Drum roll please......................
I got my first dose of the Covid vaccine! (Cheers....applause....). Tyler did too. Utah has opened appointments for ages 16+. So I'm well on my way to being completely immune from any disease ever again.... okay, well maybe just a slightly better defense against covid, but it's a start.
Tyler has his senior prom coming up. He didn't really want to go (I've never seen a case of senior-itis as bad as his....he's is ready to be done done done with high school) but I told him he had to! Otherwise he would never get the experience of his senior prom. So we found a cute way to ask....this is the best....
So he's got his date and his plan and (hopefully) his dinner reservations and is ready to go for a week from now!
For spring break this year we couldn't travel too much (ya know, Covid) so we decided to head down to Sedona, AZ. We've thought about going there a few times but there always seemed to be something more enticing. But now with so much closed down and travel restrictions abounding, we figured it would be the perfect time to head down there (plus Carrie gave a huge plug for it). We had a blast, more fun than I even thought we would. Our house we rented was really close to an awesome bike skills park. It had huge jumps, slalom runs, etc etc etc. Jacob especially had a blast. I'm surprised he didn't break a limb the with jumps and air he was getting. Plus it was nice to be so close so that at times when the rest of us were tired and wanted to chill at the house, Jake could head over the park and ride. That happened several times. Here's Jake on a jump at the skills park...it is bigger than it looks like in the picture.
We did a lot of mountain biking as a family too. After the first ride we realized Maggie's bike was not up to snuff, so we rented a nicer bike for her to ride. Actually she did really good the first half but the second half of the first ride she was struggling and losing confidence. Finally I got frustrated enough that I gave her my bike and rode hers.....um, yeah, it took me about 2 minutes of riding to realize I don't know how she even rode it as far as she did! Granted, it was my old mountain bike from college, 20 years ago. It was decent in its day but that was a long long time ago. So after she got a better bike it went much more smoothly.
The rides were really fun. Not much beginner stuff in Sedona, but we rode intermediate trails and just walked a few of the really technical parts (well, some of us did--Jake and Ty cruised ahead of us and just had to wait at "intersections" of trails). I did pretty good but I had to stay behind Joey and Maggie so didn't get to see how well I could have done if I didn't have to stop as much for them. Either way, we had a good time and ended up skipping some other planned activities to go on more bike rides. We skipped some hikes because we could see the same views but on a bike which was more fun. The rides were fun because there is a huge range of stuff to ride on, even on the same trail--slickrock, packed dirt, rocky stuff, etc.
The Easter Bunny brought us the Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle game so we took it down there with us--I have to say I wasn't sure how fun it would be but it is like the funnest game ever. We became obsessed playing a new level each night! It will have to be a new family tradition on vacations to play each night.
Another pic of Jake doing a jump at the bike park--he jumped the entire length of the bridge and then some. He had headed up there with Joey one evening and had Joey film him doing his jumps and stuff. Ha ha.
A couple pics from our 3rd ride....
I think all in all we rode about 10 miles one day and then 17 another day, plus the bike park a couple times in between that. Jake rode way more because he kept going to the bike park every chance he got.
One of the days we took break in between rides and went to a cute 50's burger diner we had passed. It was so good!
We also took a trip over to explore the Petrified Forest National Park. It was really cool! It was neat to read about how this area used to be a huge forest and the concentration of petrified wood was because these trees fell into a huge river and these were basically the "log jams"--that's why there are such huge concentrations of the petrified wood in certain areas. It's hard to imagine this place as a lush forest--it was as barren as they come today! Here's a petrified log that fell and has created a natural bridge.
There were also lot of hills where you could see the striations of dirt. I didn't get a good pic of that but I did get one of the kids on top of a hill....
Tyler is an aspiring explorer, practicing his signature pose....
The petrified logs were neat because you could see all the bark and knots in the trunks.
Plus the minerals in the rock (former wood) created really beautiful colors!
The drive to the petrified forest was long and the kids were arguing so I took the middle back seat spot. It actually helped and there's tons of room back there.
More mountain biking!
We had an incident with a chain breaking. It took us a while, but between all of us we were able to figure it out and fix it enough to finish the ride, when we went and bought a new chain. Go teamwork!
Can't beat these views!
Most of my pictures are of Joey because I was stuck in the back riding behind him so he wouldn't get lost or left behind. That's ok, he's a good looking kid!
Here's the view from our backyard of the house we rented, pretty sweet!
We also took a trip out to a place called Fossil Creek. You have to get a permit in advance and luckily I had figured that out because it was amazing. You have to drive quite a ways on a bumpy dirt road, then hike a bit along a lovely river out to a beautiful waterfall. The water is crystal clear and gorgeous...but also very cold! It was about 70 degrees. Too cold to jump into especially because it wasn't super hot outside. But we all got in in one way or another.
Jacob and Tyler went the deepest, I managed to about my waist--that was it! Dad only went in to his knees so I beat him at least.
Look how clear that water is! You could see all the tiny fish and everything.
Even though it was a bit if a rough drive we were all so glad we went out there. It was beautiful and amazing to see river water that blue and clear--it was like the Bahamas....only cold.
We also thought we'd explore some of the Native American ruins. This was called Montezuma's Castle. It was like a 5 story apartment building built into the cliff with a big castle type thing at the top--it was incredible! I've never seen anything like that. We kept trying to figure out how they got all their water and food into their homes so high up!
Tuzigoot were some other ruins we visited. It's amazing to think about the people who actually lived and walked in these places.
The whole gang after a fun time at the bike skills park.
Overall it was a great trip. I wish we could have stayed another day or two! We didn't even get to go jeeping even though we drive the Jeep down. We just had too much fun with the other stuff and figured we will have to plan another trip down there someday. A successful and fun spring break.
As I've mentioned, Jacob has gotten really into mountain biking and once he got his new bike he wanted to enter some races around the state. He did his first race a few weeks ago and did great for his first try! He was really nervous, didn't know what to expect. But he managed to finish the race, and he even finished 44th out of 60 racers in his group--he also picked up a few tips and tricks so he's aiming to do even better in the next race. His best friend Chase is doing the races with him. It's fun for them to have something like this that they can do together. And it's fun to watch Jacob be so passionate about something and work so hard for it!
A couple weeks ago, Eric and I took a quick weekend trip to Scottsdale to visit our friends, Dan and Lindsey. We went out to some yummy restaurants, went to a spring training baseball game, laughed and talked into the night and rode bikes around the cute Scottsdale downtown. It was a nice getaway. We left the kids home ALONE! Tyler was in charge. I was somewhat apprehensive but I only got one call all weekend regarding fighting. Plus they had done the dished and picked up the house before we got home! Whaaa!?!? I'm going away more often!
Tyler got asked to Preference by his friend Kayla. They took real pictures but Ty is a lame boy and never sent them to me so this is all I've got. Enjoy....
Daylight savings time came around again. I hate having to get up when it is dark. Even my dogs went back to sleep after we all got up for school Monday morning....
Maggie left this "painting" she made on the counter......yikes. Not sure what kind of demented dreams she is having. She told me it was a present for her friend Hallie--glad I'm not Hallie!
I found a bunch of these en pointe pictures on my phone Maggie had taken. They came out pretty cool. She still loves dance. She just had a dance recital and she was so excited to be in 3 different dances AND get to help with props in another dance. She was proud because she feels like her dance instructor is starting to trust her more and give her more stuff to do. And she is thrilled about it!
Pepper has taken to sitting on the front room bench to keep an eye out for her buddy, Bella, our neighbor's dog who is her bestie. It's pretty cute.
All in all, a pretty good month and a super fun spring break. I think I need a vacation again!
