All Kinds of Hiking and Other Winter Activities

This picture of just me and Ellie was a quick science project where she counted cactus as we walked up the foothill on a lunch break one day. She was trying to count a population, community, biotic and abiotic factors. She counted 75 chollas on our foothill. 

This post is a hodgepodge of all the things we're doing that aren't baby Darcy's monthly updates. We started this year with my parents going back to Utah. But because of their visit we were in a habit of going on a daily walk with my dad. Because of this habit we decided to start hiking more as a family. That's definitely been a theme for the last couple months. 

This is sweetheart Holland when she used her summer bucks to buy make a treat. She got a cookbook from the library that's themed from the berenstain bears. This is a jello poke cake from that cookbook. She loved it obviously.

I love how much these two and all my girls play together. Although Darcy doesn't join in as much as the other three.

We started out this year with an experiment with our evening schedules. On Monday we went on a hike. On Tuesday we did value night. On Wednesday it was piano lesson. On Thursday it was another hike. On Friday it was make a craft day. This evolved and pretty soon we were also going on a hike on Saturday. And Friday the girls started doing their chores after school. They wanted to get a jump start on Saturday chores. They actually still do this a couple of months later. So we haven't made too many Friday crafts but when we did we use these stem kits we got from the library. Here is one where Ellie made constellations.

Rolling around and pushing yourself backwards means that you might get yourself stuck places.

Dad came back down to Arizona pretty quickly because he had to set up his art show. He wasn't trying to stay this year though because of coronavirus. Of course we had to go on a hike with him. This one was on Warpaint.

We've been so many hikes the last few months that honestly I don't even have a picture of all of them. One of the sweetest things about hiking was watching Ellie and Miriam hold hands during the hikes. They especially do it in the steep spots where they're nervous about slipping.

Cute baby taking a little nap during our walk. 

That's quite the white board drawing. She loves drawing pictures and leaving notes. Such a little sweetheart. In her words, "So, the green haired girl is me. The taller red girl  and the others are Miriam, Ellie, and Mommy. Daddy's the boy. Notice our bags. Darcy is in our family but she's not in the this picture. And the thing that's around us is the boat on the water. It is a ship on the ocean." 

A school project from Ellie. Engineering design process diagram for STEM. 

Holland counting out 100 beans for the 100th day of school.

She also made crowns for the king and queen unit of Kindergarten. She made one for the queen of the family and the royal baby too. 

This hike we don't really have a name for, just the culdesac hike. It is also known to us as the pride rock hike and the doggie poo hike. It is a particularly fun one that connects to the Dessert Classic Trail. 

It gets pretty steep in places. 

I love that sleeping baby. 

Because my parents were here on our actual anniversary, we celebrated with a date on a subsequent weekend. We had a great plan. We wanted to go watch airplanes take off and land at the airport and pick up some fancy, delicious food to eat while we did so. This was the perfect plan - get out of the house, stay social distance, have fun and relax together.

We ordered some food ahead of time. We knew we wanted to go to LongHorn steakhouse because we really wanted their shrimp appetizer. When we were looking at the entrees we decided to splurge and split a fancy one. This one came with real steak and lobster! Neither of us have ever had lobster before, and we wanted to try it. So basically this is going to be the fanciest meal of our lives.

Well we were a couple of minutes late getting off because I had to feed Darcy of course. Ellie was going to babysit. The restaurant actually called us to make sure we were coming to pick up our food. We went over there and picked it up and got on the road to go up to the airport. We decided to dig in to the appetizer on the drive. That's when we discovered there was a big problem. We didn't have any forks! This was unfortunate because we had specifically mark that we wanted silverware to be included. John thinking ahead, had brought along the steak knife to use, but had an include silverware because again we had marked that we wanted it from the restaurant! We debated, go home and get cutlery there? Or continue on and pick up a fork somewhere? The problem was is that we were on a time deadline. That baby needed to eat again! We were almost at the airport so we decided to just stop by fast food place and get a fork. Of course whenever you're looking for a fast food place it's not easy to find one. Eventually were made it to a Taco Bell and ordered a tiny little dessert through the drive-thru and asked that a fork being included.

When we got to the pickup window they handed us the little cinnabon and said, "Here's your fork." It was not a fork. It was a spork! Well our fancy fancy food was getting cold and we need to hurry so we can get back to feed the baby so we just went with it. We drove up to where we thought we could watch the airplanes, and we're concerned when we found the gates locked. We found a way in to this Honeywell parking lot and dug into our food. It was delicious although it felt so funny to be eating the fancy smell of our life by sharing one spork. 

Unfortunately our steak was super rare, so we brought that home to grill again the next day. It worked out--it was delicious!. The lobster was super fun and felt really decadent being dipped in butter sauce. To be honest it was a bit blander than I was hoping, so I don't know that I would prioritize getting it again, but I definitely eat it if I had the option. 

Watching the airplanes with a little bit of a bust. We're not sure why there weren't very many planes coming and going, but there just weren't.

Then when we tried to leave we had to hunt pretty hard to find a gate that was open. Fortunately, we found one and weren't locked in. John is a Honeywell employee so he had a badge to show that he could be in the parking lot.

It was a pretty memorable evening with a lot of laughter for how ridiculous the situation was. It was a ton of fun to be with my best friend even if the evening didn't go as planned.

John is such a wonderful father. Four little girls watching the scripture story reading time at night.

The summer of 2020 was recorded breaking in Phoenix. The record for number of days over 110° was completely smashed. Maybe like double the number of days? That led to plants all over the valley dying, especially saguaros. In our yard we had a half of our Tipu tree die. Of course it's the half that has the western exposure. We finally trimmed off the dead wood, and now looking at it, we are nervous about the other half of the tree dying this coming summer.

Telegraph pass. This is one of the few hikes that we had been on before. It's a short easy hike with a great view. All of the kids loved it.

Looking out at downtown.

Even though I've lived in Arizona for 7 and 1/2 years, I can still be surprised with how big and majestic saguaro's can be.

We also spent a lot of time biking. Not as much as hiking, but it's still really good practice, especially for Holland as she's just learning to ride without training wheels. She's doing a great job.

Sometimes in the summer it's hard to imagine that it really does get cold in the winter. When we see pictures of these kids in blankets, it seems crazy, but it really is necessary sometimes during the winter.

The Davises introduced us to the idea of having a fire pit in our backyard. The girls worked so hard one afternoon to make a ring of stones for a little fire pit. So we had to make a tiny fire that night. They loved it! Obviously because Ellie asked her a real fire pit for her birthday just a little while later.

Spending more time with our friends before they move.

Crazy hair day 'at school.'

Ellie has yoga class this semester. It's been fun for her to learn something new.

Crazy hair day plus journal writing for this little cutie.

Sophie has joined Holland in doing online school from her little table occasionally this winter.

Oliver liked watching Miriam too.

Eliza's other elective class this semester is a STEM class. This was her first project to make a charging station. It's definitely been outside of her comfort zone to do this class but I think she's learned a lot.

Sweet baby!

One of Miriam's specials, music has been extra fun with a recorder.

 Trying to get a nice angle for those gorgeous eyelashes. Also notice how drooly she is. So much drool!

The one time it's rained in the last 6 months.

Happy sisters!

Trying out a new trail, the cul-de-sac hike!

I love watching them hold hands.

Ellie and Miriam are buddies on hikes. Daddy and Holland are buddies on hikes. And Mommy and Darcy are buddies on hikes. We all have a buddy.

Being creative for our craft Friday.

Maybe a little too creative?

One Sunday as part of devotional we had a pushup contest. It was pretty fun. Some need to work on their form. 

Us oldies need to protect our wrists and used weights as push up bars. 

Darcy loves LOVES being read to. 

John drew himself. Holland drew Mommy. :)

Cul-de-sac hike.

We are always on the lookout for heart rocks. Obviously.

Holding hands is the cutest. 

Past the hill in the cul-de-sac hike there is a ravine that the kids raved and raved about hiking down. It seemed a little too likely that we would run into some wildlife for me to enjoy it as well as they did. 

They do some pretty fun things in kindergarten sometimes. For example during the weather unit, they use food coloring and shaving cream to make clouds and rain. Not surprisingly, Holland is all in for these activities.

Holland is riding her bike so well. We intended to do more bike rides every week, but hiking took priority pretty quickly.

I had to showcase her choice of footwear for riding her bike though. Of course, one boot and one flip flop.

Miriam is wearing one of my grandma's old hats.

Valentine's from kindergarten. Her teacher is so sweet to put all of these together. I'm sure that isn't an easy task.

Our little reader got her own chapter book from her teacher.

This was the hike that really got us into hiking. It is in Usery mountain park. It is a relatively short hike up to wind cave, but it definitely has some elevation gain.

It is a beautiful hike through the desert up to some cliffs that are covered with bright greenish yellow lichen.

There is a cave of sorts created from some Palo verde's, which made me all kinds of nervous about snakes. Thankfully there were none to be found. It did have one dead branch that was just at the wrong height. According to Ellie it was like a booby trap, where it was too high to see but too low to crouch under very easily.

We had to stop by the side of the trail and nurse our sweet baby. We went on a Saturday and there were a ton of people on the trail. Since this was kind of our first real hike out of Ahwatukee, we weren't prepared for how many people there would be around. So I ended up nursing right on the side of the trail. Oh well it worked!

Thankfully the kids could climb around on the fun rocks while they were waiting for us.

Sweet Darcy was not very happy at first, but after nursing she was able to take a quick nap in the carrier.

We made it up to the cave and it was an awesome view. Unfortunately there were a lot of bees up there so we had to kind of keep our distance from the main area.

The girls were super thrilled about the abundance of chipmunks around. We hiked this the same trail a month or two later and the chipmunks kind of freaked me out that time. They were overly aggressive trying to find our crumbs.

I feel like these pictures are not doing the beautiful desert justice. It is a gorgeous area.

Happy baby after that hike.

Such a cool view! There is some good elevation gain on this hike the view out into the valley is awesome. This is also the location of a huge blowout from Darcy. We discovered that we weren't as prepared as we thought we were. We had an extra diaper and wipes (thank goodness), but not an extra onesie. I felt bad she was in a dirty onesie the whole hike back. It was too chilly to ride in just a diaper. We also had to shove the dirty diaper and wipes into an empty ziploc snack bag. 

The greenish, yellow cliffs.

We love this hike!

Valentine's Day breakfast created by Eliza, Miriam, and Holland. They surprised us with a menu of options to choose from and decorations. Little sweethearts. They were so proud of themselves. I loved their fruit plate. 

Traditional valentine's dinner. Candles, steak, decorations, cards, martinellies floats. 

Traditional hand drawn cards from Mommy.

The girls went the distance on making cards for us. Such cuties!! Plus good chocolate, obviously. We got creme brulee white chocolates for Elizabelle. 

Traditional Martinelli float. Everyone loves them except Holland who doesn't like the fizz. Can you tell we don't ever drink soda?

Decorations too. We don't go halfway for Valentines.

Steak dinner.

Pretty in pink x4!

The Davises are getting closer to moving so we have Sophie and Oliver more and more.

We all love bathtime with Darcy. 

Hike up our foothill with Sophie and Oliver.

Oliver telling John all about Avengers and Captain America.

Notice John's new Camelbak. It was his Valentine's present. I sure am romantic. :) But really it is pretty cool. I also really loved my Valentines gift of a new Cutco knife. He knows the way to my heart. :) 

Darcy is starting to love books, and Holland shows her love by reading to her.

We are going to miss our friends.

So sweet and a little bit heartbroken.

One Saturday we drove over to the Superstition Mountains to go on Treasure Loop Trail in the Lost Dutchman State Park. Because of covid restrictions we weren't able to get in the park. They turned us away at the gate more than once. Fortunately we were able to find a nearby trail (Massacre Falls) that was really cool.  It was a longer hike than we could really do, but it was still memorable and enjoyable. We saw this weird critter we saw on a hike. 

Some climbing adventures.

We hike through the desert, near peak at the end of the canyon, up the canyon, and up the steep canyon wall before turning around. 

Interesting chollas and burned areas.

Tired girl after a long hike. 

Finding some sparse shade.

The other side of this little peak. 

Ellie's birthday was also in this time frame. I will do another whole post about that, but one of the fun presents she got was a cool Picassotile marble track. We love it. 

Her other main present was this cool fired pit. We have enjoyed several s'mores nights since then. 

Darcy doesn't get any s'mores, even though her forehead might indicate that she did. Nope it was just Mama being messy. 

Darcy playing hands and feet with a balloon. I think it is adorable that she uses her feet like that.

Mommy, daughter date to go pick up oranges at the Orange Patch, plus walking around a park and getting Sonic milk shakes. I love my girl so much! There were some fun ducks to see. 

The Davises sent us gourmet cookies for all the help with their move. We miss them.

Happy in the swing.

We came on a Thursday afternoon evening to see if we would have better luck getting into Lost Dutchman State Park. Sure enough, we got right in. We love these early evening hikes. 

At the top looking back.

Don't mind the drop off on either side of us. No, it isn't too high.

We pack lunchmeat sandwiches for dinner after our hikes. They are delicious. 

Brightest moon + saguaros + cliffs + and my favorite nine year old. 

These cliffs are pretty fantastic.

Fun boulders and outcropping of rocks. There was a main Treasure Loop trail, but there were tons of little off shoot trails all over this hill. It was fun to take a few minutes to explore.

Pilgrim hat craft in Kindergarten. Pilgrims totally had purple hats. :) 

Native American head dress. 

Holland's got big plans for our Mommy daughter date.

Saturday afternoon hike up Hieroglyphics trail. 

Definitely a rocky trail up the canyon. Even with my tennis shoes on my feet felt a little beat up after. Ellie had a roller coaster of a hike. First she found a whole dollar on the trail, which was awesome. 

Later she got a teddy bear cholla stuck in her shoe. She tried to kick it off, but it didn't work. So she reached down and tried to carefully pull it out. Unfortunately it totally got stuck on her thumb and finger, poor girl. The blessing of this situation was that I had been given the thought that we needed to put together a hiking first aid kit. I had just got it together the day before this happened. So even thought it totally stank and hurt terribly for her, we were able to pull it out and put bandages on the little spots. Poor girls was suffering from those barbs though. And more than two months later she still has little sores/bumps where it got her so bad. 

We made it to the top of the canyon where we found some fun climbing rocks, a yucky pool of water, and a bunch of hieroglyphs. Fun fact, after spending a few minutes reading about it: hieroglyphs and petroglyphs mean the same thing. 

They were all over the place!

Love my little baby in her hat. 

Gorgeous sunset on the hike out.

Nursing in the car after our hike. 

Devotional one Sunday. We love at home church. Although over the last few months the word has gotten more organized and there are more zoom meetings that correspond with our normal classes. That means there's extra meanings for John too because other quorum functions are happening. What this all means is that church is feeling a little more normal but our Sundays are feeling a lot more busy. We have not been able to have the long devotionals we were having for a while. Pretty soon we'll just be going back to normal church though so it's okay.

Edible turkey for kindergarten

Holland wrote her first pun! "I dove you love H professional." With a picture of a dove. Such a cutie!

Trying to figure out what Darcy's eye color is going to be.

Still having fun with Ellie's marble track. This one had to stay on the kitchen table for a couple of days because we loved it so much.

Darcy is reminiscent of a rooster in this picture. But the cutest rooster of all time.

Date with Miriam! We got frozen custard and played phase 10 in the van while we were parked in the parking lot of the park. That's a lot of parks! It was too windy to go outside, but we still had a great time.

This was the hardest hike of the whole season. It was wave cave! The trail wasn't that long, but it was a little tricky to find and the trail got really steep as it was approaching the cave. Nothing we couldn't handle though! I felt like I needed to read up on the hike before we could just go do it though. This ended up being important because we needed to buy a wilderness pass to park there. We went on a Thursday and was able to avoid the crowds thank goodness. We like people we just don't like being around them when we're trying to see things.

Can you see the wave? Apparently this cave is pretty crowded on the weekends. We only had a couple other people there with us though. The cave was so much bigger than I thought it was going to be.

Pretty view from the top. You can see all the way down to the parking lot where we started the hike.

Family selfie under the wave plus Rich left his mark.

Darcy doesn't sleep too much in the carrier but occasionally she gets a little cat nap.

Can you see the the cave up behind us on the cliff?

Such a beautiful area! We had to drive for a bit on a dirt road to get you there

Sweet notes from Holland!

She drew a picture of us on our wedding day.

Darcy baby in her knotted gown. She's getting too big!

Date night! Pin this sombrero on the little guy.

So many cute notes from our little sweetheart.

Beautiful angel baby!

Eliza, Miriam, and Holland have been continuing Millennial Choirs and Orchestras via the weekly practice videos. This means that occasionally our house is filled with the sounds of our girls singing their songs. Usually, they all do their videos at the same time, so the voices are all singing different things.