Tonto Natural Bridge

What a fun day!  We absolutely love driving up North, and we do it all the time.  Sometimes we just find a good spot in the woods to explore and hike, other times we actually visit an actual venue/location.  Today, hiked the Gowan trail at Tonto Natural Bridge, one of our favorite spots.  I love this area.  The trailhead is so gorgeous, right in the bowl between the mountains, with lots of grassy space to run, eat lunch, and relax.  It was warm today, but there was enough of a breeze and occasional cloud cover to make it really beautiful, especially when we got down under the bridge.  Last time we came here, we went through the back entrance of the bridge.  This time we started on the proper course to really explore under the bridge, and it is by far my favorite trail to take.  

We took a TON of pictures, which are laid out below.  I realized, as I was posting these, that there are several pictures of JD and Jordan in proportion to everyone else-that's because they went hiking to the other side of the bridge with me and got a lot of screen time!  Regardless, everyone did great-awesome attitude, persistent hiking, even when it started to get warm, and a happy baby who sat in the backpack most of the time. Lots of nice people down there as well, our only complaint was we were not allowed to play in the water, as indicated by the signs, and by the ranger who blew his whistle and yelled at anyone who got close.  We laughed it off, and Jackson still got to throw rocks in the water, like he wanted.  Fun, fun times!

At the trailhead and just barely starting down it.

 Oh the steps!  So many of them...we were breathing heavy on the way back up, that's for sure!

 The opening to the bridge is right ahead.

 And there it is!  :)  Taken with my handy camera timer!

 And....the climbing begins.  The boys literally took off the second we got down here.

 This rock slide right here was so, so slippery-our sneakers had no purchase on it, whatsoever.  When you are trying to help 6 kids down this, one of whom is in a hiking backpack, it is not so easy-we actually had two other ladies help us on the way back up because it was that slippery!

 Kind of dark, but can you see the water drops plopping into the stream?  It was "raining" under the bridge most of the time.

 Me and the boys are almost to the other side of the bridge in these next few shots-we stopped by a very quiet, peaceful pool of water that was super beautiful-these shots don't do it justice at all.

 Here's the little pool Jackson sat by nearly the whole time, just throwing rocks as hard as he could.

 He kept looking shocked as he pointed to the ceiling-he was pretty amazed by the height!

 I was laying down when I took these pics of James-catching the wall and the underside of the bridge!

 Right before we headed out, Karianna was expressing her annoyance at her hair-it kept going in her eyes.  I took a second to pull it into a ponytail, attach her hat so it gave her optimal shade, and then took a picture because she wanted to see what it looked like.  I personally think she is drop dead gorgeous in this shot.  :)

Another Funny Conversation

On the way home from the pool....

Karianna:  I have lots of back up careers if my first few options don't work.

Me:  Well, there are usually jobs available for nurses and teachers.  We always need more of those.

JD:  Do we need more wrestlers too?

LOL!  Pick another career option, JD!  Won't allow that one!

A Funny

On the way home from the pool....

Karianna:  I have lots of back up careers if my first few options don't work.

Me: Well, there are usually jobs available for nurses and teachers....we always need more of those.

JD: Do we need more wrestlers too?

LOL!  Pick another career option, JD!  Won't allow that one!

Dive Meet #1

Today was Karianna's first dive meet of the 2015 swim season-woohoo!  I took the kids to swim at Stapely about an hour before we were actually supposed to be there, and Jared met us there at 6:30.  Karianna seemed a bit nervous, but was overall excited to do her dives after the first few weeks of practice.  I stalked the grassy area in order to get good seats, hee hee! 

 Karianna did three dives:  a front tuck dive, a front flip, and a back dive.  She did GREAT on all three, and I was especially proud of her tuck dive-that was a really hard dive for her to coordinate last year, and this year, she just is so much more physically adept at jumping, tucking, and then pulling out into a beautiful dive-so awesome!

I captured her front flip all right:

 And I got a not-so-great shot of her back dive-definitely need to move to the side of the dive tank next time!

 She ended up in 4th place out of 21 girls.  For the first meet, WOW! That is super impressive!

We are already looking forward to next week's meet-way to go Karianna!

Sara's Understanding of Wealth

While adding graphics to a team newsletter....

Sara:  Hey mom, that sure looks like a lot of money.  If someone had that much money, they would be rich....but nobody in the whole world is right, right?

Me:  Uh, lots of people in the world are rich sweetie.

Sara:  What?!  I didn't even know rich people really existed!  I thought rich people were make believe!

LOL! We learn new things every day!

A Funny Comment

The innocence of children...does this mean we are doing a good job parenting, or a bad job?  I am just not sure.... ;)

While adding grpahics to a team newsletter...

Sara:  Hey mom, that sure looks like a lot of money.  If someone had that much money, they would be rich...but nobody in the whole world is rich, right?

Me:  Uh, lots of people in the world are rich, sweetie.

Sara:  What?!?  I didn't even know rich people really existed! I thought rich people were make believe!

LOL!

A Krazy Air Birthday!

Well, happy birthday to JD!!!!!!

I need to do a regular birthday post for this guy, but I'll put up these pictures now since this was kind of unique for our family.  Normally, we just do a small family party, and then a cousin or extended family party later in the week.  This time around, we opted to do a party with the Lautenschlagers on Saturday, but we still wanted to do something special for JD on his actual birthday without giving him all his presents.  So, we told him we would give him one present-he just didn't know that present was going to Krazy Air!  We went to McDonalds for a birthday dinner and then drove straight to the trampoline land-he had no idea, and was super excited when we told him!  So these pictures are not great, whatsoever, but I'll post them anyway because we had just a fantastic time.  I LOVE this place, I could spend every day there.  There is something about being on a trampoline that just makes you feel like a kid again.  I loved jumping with the kids, and though Jared wasn't really dressed for it, he got in on the action to.  My favorite part was flipping into the foam pit.  I actually landed a front flip for the first time in years on the trampolines, so that was cool! 

 I didn't know if Jackson would be able to do much, but he was busy the entire time!  He would run across a tramp, fling himself down, and laugh hysterically.  He loved being dropped in a foam pit, as pictured above, and throwing the foam cubes everywhere.  He grabbed a nerf ball from one of the basketball courts, and kept throwing it around the tramps for a long time.  He was in heaven, just like the other kids!  He looks SO much like JD in the picture below!

 Jared going for the dunk!

 Karianna even landed a front flip, which was so awesome!  She is getting good at her front flip for dive team, so practicing here was fun for her.

 Lining up for a race across the tramps.

All in all, it was a terrific way to celebrate JD's birthday, and we have discovered a new family favorite!  We will totally be going back in a few weeks for the family jump on Monday nights.  Happy Birthday JD!

Phantom!

 We have been looking forward to this night for months and months!  We bought tickets to see Phantom of the opera way back in....October maybe?  Karianna paid for her own ticket with babysitting money, and I was super excited to see the revamped version of my favorite musical.  The Hammerquists joined in the fun, driving down from Sahuarita to sit in the 4th row of the first balcony with us.  The excitement was palpable!

 We took some fun pictures real quick, hit the bathrooms, and settled into our seats.  The set looked different right off the bat, but it started just the same with the auction, the lighting of the chandelier, and the thrill of the organ playing that famous first chord....chills!  The orchestra was amazing-one of the best I have ever heard.  We were certainly entranced the entire time, and Karianna kept whipping her head around to look at me and give me these looks of utter amazement.  I'm so glad I was able to go with her to see her first reactions to Phantom.  She knows all the songs, and just loved the entire show.

Sigh....My daughter does the duck face.

The entire show was wonderful.  The music, the acting, the effects-all wonderful.  A lot of the choreography and the sets had changed, and I feel for the better with the exception of the boat scene when the phantom first takes Christine down to his lair-I missed that scene.  There was a new scene where they explained the Phantom's history, which was cool-I wish they had added even more detail, but it was a good addition. The chandelier fell differently as well.....it fell at the end of the first act, and incorporated pyrotechnics.....come to think of it, there was a lot more pyrotechnics than I remember!  That part was cool....the falling of the chandelier was definitely not as grandiose as I remember, which was kind of sad, and I spent a good chunk of the second act hoping it would fall again. The other part that was difficult to swallow was the singing.  Oh, the singing....I love phantom music, but I did not love the voices of the actors in the major roles.  Christine's voice was by far not as powerful and pure as it needed to be; when she  took over for Carlotta and sang Think of Me, you could barely even hear her-and her octave trills on The Phantom of the Opera were barely audible, as if she was struggling to support the air flow needed to sing that high. The Phantom's voice fell in the same boat; and Raoul's entire character was...lustful, arrogant, and brash.  His voice matched that take on his character, and I did not like it.  In many instances, I felt like we were watching a case of spousal abuse or domestic violence.  I never felt like Raoul actually loved Christine, and that is a huge part of this show.  That was honestly disappointing.  Suzie and I had to remind ourselves that we were at a slight disadvantage, having seen Phantom a few times before, knowing the music so well, and just having a lot to compare it to.  End of the day, everything really was great and each main character had beautiful, amazing moments, especially Christine's version of "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again"-we have just seen better.

All in all, it was a wonderful night that I loved sharing with Karianna!  We sat in the garage waiting for our turn to pull out for about 20 minutes, watching a police scene unfold before us since a car had done a disastrous parking job, likely hitting the car next to him.  It gave us a chance to dissect the musical.  The girls' comments about it were hilarious!  Makes me wonder what musical we will see next... :)