Hikers and a mountain biker

While Kristen and I rested (sort of) following our Black Friday shopping trip, the daddies and kids went for a hike. Those kids were awesome hikers! I was surprised to hear how far and how high they hiked. They hiked to the peak high above the King Saguaro!!

This peak is right by our house. What a great view.

Apparently, Lily kicked one of the rocks on the pile she's standing next to, and discovered a geocache hiding underneath. The kids loved putting their names in the book!

This was Carter's first mountain biking experience and I hear he loved it. I wish I could have seen him!

Saturday fun: work and play

Now that the weather is cooling down we can play outside! Saturday morning we got up and went for a hike. We went to see an old rusted out vehicle on the trail Aaron rides. We ended up going a lot further than we anticipated and had a great time!

Yesterday after church Lily headed up our effort to create the following list.

Things We Saw On Our Last Saturday Hike
1. a little town
2. rusty old car
3. jumping cholla garden
4. blocked-off trail
5. 5 hot air balloons
6. small fast running lizard
7. cottontail bunny
8. big black flying bug (a tarantula hawk??)
9. king Saguaro cactus
10. hummingbird
11. green, fully-leaved Ocotillo (these are usually bare and look like skeletons)
12. new Gore buildings where Aaron will work
13. blackish yellow butterfly
14. safety green moss on rocks
15. colored shadows (hot pink and turquoise) made by our water bottles
16. Arizona Coral Snake! (these things are bright! and poisonous!)

The rusted out vehicle. Carter thought it was very cool.

Although the vehicle was cool, he did not want to fall into the ditch with it. Since Saturday he's been telling me that the bad guys drove it into the ditch.

This "little town" is actually a community just north of us where some of our friends live. Lily captured this photo, actually.

And this one, budding little photographer that she is! (Yeah, Jas, this one might bring back some uncomfortable memories!)

Lil also took this one of the jumping cholla garden. Don't brush agains these guys, their pokies jump out at you!

Ocotillo

The Arizona Coral Snake. Very cool. We researched it when we got home and learned some neat things about it.

I love being outside, especially with my family. Hooray for comfortable weather! Today Carter, Hazel and I hung our hummingbird feeder, played on our grass, and laid in the shade of a palm tree in the back yard. Aahhhhhh, it's so nice to be outdoors!


P.S. I had a moment of personal growth on Saturday. I learned to mow the lawn! In my family growing up, that was the boys' job. (Don't worry, I had specific jobs they didn't do, like cleaning out the fridge.) I wanted to learn to mow the lawn so I could help keep our backyard lovely. So Aaron taught me to use the weed eater and the lawn mower. It was fun to do something new! The rest of the family sat on the patio and fixed Sherman (as in, P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sidney). He's the little vacuum-filter guy that crawls around the bottom of our pool and sucks up the debris. [Yes, Raschell, Sherman moved to our house. He says he misses you and wants you to come over for a swim. ;) ]