fat critters! Living in captivity probably has that effect on them. But that did make them pretty adorable, I have to say.

The girls also got to see some really nice views (the location of the Desert Museum really is lovely)...

...and they got to see a lot of wildlife on this particular trip (probably due to the lovely mild weather that day, a large proportion of the animals were outside and active).

Kind of hard to see, but this is a mother hummingbird feeding her baby as it sits in the tiny nest!

 

 

I actually had to leave the field trip a bit early, due to piano students arriving at our home, but I was still really grateful I'd had the opportunity to go with Celeste. I try to attend at least one field trip for each child each school year, and I'm glad I got that opportunity. But with standardized testing week soon to appear, more field trips were soon to come!

Our Family's Newest Soccer Star

Now that Aurora is a big, grown-up kindergartner, we figured it was time to let her try out an extracurricular activity of some kind. She's still a bit young for music lessons, or for after-school clubs, or for the school play. We considered dance class again for a little while (after all, she'd done it in the past and really enjoyed it). However, we finally thought she might enjoy trying out a sport instead...

...so we signed her up for soccer through one of our local clubs, USA Sports. This is the same club at which Lorelai played a few seasons so many long years ago (okay, not that long ago, but it sure feels like it!). In general, our family isn't that into organized sports, but we thought Aurora might take a liking to them. She is our most competitive kid (in everything, not just sports...she also wants to be the smartest & prettiest & most beloved sister, too! It can get a little overwhelming). She is also a surprisingly speedy girl; ever since she was little, I've admired how fast she can run (currently, she is her kindergarten class's fastest kid; she regularly beats the boys). Those qualities, I thought, would serve her in good stead if she chose to play soccer.

 

At first, that competitive spirit was almost her undoing. During her first team practice, she broke down and cried more than once when she didn't get something right (on the first try). She even threw a tiny tantrum towards the end of practice, tearfully exclaiming that she would "never 'get'" soccer. All this, after one hour of drills. Needless to say, her coach (my friend Rebecca) and I were a little worried about how she would handle things. I spent the next week explaining to her that each practice was merely a learning session, where it was okay to make mistakes and correct things. Nathan and I let her know we were happy with her progress as long as she tried her hardest each time she showed up.

 

Thankfully, she seemed to take that advice to heart, and she was a lot more relaxed going forward. We could tell she still really wanted to win, but thankfully she was able to shake off her setbacks. Not only that, but she kept improving each week; her progress was even faster than I'd thought it would be!

We were a little nervous when it was time for her first game. We weren't sure how she would take it if her team lost; Lorelai's first team suffered many losses, and it began to discourage her after a while. We also worried because Aurora's team was small (only 7 players!) and pretty inexperienced (it was the first season of soccer for all the kids).

 

But Aurora was very "professional" about the experience; she didn't let any of the pressure get to her. In a happy twist of fate, our first opponent of the season was also pretty inexperienced, so this game went as these games often do (lots of running back and forth, clustering around the ball, and losing our way, with a couple of balls "happening" to roll between the goalposts almost accidentally). When all was said and done, the teams ended up with a tie! Aurora seemed pretty pleased with that, and with her role in how the whole things went down. But she seemed very determined to do even better the next time. We really liked her spirit!

I know this is super biased, but I felt Aurora was one of the team's stronger players. She wasn't afraid to get aggressive and chase down the ball, or face the charge of an opposing player. Her long kicks were very strong, and became more so as the season progressed. While she often seemed hesitant to take the ball all the way to the opponent's goal, she was an excellent defender, blocking almost every ball that approached them. She is also quite the speedster...she regularly out-ran most of her teammates and opponents alike.

Of course, there was definitely room for improvement with Aurora's performance as well. She had a lot of trouble dribbling the ball, always preferring to kick it far ahead and thus lose control of it. Late in the season, she also became inexplicably more cautious; when she was playing defense, she would never cross the midfield line, even if she had total control of the ball and a clear shot at the goal! She would just kick it away for someone else to get. It was the kind of thing that makes a parent watching pull her hair out in frustration. However, all the kids on both teams made similar mistakes, so at least the parents were all suffering together! It's the sort of thing you come to expect from a soccer team made up of five- and six-year-olds.

 

We didn't keep close track of the team's final record (this is a league of kindergartners, after all!), but they won one or two games, lost a handful, and tied a few. It was a nice "mixed bag;" the kids learned how to respond to a variety of results. Each week, I became more impressed with how Aurora responded to the adversity (or the success). She took it all in stride, with a more mature attitude than I had expected. I liked that she saw each setback as merely an opportunity for her to improve her soccer skills and know-how. It was a great attitude for her to have!

After the final game, the parents and families of all the team members pooled their resources and made a picnic lunch for everyone. The teammates had a lot of fun eating together...

 

...plus they all got their trophies, courtesy of the Barrett-owned Abilene Awards in Aurora, Colorado! It's always nice to have family in the trophy business, so we can get them at cost!

Even though it was a lot of fun, we were all happy when the season was over (not least because the weather was starting to heat up!). I am so grateful she got to have such sweet, hard-working kids as teammates, and such a great coach in Ms. Rebecca!

 

However, I don't think we are done yet with soccer for this year; Aurora really wants to play again! So Nathan and I (possibly against our better judgment) are going to sign her up in a different (slightly more competitive) league this coming fall.

Lorelai enjoyed playing soccer for a while, and Celeste has never shown interest in it, but (to our surprise?) our "baby" girl has some real competitive fire burning inside her. Nathan and I are not super-athletic people; we aren't particularly talented at organized sports. But who knows? Maybe we ended up making at least one "sporty" daughter! It's still a little early to tell, granted...but Aurora seems more hungry for athletics than any of our other children so far. It will be interesting to see how the coming fall season plays out. But I am proud for my little girl, for throwing herself so fully into the "soccer experience" and for working so hard and having fun at the same time.

Our "Grand" Grand Canyon Spring Break Adventure, Pt. 4: We Fall In Love With Sedona

When we woke up the morning of Tuesday, March 15th, in our Flagstaff hotel, we felt more refreshed than we had in days. Not all the way refreshed, of course...I shared my bed with two little girls who can be restless sleepers. I woke up several times to find Aurora shoving a limb in my face or climbing on top of me. Still, the room was warm, and that was more than enough for most of us!

This was the day we were to head home, but not before taking an alternate route on our way south. We decided to visit Sedona, a town we'd heard great things about but had never visited. To get there, you have to get off the freeway and drive down a small two-lane road for about an hour. It was slow going, but as we descended further and further into Oak Creek Canyon, the views became truly spectacular!

Nathan and I grew up in Colorado, so tall canyon walls and coniferous trees make us feel right at home. That, and the small skiffs of snow that kept popping up! Sedona wasn't as cold as Flagstaff, but there was still a bite in the air. It was perfect!

Before arriving in Sedona proper, we stopped off at Slide Rock State Park, which was located just north of the town. The park was originally an apple orchard before being converted, and there are still a lot of old farm machinery laying around, as well as several homes, a barn, and a store. These days, they are only for tourist eyes.

However, the main attraction of the park was Slide Rock, which is basically a "natural water-slide," carved by water directly into the rock bed of Oak Creek. It's perfectly shaped for a fun, slippery ride through the water. We didn't bring our swimsuits on this camping trip, so on this day all we could do was sit and watch the brave souls who arrived ahead of us. That water was quite chilly; I salute their courage! I'm not sure I could have climbed in.

We were able to sit on a shelf of land several feet above the water, and watch people splashing and playing. Perhaps someday, we can come back on a warmer day and attempt the "water-slide" ourselves! Our girls were all a little disappointed they didn't get a chance to try it out. I've heard the park can get very crowded in the summer, but Nathan and I said we'd like to try it out again in the future nonetheless. It looked like a lot of fun!

After our short stop-off in the park, we drove the rest of the way through the canyon into the town of Sedona. We were immediately impressed; it was so beautiful!

Nathan and I agreed that if Breckenridge, Colorado, and Moab, Utah had a baby, it would look a lot like Sedona. If you don't know what the heck I just said, I'll sum up: Breckenridge is a ritzy ski town in the Rocky Mountains, and Moab is an outdoorsman's paradise of a city, frequented by bikers, hikers, runners, and climbers. Sedona manages to be an interesting blend of those two cities; it has no shortage of AWESOME ROCK FORMATIONS to climb on, and there are tons of biking and hiking trails everywhere. The town itself is filled with trendy shops, restaurants, and art galleries, as well as several small parks. And with the relatively mild Arizona winters, it can easily host visitors year-round.

Long story short: Nathan and I fell in love with Sedona almost immediately. It represented a perfect blend of the ski towns we grew up visiting in Colorado, and the arid beauty we have come to love while living in Arizona. Plus, our whole family loves to hike, and Sedona is a hiker's paradise; there are innumerable canyons and trails snaking their way through the city and the surrounding hills. We decided to pick one trail to hike on this trip to Sedona, with the promise of more to come later!

We decided to let Lorelai pick out the hike (at the time, we thought it might satisfy a requirement for the Faith in God program she is working on through our church). She chose Fay Canyon, a shortish (only 2 1/4 miles round trip) but scenic trail on the outskirts of town. Other pluses: Fay Canyon had plenty of shade, a well-worn trail, and some gorgeous vistas.

Oh, it had a natural arch too! Unfortunately, I didn't get any really good pictures of it. There was an alternate branch of our trail that led to the arch; some of the stronger and more daring hikers took that route, and later on we saw their tiny forms hanging out next to the arch. I was tempted, but we thought the hike might be too strenuous for the kids, so we kept on going to the end of the trail.

 Once we found the rear walls of the canyon, we saw several signs warning us to stay off the Native American ruins. The fact that there were ruins on this trail was news to us; we'd never heard of them, and we didn't see them anywhere. Maybe we didn't go far enough up the trail? Either way, we didn't feel like seeking them out. A hiker who'd arrived at the trail's end before us had brought a Native American-style flute and was playing some music as we reached the final rocky ascent. It was a little haunting, but a beautiful greeting to the trail's end.

It was a bit precarious climbing up the huge boulders at the canyon wall. But it was well worth it once we got to a large, flat outcropping about a third of the way up the canyon walls. The view looking back through the trail was truly spectacular.

We felt almost as if we'd left all civilization behind. We could no longer see the parking lot where our van was located. Nor could we hear any traffic or city noise. It was just our family, the other hikers, and the rustling oak leaves of the forest that closed gently around us.

I don't know if we will ever revisit Fay Canyon (there are so many other places to go hiking in Sedona, we might not have time), but at least we were able to get a lot of great pictures of the occasion.

The hike out of the canyon was uneventful, but very satisfying. By now, we were getting pretty hungry, so we drove back into town for lunch. We decided on Javelina Cantina, a "Mexican" restaurant (it was really more Tex-Mex than authentic Mexican, but it was pretty good in spite of that. Sorry, living near Tucson has made us Mexican food snobs).

All of us ate greedily and loved our food. Plus, we got to admire the nice view from out the windows.

The restaurant was located inside a small marketplace filled with several galleries and boutiques. We decided to do a little window shopping and goofing off before we got back in our car.

 

 

After stretching our legs a bit more, we reluctantly decided it was time to head home. Our whole family loved Sedona more than we'd expected, and it was hard to leave. We wanted to spend at least another day or two exploring and enjoying the great outdoors and the beautiful weather! It was kind of surprising, considering how tired out we'd been coming from camping the day before. But we told ourselves we would come back someday and give ourselves more time to explore this awesome city.

The only downside? Driving south out of the city. Yikes, all there is was a small two-lane highway that was insanely congested with tourist traffic! If we do return, we will have to find an alternate route into town. Once we'd cleared Sedona, it was a smooth ride back to our home.

Overall, our trip was eventful and exhausting, but memorable. Our frigid campout will be a story we can smile over for years to come, and it will be a reminder to our girls that they can accomplish hard things. And we also got to see a lot more of Arizona's natural beauty up close and personal. We live in an incredibly lovely place, and I'm so grateful for the chance we had to explore it some more.