Daisy's baptism day

 Hiking, Surviving, and the Zoo (again...)

Last Saturday we decided to take the kids on a hike. We opted to go to the smaller mountains in the Papago area since it was right next to the zoo and we could hit the zoo for a bit after our hike. We arrived around 10am and put Dale in his beloved backpack and were on our way. There is one mountain nearby that has an amphitheater on the backside that Justin wanted to show the kids, so we headed that way. It was probably about a mile from where we parked, but mostly just trail walking up and down through various washes.

"Look Dad! That rock looks like T-Rex! See the head?"

 Do you see it?

Adaira is such a Daddy's girl. This picture says it all...

As much as I dislike this angle of me in pictures, I have to throw myself in there sometimes to document that I attended as well...

Letting Dale out at the amphitheater so we could stretch his legs and have some snacks

Adaira is always up for a pose lately. You tell them you are going to take a picture of them and she instantly puts on a huge smile and poses. Brighton pretty much does the opposite...

Justin, Brighton, and Adaira all hiked up the top of a very steep part at the very top of the mountain while I stayed down with Dale. He took a bunch of pictures of Brighton and Adaira and I just had to laugh at all of Adaira's different poses...

 We had to walk around the backside of the mountain to see the amphitheater, and then we hiked up a small trail to get up to the top of the mountain to please Brighotn & Adaira's curiosity. Since we were at the top, I suggested that we try and see if we could just come down the other side rather than hike back the way we came and go all the way around the mountain again. We weren't sure about the trail, so Justin looked up ahead a little ways and thought it looked passable, so we all pressed forward. We were soooo wrong, though, since the trail ended at a near 14ft drop where you needed to scale slippery rock almost straight down, with very few foot/hand holds. We took a look at it, and I said "well why don't I go down first and you can hand the kids to me?" so that is what we tried. At the bottom of the 14ft drop there was a ledge about 2.5ft wide, and then another 6ft drop, so you couldn't just slide down very easily. I took my time and had Justin's help getting as low as I could, and then I had a tiny indentation as a foot hold about 8ft down, leaving me with a little under 6ft to go. I had no other foot holds, so I tried a long step down with my other leg while my opposite leg was on the foot hold. Turns out my legs aren't 5ft long....so just before my foot touched the leg my body started tipping backwards since my legs were pretty much doing a split without any more length or flexibility to go. Justin was mortified as he saw me land since I was tipping backwards landing on one foot, but I was just as freaked out so as I landed I turned my body so I could lean and trip along the length of the rock rather than backward. It definitely wouldn't have been a good thing to fall on my head off of the 6ft ledge onto the rocks below....not a very smart move on my part.
Once I got down, Justin tried to take off the backpack with Dale in it, which was scary enough since he was on a ledge about 4ft down from the top and didn't have the best footing. Dale kept leaning over to the side to get a look at me down below and that would make the backpack lean as Justin was taking it off and he would freak out that  Dale was going to fall out. It was a highly stressful ordeal. Once Justin got the backpack with Dale off, he lowered it down to me and I had no choice but to lay it down on the ledge with Dale stuck in it (and of course he was upset and screaming because he was stuck in the backpack laying on his back with the sun in his eyes, but I couldn't have him walking about because he would fall off the ledge while I was having Justin lower Brighton and Adaira to me!) Needless to say, we got everyone down, forgot to take a picture of the treacherous ledge, but here we are approaching the bottom of the trail and we were all still alive and uninjured, and that was a great thing!

 Dale completely broke my sunglasses so I apologize for this ugly grandma pair in these pictures. I'm pretty sure they are OLD ones I might have accidentally taken from my mom's house a long time ago.

We finished our hike and went to the zoo for about an hour to finish off our adventure. The kids described the hike as "an adventure of a lifetime!!!", lol. I guess terrifying yourself makes a good adventure...

 Adaira, Brighton, and the huge ape...

At least this little girl doesn't think she's too pretty for goats!

For whatever reason, maybe his orange sweater or his perfect size for pecking at, this turkey was obsessed with Dale. It was following him all around the cage and would completely ignore everyone and everything else. Dale noticed it and teased it for a little while by running back and forth with his signature evil little grin on his face (not pictured, we didn't think to take a video until the fun was nearly over).

Later that Dale I found Dale in my sink, what else is new?

The following day, on Sunday, we had a fun get-together with Justin's parents and my family. I love family get-togethers, especially when  Justin smokes some excellent meat! He smoked some beef and two racks of ribs, and they were so tasty! I don't enjoy all the money that the meat costs, but I guess that's the price to pay to have a good party... 

Grandma Jo was in charge of bringing the salad for the whole group (about 20 people including kids) and she had put the salad dressing in the bag and was having Brighton help her shake it all up. Need I say more? Floor salad, bon apetit!