January 2016: The Search For Snow

It was great to have Grandma & Grandpa Nash (or, as I call them, "Mom & Dad") come visit us in Arizona for the week following Celeste's baptism. This is the second year in a row my parents have visited us in early January; both times it has been very enjoyable! Last year, they helped us paint the upstairs bathroom, which was a great help to us but made me feel a little guilty at the same time. It felt like I was using my tuckered-out parents as cheap labor! I promised myself that there would be no "homemaking projects" this year, thus giving the grandparents a chance to rest up and have fun.

For the most part, that's exactly what happened. We did go on a few small outings, and ate out at a few good restaurants (like Street Tacos and Beer and Poco and Mom's), but we spent much of our time indoors, coloring, chatting, or playing lots of board games and card games. Grandma & Grandpa Nash especially love their card games (ironic, considering we don't often use face cards ourselves). But they managed to pass on their love of the game "Golf" to our girls, and many, many rounds were played while we all sat around our dinner table. My parents even bought us an automatic card shuffler when the week was over! But since they are one of the only people we play board games with, who knows how often we will use it?

The reason for our stay-at-home mood was the unusually cold weather that hit Tucson in early January. Overall, it has been a fairly chilly winter for southern AZ. In November, there were multiple overnight freezes; very unusual for so early in the winter. Christmas, although not "white," was nicely chilly, as were the days that followed. Not that we were expecting snow in Sahuarita, mind you...but we are always hopeful. True, we'd already seen some "home-cooked" snow at the Nielsen's house...

...and we got to play in the snow at the Arizona Science Center...

 

...but we wanted to find the "real thing," that only Mother Nature had a hand in making!

The girls (and me, if we're being honest) love to see snow, especially when everyone is out of school for Christmas break. For the girls, snow is a delightful, beautiful novelty, and one they look forward to every year. As it turned out, however, our family wasn't too lucky at finding snow this month, despite the cold.

"It's cold out here!"

Things started out okay. We convinced Grandma and Grandpa to take a short hike with us down to Tanque Verde Falls. We'd taken this hike with some friends last spring, and I hoped it wouldn't be too strenuous for my parents. The weather forecast promised precipitation later in the day, so we got an early start in hopes of getting the hike done before getting rained (snowed?) on.

The descent to the falls is a little steep, but fairly short, so we arrived without too much fuss. There was a lot more running water at the bottom of the falls than last time (probably due to the winter runoff), and the girls immediately proceeded to take off their socks and shoes and go nuts in the water.

 

 

Grandma and Grandpa watched for a bit, but started their ascent several minutes before the rest of us packed up. They were worried they would take a long time to go back up the hill, and needed to get a head start. As it turned out, they beat us by a long ways. Lorelai and Celeste headed up the hill quickly, going up the switchbacks so fast that Aurora and I lost sight of them. However, when Aurora and I finally reached the top of the hill and rejoined the grandparents in the parking lot, Lorelai and Celeste were nowhere to be found. They had taken a wrong turn (or two) and gotten off the trail. I left Aurora at the car with my parents and immediately headed back down the trail looking for them (and shouting pretty loud, too).

The time I spent between realizing the girls were missing and spotting them on the trail was only a couple of minutes. However, by this point, my poor girls were in a state of near panic. They'd realized they were lost for close to twenty minutes, and kept trying to find their way back up the hill, to no avail. In fact they had been loudly shouting for help for a while before my own shouts reached their ears. I was worried, of course, but they were in much worse shape than me! Celeste's face was wet with tears and Lorelai was chattering nervously. The rain started to come down just as they were discovered; thankfully, we were all able to get back to the car before getting too cold and wet.

Fortunately for Lorelai & Celeste, their chances of being found were always high. The trail never goes too far away from a paved road. Both girls were wearing brightly colored clothing, a plus with all  the brown wintry vegetation surrounding them. The hills leading down to the stream aren't very high and they have great visibility; there were no tall trees for them to disappear into. There was literally no one else on the trail that day, so there was no chance of them being kidnapped or spirited away (it was also a great blessing the girls had stayed together, so they didn't get further lost). And (most importantly, I thought) both girls had kneeled together and said a prayer that we would find them. Not long after finishing their prayer, they heard my voice, and we were able to find each other. I am so grateful for the power of prayer to both calm (which it did for my girls) and to inspire (which it did for me, to find them on the trail). It was a scary few minutes, but it all turned out well and was a good learning experience for all of us.

So even though we were trapped on an exposed hillside in the winter, we saw no snow, because Arizona. But we definitely got a lot of blustery, cloudy, rainy weather that whole week...enough that our fireplace was frequently turned on and a lot of hot cocoa was consumed. In fact, some of our friends in the Madera Highlands neighborhood (an area south of us, closer to Madera Canyon) had some snow fall in their neighborhood. But Rancho Sahuarita (our community) remained, sadly, snow-free.

On my parents' last day in Tucson, there was a particularly heavy rainstorm. Down in the valley we got a decent amount, but the mountains surrounding us all got fairly heavy snowfall. We decided that the next day, after Grandma and Grandpa had left town, we'd head up to Mount Lemmon and go sledding, as we have done a few times in the past.

Although we were excited to go sledding, it was still hard to say goodbye to Grandma & Grandpa. When they made their farewells, there wasn't a dry eye in the house. The girls love their grandparents so much and always miss them so much when they go. The only reason this year wasn't as heart-breaking as the last year was because my parents had stayed in a hotel for this trip. They'd decided on a hotel because they enjoy their "space" now as visitors; this is also due to my dad's unusual sleeping habits due to some of his medications. Either way, we didn't trick Aurora into believing that Grandma and Grandpa had "moved in" and would be our new permanent house guests, as happened one year!

After the grandparents were safely on their way that Saturday morning, we excitedly piled into our car and began the long drive up to Mount Lemmon. At the foot of the mountain, though, we were met with a very unpleasant sight...a mile-long train of cars stretching out far from the base of the mountain! As it turns out, the snowfall had attracted half of Tucson, and since we didn't get an early enough start, we didn't make it up the mountain in time. They'd closed the road to all newcomers! It was a bitter disappointment for all of us. We turned south and headed back for home; there would be no sledding for us. We were near tears.

Then I had a "brilliant" idea...what if we tried to go up Madera Canyon instead? Surely there would be snow up there as well! Plus, it was much closer to our home. Our girls were not all thrilled with this notion (having been in the car for almost two hours already), but they reluctantly agreed to have me drive them up there. Once again, we found ourselves at the base of a canyon road. We drove up the road...and were once again denied, as the road to Madera Canyon had also  been closed.

Apparently, the roads were impassible. What was worse, we couldn't even park nearby and walk the rest of the way up...there were already cars parked in every available spot. Ugh, we were all so frustrated!

After a few minutes of desperate circling, I finally managed to find us a parking spot in the lowest part of the canyon...still well away from any significant snowfall. It would take us over an hour to hike to any snow at all (much less sledding snow), and the girls were not up for it at this point. Conceding defeat, I reached out the lunches we'd packed for Mount Lemmon and we ate in the nearby picnic area. Then, as a small consolation prize, we hiked down to the stream that flows out of Madera Canyon.

 

With full bellies and exercised bodies, some of the girls' good spirits returned. They tried taking a "dip" in the creek, but were quickly reminded how cold winter run off can be!

 

And look! We even found some snow!!

Yes, this was all we saw on this day...it was hiding in a well-shaded patch of earth, between two large boulders.

 

Sigh; it wasn't even enough for a snowball! But at least, I told the girls, we saw snow on that day, and thus my promise to them had been fulfilled. This assertion did not please them in the least.

In just another week, we tried Madera Canyon again. It was the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, and everyone in the family had school and work off. This time, we had no grand sledding aspirations; we just wanted to go hiking as a family. Nathan and I were emboldened by our family's success at Picacho Peak last holiday break, and we wanted to try another hike (albeit a shorter, simpler one). We chose to drive up to the topmost parking lot in the canyon (thankfully, it was all open on this day), and hike to a lower point in the canyon via the Amphitheater Trail, which we've hiked before. It would be an easy, simple, yet beautiful hike.

 

 

After Picacho, this hike was a piece of cake! No one complained, everyone had fun, and we enjoyed ourselves quite a bit. And (wonder of wonders!) there was even a little snow left over from the huge snowfall a couple of weeks before!

See? That dirty white pile in the lower-left-hand corner? THERE'S THE SNOW.

Most of the snow was tucked away in the shadows of the mountain, but there were small piles of it spread regularly throughout the early stages of our hike. Much of it was close enough to touch and feel; there may have even been a snowball or two thrown during the hike.

 

Not only did we get to see some snow, but we had a wildlife encounter as well. There is a large herd of wild turkeys in Madera Canyon, and during our hike we wandered right through their midst as they were out foraging. They are surprisingly large birds up close, and we didn't want them to feel threatened, so we tried to move slowly and quietly past them. While they were definitely surprised by our arrival, they didn't seem to be in the aggressive mood, so they let us pass unscathed.

At the foot of the hike, the girls and I waited outside a local gift shop while Nathan walked back to the upper parking lot to pick up our car. While waiting, we admired the beautifully landscaped yard outside the gift shop, and had another turkey encounter.

This turkey was all alone, strutting down the center of the road as if he owned the whole canyon, gobbling loudly to himself. When he saw us, he broke into a (comical) run and was soon lost to our sight. Who knew our family outing would be full of so many turkeys?

All in all, it was a fun morning. We may not have seen much snow this winter so far, but we are still enjoying the (unusually) cold weather. The Colorado girl in me fervently hopes this cool weather persists for many more weeks to come! Who needs summer, anyway?

Our Fun Family Week, With A Baptism At The End!

Once Christmas was over, we had two weeks left before school started up again. The first of those two weeks was the only one in which the whole family was home together; after that, Nathan had to return to work and to seminary (and my parents came to visit from Colorado; more on that later). It was a week filled with this, that, and the other, as it often is. It's nice to have several days of unstructured good times! And the week's ending was all the more satisfying, because it saw the baptism of our beautiful daughter Celeste.

But I'm getting ahead of myself a bit. Here's a short rundown of our fun family outings at the end of 2015:

We went golfing (or mini-golfing, take your pick). Despite the rest of the country being trapped in a white, cold, wintry prison, the sun continued to shine in beautiful southern AZ. And we decided to make the most of it by going golfing! Nathan went out and played 18 at the Country Club of Green Valley; as for the rest of us, we decided to take advantage of a coupon Celeste had received for her birthday. It gave us four free games at Triple Play, our local mini-golf course/family restaurant. It was a lot of fun (and we got to eat fried food afterwards to celebrate, yum!).

We took our annual family post-Christmas day trip to Phoenix. I've blogged about this trip many times before; however, we always look forward to this fun day. In the past, we've stayed the night at a hotel; this year we decided instead to head up early and just make a long day of it. And a long (but fun) day it was!

We ate out for breakfast, lunch and dinner in the Phoenix area. That's right; we left early enough in the morning to catch the tail-end of the breakfast rush at Rudy's, the Texas BBQ restaurant in Chandler that is one of our family's favorite restaurants. Mmmm, barbecue brisket-filled breakfast tacos. They were mighty tasty (and filling! It almost killed me to eat mine).

After that, it was off to the Arizona Science Center, one of our favorite museums in Arizona. Since this was late December, the museum was holding their annual "snow week," where they haul in a bunch of snow, dump it onto their front lawn, and let visitors go crazy. And go crazy our girls did.

Celeste even went barefoot through the snow! Crazy girl.

There was even a little snowfall going on in the main entryway of the Science Center, thanks to a snow machine over the walkway! It made our day feel much more "wintry."

Besides the snow, we got up to our usual shenanigans at the Science Center...

Building towers...

Learning about centrifugal force...

And experiencing an indoor interactive weather system!

 Even though we have been there several times now, it is still lots of fun.

After finishing up at the Science Center we took a trip to IKEA, where we had a delicious lunch of authentic(?) Swedish meatballs, and did a little window shopping.

My "kid" certainly enjoyed this station.

Not long after that, Nathan and I were able to take a trip to the Gilbert Arizona LDS temple, where we did some sealing ordinances (proxy marriages). It was a nice reminder of our own temple marriage 14 years ago (wow, it has been a while! Happy Anniversary to us).

 

 My wonderful generous friend Yulia was able to watch our girls (and she even did it with a sick kid!) so that Nathan and I could have a date in the House of the Lord. I am so very grateful for good people and kind favors.

Because of Yulia's sick child, we didn't linger at the temple this time around. Perhaps in a few months, we'll be able to make a longer visit. But at any rate, we enjoyed our afternoon there. And when we picked up our kids, we were able to go see the lovely Christmas lights at the other nearby temple, the Mesa Temple.

 

I posted lots of beautiful pictures from the Mesa temple trip here.http://grinninbarretts.blogspot.com/2016/01/christmas-lights-all-over-place-2015.html It was a great way to cap off a fun--and busy--day in the Phoenix area.

After that long day, we were a bit tuckered out, so we scaled back the activities somewhat for the next couple of days. However, we did still go out on a few post-Christmas shopping sprees. We went to Bookmans and cashed in the girls' Christmas gift certificates. We also had some gift cards from my brother Ray to use up as well...

 

...at The Cheesecake Factory! Yum. We decided to just get one dessert each; Aurora was happy with vanilla ice cream, but the older girls each tackled their own piece of cheesecake.

They loved the dessert, but afterward Celeste said, "I've never felt so fat in my life." Ha!

But my favorite part of the day came early, as we took our kids to visit a very special place...

...the future home of the Tucson Arizona LDS Temple. It's been a long time coming, and at long last work has begun! The kids were very excited to see the temple site at first...then a little disappointed it turned out to be just a big hole in the ground. They also wanted to get in closer to the action, but all we could do for the day was take a peek through the fence.

 

 

We plan on taking the kids back to the site every few months or so to watch the work progress and to watch the temple taking shape. Just seeing all the workers bustling around was a huge rush for me. I'm incredibly excited that a temple is coming to Tucson!

 

Another day or so after that came New Year's Eve. We celebrated the usual way...with board games, friends, food, and fireworks! It's fun to have our neighbors the Gillespies over to ring in the new year; what will we do when they leave?

 

This year, two of our three girls made it to midnight! Celeste barely survived (we kept having to shout in her face as she dozed off), but she did it! We were happy for her.

We celebrated the New Year by eating our monkey bread (of course), playing games, and sleeping a lot. That night, Grandma and Grandpa Nash arrived on a plane from Denver. They would be staying for a whole week, and the we were all very excited about it!

Our happy family week ended with an even bigger spiritual "rush" than our temple site visit. Our beautiful daughter Celeste (who turned eight in December) was able to be baptized and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Guess who got new scriptures as a present?

Celeste had been excited about getting baptized for several months, and would talk excitedly about it every chance she got. Celeste is definitely the most "bubbly" of our three girls, so I somehow knew she would be the most excited about a big upcoming event like a baptism.

More than that, though, I know Celeste has a strong testimony of the gospel. She has a great memory for what she reads in the scriptures; often, when we do family scripture study, Celeste will recall a gospel topic we discussed weeks (or months) ago that is relevant to our current discussion. She is a believer in the power of prayer, and I have seen her pray for friends and family unprompted many times. She loves the gospel of Jesus Christ and is very mindful of her blessings.

I am so proud every time Celeste stands up in church and bears her testimony (without fear) to our large ward. I know she isn't just repeating talking points; she means what she says!

Celeste is a great kid and I know she has many great things ahead of her. She is a beautiful girl, inside and out, and I am so lucky to be her mom. We are so happy to have her in our family!

Celeste was able to share her baptismal date with a friend of her from our ward (and one of my piano students), Ava. It was so adorable to see how cute they looked and how excited they both were.

 

Yay! Grandma & Grandpa Nash made it in time!

 

Everything went smoothly for both baptisms and confirmations, and we were able to celebrate with a nice dinner with our family afterwards.

 Most of our extended family aren't able to attend our kids' baptisms...we all live so far apart from one another! But we still felt a lot of support and love from both family and friends on that day. I am confident Celeste will remember the date of her baptism happily, just as I will. What a great end to a great week.

We sure do love this kid!