Spring Break 2021

 

We always love spring break! It's so nice to have an excuse to mix up our schedule and just take the time to do fun things.

One of our spring break activities was finally polishing the silver that my dad brought down to us when he came to set up the art show. This silver set belonged to my great aunt Jean.

It took hours to polish the silver. It hadn't been used in at least 30 years. Fortunately my three older girls jumped in and helped with that task. They actually did quite a bit of it. But it was still a long project.

We had to celebrate after and do a fancy tea party. We got all dressed up and used the China. We also adopted fancy names and made fancy food to go with it. Just call us Fancy Nancy.

One of the best creations for this tea party was little skewers that had a mozzarella cube, a basil leaf, and a cherry tomato. They are delicious. We also enjoyed making some fancy dishes from my Magnolia Table cookbook like deviled eggs and shortbread cookies.

Of course on spring break we also had to go on a lot of hikes. This one was a relatively flat hike but a little bit longer at over four miles. It's called Lost Dog trail. Even though it was pretty flat it had a beautiful view at the end.

We took our picnic dinner of sandwiches like usual to eat after our hike. They wanted to eat at the little amphitheater, but it was pretty chilly that day.

Meanwhile Darcy girl nursed in the van.

Okay she never nurses that great in the van.

Enjoying a rare morning cuddle with a sleepy baby.

This never happens anymore!

Happy baby at night!

And during the day.

Daddy is the lucky ones that gets cuddles regularly.

This was my favorite hike of the entire season. It's called Sunrise peak. It is a little longer at 4 mi. And it's quite a bit steeper than we normally do. So it was definitely the hardest hike we went on, but it was so worth it. Also the weather was nice and cool and overcast which made it a lot easier to hike.

The view from the top was amazing! To be honest we got over there later than we wanted to so we really booked it up the trail in order to finish before it got too dark. On top of that urgency, was that it looked like it was going to storm! So it was definitely a rush up and a rush down! Thankfully everything worked out just fine.

Eating sandwiches on the side of the van.

Man, we hiked a lot this week. On Saturday we went up to Scottsdale again to do another loop hike. This one was Gateway Loop Trail. It was more challenging than I thought it would be and definitely was more stormy and chilly than we anticipated, but I was still happy we went. 

Storm clouds looming! Why don't we have umbrellas?

Windy ridge at the top. And added bonus to this adventure was that our van battery was dead when we got back to the car. Luckily, there was someone idling in their car just a couple of spots down from us. They were able to give us a jump without problem other than it was pretty rainy and windy at that point. We feel pretty blessed that the van died on the day of the Lost Dog hike rather than the Sunrise hike because there would have been no one around at all. 

"Dear M+D+M+E, I will have a party tomaro it will be fun. and if we cant do it I will be disaponted. love H." 

Pi Day! Any excuse to make pie around here is a good excuse! We tried a couple of recipes from my Magnolia Table cookbook: Dulce de leche apple and brownie pie. They were okay. We definitely prefer our typical chocolate cream pie and cranberry apple pie better. 

One afternoon we went for a hike at Papago Park. It is a popular park near the zoo and botanical garden that we have been meaning to go to since we moved to AZ. There were trails, but we just kind of meandered anywhere we felt like going. 

Unfortunately because of the popularity of this park you could definitely tell it had been more abused than the normal hikes we have gone on. There was graffiti and someone had even used an alcove as a bathroom. Ew. (Not the one pictured, obviously.)

It was still great to climb all over these rocks. What a great evening!