Grand Canyon Hike

At the end of January I was a able to be a part of a group of eight women who hiked the Grand Canyon. Yes, THE Grand Canyon-one of the natural wonders of the world. It was AMAZING.

But, before I was able to go on the trip, I had a mini trip of my own. Three days before we were to leave for our trip, it started to rain, and rain, and rain. I am not a complainer of rain but it was non-stop. Rain hasn't really ever affected the way we go about our day to day business but with the non-stop rain it was becoming inconvenient to do a few normal tasks. But, what can you do? On day three of the rain, the kids and I ran a few errands before we headed home. When we got the dry wash we cross to get to our house, it was RUNNING and running swiftly. It was kind of a novelty, so we watched for awhile and then headed to Nimrod's office to wait it out. During monsoon storms, the was runs for a little bit and then goes down. Two hours later, it is dinner time and the was is going up, not down. We decide to go out to eat since we are stuck in town and then plan to head home. We have a nice dinner, yadda-yadda, time to go home. The wash was not going down, the rain is not stopping and we need to get home. Nimrod's dad was with us and so they decide we will park our cars at a ranch on this side of wash and walk our home.

We drive to the ranch and park the cars. With the kids bundled up and the daylight slipping away we headed down the railroad tracks and across the railroad bridge to get over the wash. From there we veered off into the desert and slopped through the wet mud while being rained on. Twenty minutes later we see the lights of my in-laws house. We finally get there, wet, cold, and tired. My mother-in-law drove us over to our house just down the road and we were very thankful for our warm, dry home. While we were hiking, I kept thinking, "If this is what the canyon is going to be like, it will be MISERABLE." But, I was set to go 2 days later.

With the continuous rain in our area, the Grand Canyon was getting pounded with snow. The eight of us were throwing emails and texts back and forth, trying to figure out who was still willing to go. There had been more ladies, but with the terrible weather, people were dropping like raindrops. The few crazy ones were still in it. Nimrod's anxiety was going up with each rain drop falling . I was going to be gone for 3 days, it was snowing, I was driving the women and I had never driven in snow. I, however, chose not to think about those things.

The day came for us to leave and it was still raining. I picked up the ladies and off we went. This was the view out my front windshield as we approached the Canyon area.

This is the lodge we stayed in. I could not get over the icicles.

The next morning, the day of the hike down, we woke up to clear skies. God is great! Isn't this an amazing view? You cannot even see the bottom of the canyon from this view.

My self portrait. The enthusiasm is just oozing from my face. This is before I really know what I am getting into.

There were places where the snow drifts were deeper than me.

When we finally got to the bottom, 8 hours later, it was much warmer. The Colorado River looks like chocolate milk and made me want something sweet. I was not to be disappointed. The Phantom Ranch is known for it's great food, especially sweets.

Here is one of the little waterfalls that just flow out of random places throughout the canyon.

When we got to the bottom of the Canyon and were checking into our cabins, I looked up on the mountain and saw 2 big horn sheep. I about died! I couldn't believe I spotted them. All I could think was that Nimrod would be so proud of me for seeing them and so jealous that I saw them and he didn't. While we were down there for 2 days, I was constantly scanning the mountains to catch a glimpse of them again. I didn't see any and was disappointed.

However, on the hike out we were on one of the many switchbacks and heard this guy get really excited. I looked up the switchback and here is this big horn sheep walking down the trail we are walking up. It was unbelievable! The ram just walked down the path while the group above us was pinned against the mountain. Then he just walked over the edge of the trail and disappeared into the canyon. I would have never even imagined that could happen. If you look at this picture, you can see the ram on the left edge of the picture, about half way down. He is on the second switchback trail and you can see the man a little ahead of the ram on the trail.

I survived hiking the Grand Canyon, deep snow and wildlife encounters. It was a unique experience spent with some great friends, new and old. AND, the food at Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Canyon is definitely worth the hike down. I will do anything for good chocolate cake and I was not disappointed! Of course, I had to drive home with a broken speedometer (a challenge with no cars on the road) and couldn't walk for 3 days. Minor discomforts for a trip of a lifetime.

Family Fun at the Beach

No beach trip is complete without some fishing done by my family (excluding me, of course)

Punky Girl woke me up to come take a picture of this fish she caught. (I can think of better reasons to have to be woken up, i.e.coffee, but she didn't think I'd mind).

Nimrod hates this picture but I am rather fond of it.



My favorite one in YEARS! You will be seeing it on our Christmas cards.

Fun in the Ocean

This was the year of boogie boarding and surf boards. The water was FREEZING but with the investment of some wetsuits, the kids literally spent the entire week in the ocean. "Chick Magnet" improved his surfing and my kids really got into boogie boarding.

Buckaroo even attempted a few tricks.

"Look, Dad, one hand!"


When we went to buy the wetsuits, she told the store Dude that she would wear ANY color but pink. You should have seen his face. She must have been the first girl to ever tell him that. She was thrilled because she got to get a suit from the "boy" section. It doesn't matter if it is a boy or girl, she still looks stinkin' cute!

A rare moment of non-boogie boarding fun

He is so handsome, I can hardly stand it! Doesn't he look like he belongs at the beach?

Bucakaroo and me boogin'

4th of July

We were blessed to spend another Fantastic Fourth of July at the beach. A few of the family members decided to have a Statue of Liberty contest.

This is Chef S.L.'s entry.

Punky Girl

Cousin "Chick Magnet"

And the winner was...Cousin "Chick Magnet"!


This picture is an inside joke and had to be posted. NICE HAND!

Fall Break 2009

For Fall Break, my friend, her girl Pickles, the kids and I decided to take a road trip to Colorado. Why? To see the leaves of course. The kids have seen the leaves change color one other time in their little lives, so I thought they needed to experience again and there is no better place than Colorado. We did a little touristing-I know, not a real word, but mostly played, played and played! Our big surprise was the snow fall that arrived the night before we got there. We went to the mountains and the kids got to play in the snow, yippee! I would post pictures of that but I took the pictures in RAW and I am still learning (I use that term VERY loosely) how the process works and cannot convert the RAW pictures into jpeg to post. So that will be another blog. But these few give you an idea of what fun it was.

Pickle, Buckaroo, and Punky Girl having their first leaf fight!

Disneyland

Back in March I mentioned that I was working two part-time jobs. One is my regular part-time job of being an online instructor for our local high school and the other one was a tutoring job sponsored by our state. I decided that if the state actually paid me we would take the kids to Disneyland. I didn't expect the state to follow through considering our current economy but the check came in the mail 3 days before we left to CA. I was so excited knowing what was going to happen.

We waited to tell the kids until the day before we left so that they didn't bombard us with the question, "When do we go to Disneyland?" 50 thousand times. They only did it 50 times :)

We drove to the hotel to check in before we headed to the park. When I got to the front desk to check in, the reservations clerk told me I didn't have reservations. I about freaked out. My kids and hubby are in the car waiting for me to come out with a key and he tells me we have no room. I remembered I brought my confirmation sheet I printed out and showed it to him. He then does whatever they do on their computers and said to me, "This is for July 8, 2010. You made the reservation's for next year." I thought I was going to hyperventilate and die. There was no way I could walk out there and tell them we had no room. Then he told me to wait and disappears into his office for at least 5 minutes. I begin praying. I know God is not a genie and doesn't POOF! make it all better but I really was hoping for some divine intervention. He finally comes out and tells me that they do have a room we can have and they honored the price I had paid for already. God is better than a genie! That begins the little miracles that occurred the whole time we were there. Disneyland is a magical place but with God it is even more special. We checked in and headed to the park.

The first thing we see next to town hall is....the fire station. Punky Girl is thrilled! We checked out all the cool fire station things they have to see.

We cruised all over the park just letting the kids taking it all in. Unfortunately, so did 50,000 other people. It was crowded! And, most of them are from another country so they walk on the wrong side of the street/sidewalk. It was challenging to avoid getting run over. But, it IS Disneyland so we sucked it up :)

The first ride we went on as a family was the Matterhorn. I wasn't sure how Punky Girl would do but she laughed and laughed through the whole ride. I couldn't stop laughing listening to her laugh. I have decided that is my special moment of the whole experience. The four of us had a blast on that ride.

Here she is with her daddy on It's a Small World right after the Matterhorn. You can tell she is having a blast.

Buckaroo and I went on the teacups, not Nimrod's cup of tea! Do you know how hard it is to take a picture when you are spinning?

Buckaroo loved the Buzz Lightyear ride. Mostly because he got to shoot things and beat his dad the first time. We rode this ride the most because it was fast to get on and the kids loved it.

The whole afternoon and evening we kept trying to get on the Nemo ride because Punky Girl LOVES Nemo and we heard the ride was awesome but the wait was 2 hours and the kids did not want to wait that long on the first day there. We agreed that it would be the first ride we would go on the next day, assuming the line would not be as long. After a spectacular fireworks show we headed back to the hotel anticipating another day of fun at Disneyland.

The next we headed to the park and as Nimrod and Punky Girl headed over to Nemo, Buckaroo and I went to go get fast passes for Space Mountain, my favorite ride. When we got to Nemo, they were waiting for us to get in line. As we stepped in line we noticed the line was a 45 minute wait but we had told Punky Girl we would go on it first so we got in line. The lady working the line leaned down to Punky Girl and said, "Princess, this is what we call a magical moment and you and your family are going to the front of the line. We all looked at each other shocked! So, off to the front of the line we went. NO 45 minute wait for us. (miracle 2)

Here is Punky Girl at the front of the line totally excited. *Sidenote-the ride is worth a 45 minute wait...it is awesome!*

After Nemo, we split up. Nimrod and Buckaroo took off to climb a tree and do something manly. Punky Girl decided she wanted her face painted. Now, for those of you that have been to Disneyland you have seen the little girls with the glitter princess masks and the dresses and the tiaras and the princess walk you know that is all totally opposite of Punky Girl. So when she said she wanted her face painted I about fainted. I was all over that. We were directed to the Bibbity-Bobbity Boutique for this experience. It is a Princess salon for little girls. Punky spent 3 seconds watching these girls get pampered and she bolted. But, she still wanted her face painted. So, off we went to find a stand that did just face painting. About this time, Buckaroo and my fast passes were up for Space Mtn so Nimrod and I switched kids. Dad was in charge of the face painting escapade. Buckaroo was totally into it as we went into the ride. It was a rocket ship and had all the sound affects. He was into it until it got pitch black. I grabbed his hand during the ride and he was totally still. When we viewed our picture after the ride, his eyes were closed. I asked him if he had his eyes closed the whole time and he said yeah, the ride was too fast and closing his eyes helped it go slower. Needless to say, He did NOT like Space Mountain. I ruined him for the rest of the trip. He was not interested in anymore roller coaster rides. After the color returned to his face, we went off to find Nimrod and Punky Girl. This is what I found:

She didn't get a Princess mask, she picked out a flaming football! I knew it was too good to be true. Nimrod swears he didn't coerce her into picking this and it was all her doing. Knowing her, I am sure that is the truth. I am just shocked they even offer that as a face painting. So, we had the ONLY girl in all of Disneyland with a flaming football on her face. I think it was new one for the park.

We wandered the park and got a fast pass for Splash Mtn. We had two hours to wait so we got some lunch and went to Frontier land. Guess what we found? A shooting game! My son liked the things he could do in his own backyard. Go figure...

After this, we headed to Toon Town. This was our favorite place. Why? They have a firetruck, of course.

After Toon Town we decided to take the park train back over to Splash Mtn. As we were waiting in line, the kids told us that they were tired and didn't really want to go on Splash Mtn. (I told you I ruined Buckaroo). They just wanted to go to CA Adventureland and see Crush and then go back to the beach house. We asked them a dozen times to make sure they really were done and they were. While we were having the conversation the people next to us were telling their boys that they didn't know if they would have time to go to Splash Mtn. because they didn't get fast passes. The boys were willing to wait the 3 hours in line to ride it. Nimrod took our fastpasses and gave them to the family. At first they wouldn't take them. We told them our kids were done and we were definitely not going to use the passes. The mom asked when they were for and we said 2:40-3:40. It was 2:40 on the nose (miracle 3) They were so excited and it was one of the boys' birthday. I said to Nimrod, This is our pay-it-forward moment from the Nemo ride.

Off they went to Splash Mtn. and off we went to see Crush. This was for Punky Girl and her fixation with Nemo. Truth be told, it is one of my favorite movies too. Anyway, we get there right before the show starts, no waiting. We go in and the kids sit on the floor and the parents are in the theater seats. Out comes Crush to talk through screen (if you have never been it is hard to explain) and greets us. Then he tells his assistant on our side of the glass that there is someone in the crowd he wants to chat with. Crush the describes Punky Girl. Of all the kids to pick to talk to, he picks her(miracle 4). Nimrod leaned over and asked me if I paid someone to have him talk to her. No way, this is all new to me I replied. After talking with Punky Girl he wanted to talk with her parental unit. We had to raise our hands as the assistant came over to us with the mic. Then Nimrod had a conversation with Crush, it was quite comical. Totally out of his comfort zone, but he did it. Nimrod and I laughed on the way out because we had nothing else to give away or pay-it-forward for anyone else.

That ended our first trip to Disneyland. Actually, the Mickey Mouse ice creams bars on the way out ended our trip. It truly was magical for our kids.

Beach Bums

Each summer, Nimrod's parents, his sister & her husband, their kids and the four of us show up in CA for a week of sun and fun at the beach. We have come to cherish this family tradition and count the days all year long until the time comes. This year we were there for the 4th of July and so the kids got to see lots of fireworks all over the sky. We had sparklers and little ground ones that we lit off the beach. It was such a great way to start off the week of vacation. While it is hard to catch fireworks on camera, I think some of these pics are neat.

Most of the week is spent eating chocolate donuts, playing in the waves and getting sunburned. Oh, we all start out not trying to get sunburned but eventually all the adults get some type of burn. Then we lecture each other about the hazards of it. We do lots of people watching-my brother-in-law has lots of comments to fill in and "tell" the peoples' stories. It is quite entertaining to listen to him make up stuff about people. The men play poker, the women read and sleep, and sleep, and sleep, and the kids fight the waves.

Here is Lil "trying" to read but someone wouldn't leave her alone

If you could have only heard Buckaroo and Punky Girl. They would stand out in the ocean yelling to the waves, "Come on waves, hit me! Is that all you got?" They punched, they karate chopped, they jumped, they fell, they yelled, and they did it with big smiles. However, the big hit with the kids was the boogie boards. They finally figured out how to do this and had the BEST time out on the waves.

Our own "Bo Derek"

He seriously could not stop smiling the whole time he was on a board

WIPE OUT!!!

Of course, Nimrod and the kids managed to get some fishing in. Catching was another story...

Notice the goggles? An accessory for all occasions.

The kids endured family photo time-they really hate it but they have no choice :)

This Chef "lived" in our kitchen. You would not believe how many people walking along the beach would stop and check out his backside! Some even took pictures...what kind of caption goes with that in your photo album?

This is how my babies fell asleep the last night at the beach. Is this not the sweetest thing ever?

Another year has set on a fabulous family vacation