On Friday, after Jeff got home from work, we went for a long walk with Luke. We were trying to find a park that we saw on a map of Flagstaff, but somehow, it evaded us. We decided we would just find the park on our drive to church on Sunday and walked home. Despite things not going according to plan, we had fun being outside, walking, and talking.
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| Luke was happy that it was overcast out for part of our walk so he could look around without the sun in his eyes. |
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| We found a couple of little lakes full of ducks. From behind, this looked like a black goose with its long neck and since it was way too big to be a duck... |
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| But it turned out to be a giant mutant duck. |
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| On our way home. |
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| Luke was making some funny faces at Jeff. |
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| When we got home, we sat out on our balcony for a while and then watched the new Star Trek movie on Netflix since it had just become available on instant streaming. |
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| Jeff was trying to imitate Luke as he stared intently at something. |
The next day, we decided to check out a place called Blazin' M Ranch in Cottonwood about 60 miles south of Flagstaff. It's one of those places that is made to look like the Old West with activities like a shooting gallery, an old time portrait studio, a petting zoo, a train ride, and "cow" roping followed by dinner and a show. We went to something very similar in Colorado last summer and it was surprisingly fun. The place opens at 5pm with dinner at 6:30 so we left the apartment around 4:00, thinking that would give us plenty of time to get there. That's when we came upon this adorable scene:
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| This bird nest has been above the stairs leading up to our apartment since we moved in and we could just barely see some little fuzzy baby birds inside. This is one of the babies peeking out of the nest. It was even cuter in person! On Monday, we saw this little guy and his two siblings flying around in front of our apartment for what appeared to be their first time. |
Well, it turned out leaving at 4:00 would not give us enough time to be there by 5:00, especially not when you get stuck behind a painfully slow driver going down the mountain like we did. By the time we got to Sedona (still 20-30 minutes away from Cottonwood), it was already well after 5:00 and the traffic in Sedona was insane. We decided to stop and explore Sedona that night and try Blazin' M Ranch on Monday instead.
There wasn't a whole lot we could do in Sedona with a two-month-old so we just walked around and enjoyed being outside in the nice weather as we checked out all of the touristy shops. We stopped for a yummy, but over-priced dinner and then got frozen yogurt in waffle cones for dessert.
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| Luke was very well behaved and happy the entire time. |
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| They're kind of hard to see, but those things that look like jeans in the window display are actually leggings made to look like jeans. The little sign on top of the mannequin says, "We've got jeggins!" as if it's something everyone is looking for. |
Nothing exciting to report, but it was a pleasant evening in Sedona and Luke slept the entire way home (which was way faster than the way there) like the good baby he is.
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| I took this picture of my guys the next morning before church. Jeff's tie matched Luke's outfit - pink and navy blue. |
On Monday, we left for a hike first thing in the morning. We had a minor setback though when our plans were thwarted once again, this time by a closed trail head. We didn't let it phase us though. We went home and quickly printed out directions to another hike before heading right back out. The trail we chose required us to drive on a rocky dirt road for a while to get to the trail head. Poor Luke was trying to nap through all of the bouncing.
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| Poor Luke being bounced in every direction, but still somehow managing to stay asleep. |
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| He made the funniest faces while he was refusing to let the bumpiness wake him from his nap. |
As we drove along the dirt road, there were cows and big bulls in the forest and fields on both sides of us. We couldn't tell who they belonged to. They were all over the place!
We finally arrived at the trail head of our short hike to Bismarck Lake. This hike was about half as long as the first hike we tried, which ended up being a blessing because I don't think Luke would have appreciated being out hiking twice as long as we did. He did extremely well on this little hike for the most part, however, and although it was short (about 2.5 miles), it felt great to be out in nature for a while and we were glad we went.
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| Jeff and Luke at the trail head. We hiked to Bismarck Lake and then, on our way back, turned and walked for about five minutes down Arizona Trail before heading back to our car. |
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| The couple of times we had previously tried putting Luke in this little carrier were not very successful. He didn't like it one bit, but this time, he didn't seem to mind at all. He happily enjoyed his view of the blue sky and trees. |
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| He looked so cute in there! |
The hike took us through a couple of big meadows with great views of the forest and mountains around us.
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| Luke got hungry when we got to the lake. |
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| The "lake" wasn't much of a lake. It was more like a pond. |
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| We saw pretty wild flowers here and there along the trail, but there weren't many. We could imagine, though that at certain times of the year, these meadows are full of them. |
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| A sampling of the wild flowers |
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| Bluebells |
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| Even without fields of wildflowers, it was a beautiful day. |
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| Luke did so well for almost the entire hike, but when we were a few minutes from finishing he got hungry again and he had finished his bottle. Daddy did a great job of appeasing him with his binkie until we got back to the car. |
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| The ride back from the trail head to the highway was just as bumpy, but Luke slept through it once again. I did my best to hold his head steady so it wouldn't get knocked around too bad. |
That afternoon, we left at 3:00 to be sure we would get to Blazin' M Ranch with time to spare. It was a long drive (an hour and a half), but Luke slept the entire time, giving Jeff and I the opportunity to have some quality one-on-one time and great conversation. Unfortunately, when we finally got there, we were greeted by this sign...
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| We couldn't believe that our plans had been ruined once again. |
After we got over the initial shock and disappointment, we made plans to come back after the ranch reopened and tried to stay positive, making plans for a nice quiet night at home. On the long drive back, Jeff and I started taking turns asking each other thought-provoking questions to pass the time. Enjoy:
If you could chose an activity to do weekly with Luke, what would it be?
Jeff: Boating (tubing, water skiing, wake-boarding, etc.)
Kira: Take him to the beach (build sandcastles, boogie board, frisbee, etc.)
If you could live anywhere, where would you live?
Jeff: Near Lake Livingston in Austin, TX
Kira: Yorba Linda or somewhere close by. I loved growing up there! Great weather, the beach, Disneyland, great schools, low crime rate, good people...
What is your favorite non-chocolate candy?
Jeff: Werthers
Kira: Skittles
What is your favorite chocolate candy?
Jeff: Chocolate-covered raisins
Kira: Kit-Kats
If you had to be famous for something, what would it be?
Jeff: NFL football player
Kira: A website or book of creative ideas (dates and/or fun things to do with your kids)
What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?
Jeff: Cookies n' cream
Kira: Mint cookies n' cream
If you could have anyone's power on the show 'Heroes,' which would it be?
Jeff: Claire's - Immortality
Kira: Hiro's - Teleporting & the ability to stop time
If you could participate in any cruise excursion-like activity, what would it be?
Jeff: Scuba-diving through an old ship wreck
Kira: Hang-gliding or anything that involves getting into a cage with a large animal (e.g. Shamu, dolphins, tiger, etc.)
What is your ideal occupation?
Jeff: Fighter pilot (not actually going to war though, just flying around in a jet)
Kira: Writing books of creative ideas or dolphin trainer
If we could have gone anywhere on our honeymoon, where would you have wanted to go?
Jeff: 3 weeks in a place with both beaches and mountains and a variety of things to do ... like New Zealand
Kira: 3 weeks in Hawaii
If we had a full day to spend just the two of us, money no object, what would we do?
Jeff: Fly to California, go to Disneyland and California Adventure, to a water park, and stay in a hotel on the beach.
Kira: Fly to California, go to the beach, Sea World (swim with the dolphins while there), Disneyland, a Bon Jovi concert, and stay in a fancy hotel on the beach.
If you could be any animal, what animal would you be?
Jeff: Snow leopard
Kira: Dolphin
If you had to get a tattoo, what would you get and where?
Jeff: something around my upper arm
Kira: a small heart or star on either my hip or my ankle
What would your final meal be?
Jeff: A Fudrucker's burger and an Oreo milkshake
Kira: One of the turkey sandwiches from our cruise and a spread of every dessert I like so I can have a little of everything
Who are your top three favorite actors/actresses?
Jeff: Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage, Will Smith
Kira: Will Smith, Jennifer Garner, Gerard Butler
If you could have either a boat, a motor-home, or an airplane, which would you choose?
Jeff: Two boats. (Kira: "That wasn't even an option. And you asked the question!") Fine, a plane, which I would sell to buy two boats - one for wake boarding and a yacht.
Kira: An airplane so I can visit friends and family whenever I want.
Which of the continental United States that you haven't been to would you like to visit?
Jeff: New York
Kira: Alaska
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| When we got home, I made us scrambled eggs and some practically perfect pancakes for dinner. |
Sure, things didn't exactly go according to plan, but overall I'd call Labor Day weekend a success.
1 comment:
Luke is so adorable! He so reminds me of little Patrick! (Okay, big Patrick now) I too, LOVE Gerard Butler - maybe I'll watch "Phantom of the Opera" tonight...
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