This blog post is dedicated to the Allsop's tent. They staked it down before realizing that they left their poles in Utah over a year earlier. Eric wanted to drive down the mountain to buy a new tent, which would have taken 2 hours. Alyssa and I came up with a genius plan threading a rope through the pole hole and tying it between two trees. We then put their two pack and plays on either side of the tent, giving them all the floor space they needed with enough head space for the adults to maneuver. They reported that it was hard to get Riley in and out of the pack and play to nurse at night, but I still think it was better than driving all the way down to buy a new one.
An engineering marvel
We got up in time for a delicious couscous salad with bread and cheese spread for lunch provided by the Knells. We were originally planning on doing a hike after the post-lunch nap, but the Allsops needed to start their delicious stew, so we opted to wander around the campsite woods instead.
Bagel baby in the wild
We discovered water! Arizona kids are have such a low bar for stuff like this 😂
The coolest thing is that we found multiple hut things that someone had built. There were no nails, just very sturdy stacking.
Who built the mystery huts? Bigfoot?
Annie's enthusiasm for rock climbing is severely impeded by her lack of balance
Elliot has no such limitations
I'm so glad my kids love camping. They just love being outside
Elliot getting some more hut time in. We could see it from our campsite, so we let him enjoy hitting the hut with a rock for about an hour while we cooked dinner
Elliot was a very enthusiastic campfire helper. I am ashamed to say that I had to have Aaron help me get the fire going
How cute is this baby? Annie is OBSESSED with baby Riley.
Dirty, happy kids
A very large portion of this camping trip was dedicated to preparing and consuming delicious food
The next day we hiked Marshall's Gulch, or as Elliot called it "Marshall's Gulp"
We planted a peach tree about three years ago. For the past couple of years, we have gotten measly harvests of 5 or less peaches that we picked too early. That all changed this year.
BOOM. 100+ peaches.
Our peach harvest was so bountiful that the branches were weighed down to the point where they touched the ground. Aaron had done a good job pruning it, so they had been pointing up before they started popping out peaches. The low hanging branches were kind of convenient because Annie could pick herself peaches. It was common to see her outside in the backyard with a peach in each hand. She would lie on her belly with her little legs kicking up in the air as she took a bite of one peach and then the other. She was perpetually sticky with peach juice and was banned from eating them inside. Even now that they are all gone, she will sometimes go up to the peach tree and start saying "Peach? Peach?" in a longing little voice.
The peaches were so juicy and sweet. The two weeks where we had peaches on the tree was a total dream come true for me. We ate as much as we could and stuffed Max and his friends with peaches while they were here visiting. We gave bags away to neighbors and friends. We made many jars of peach freezer jam, 2 peach cobblers, some smoothies, and then froze a big bag. Peach paradise.
The first peach of the season!
The Rollins boys came over to help us pick the difficult to reach peaches. They had to earn their free peach bag
In other garden news, we tried to grow Kohlrabi fro the first time. Most of it got eaten by grasshoppers or something, and only one had a big bulb.
Pretty neat and yummy. We may try this one again!
We also tried chickpeas. We should have planted twice as many plants as we did to get a decent yield. I don't know if they were bountiful enough to be a repeat crop.
I have a long history of giving Aaron fairly lame birthday presents. It is also very hard to surprise him since he can borderline read my mind, and has a habit of noticing confirmation emails. This year he turned 30 so I wanted to do something bigger than normal for him. When I heard about this indoor skydiving place about an hour away, I decided that it was the perfect thing. I booked it months in advance and only told him that we had birthday surprise plans the morning of Memorial Day, which happened to fall on his birthday this year.
The night before, he said "please just reassure me that the surprise isn't sky diving." I got a big kick of saying "It isn't sky diving per se." I ended up telling him when we got in the car because he did see something that said "SkyVenture Arizona" on my phone the night before, and he was nervous. It turned out to be awesome! It was just the right blend of the adrenaline thrill with no actual danger.
Suited up and ready for flight!
Sky divers, or court jesters? The outfits work great for either.
You enter the wind tunnel by leaning forward with your body straight. You just fall into the wind and then you're flying. So cool!
Bending and straightening your legs has a huge affect on your movements. Luckily the instructor guy was there to grab us if we started drifting up too high.
Aaron is less back archy than me
They had us wear ear plugs under the helmet. Even with that, it is still deafening. Total sensory overload. I couldn't really tell when the instructor was grabbing the handles on my back with all the wind blowing full force on every inch of my body.
We had two 2-minute sessions. That doesn't sound like a lot, but 2 minutes seems like forever in free fall.
The first round consisted of us figuring out how to hold the hovering position. If you don't have enough surface area exposed to the wind, you will fall down to the net.
I was the first one to go in the second round. He said something about "taking me up" for the last thirty seconds, but I didn't understand what that meant. I may have panicked a little bit when I all of a sudden started flying way up to the top of the wind tunnel. When we got to the top, I realized that the instructor was holding onto my back and controlling the up and down movements. It was SO COOL. I couldn't wipe the huge smile off my face, which meant that I had slobber all over my face and goggles when I got out.
Post-flying adrenaline rush
The wind tunnel was part of a campus out in the middle of nowhere that has a flight school and also does real sky diving. Since it was Memorial Day, there were waves of 20 or so people falling from the sky every 15 minutes. We ate our picnic lunch at a table by the landing area. We didn't see a single person fail to stick the landing. They just gently jogged a few steps as if they hadn't fallen from an airplane. Craziness! It was cool to watch, but I have no desire to experience it for myself.
For dinner that night, we went to dinner at Red Robin. Elliot was thrilled with the free crayons and kids menu that he could color on. Clearly we don't go out to eat much. They also had these chalkboards with some old school games to play. We had a couple delicious burgers, and our kids happily devoured the bottomless sides of french fries and broccoli.
Aaron was not happy that they sang happy birthday to him, but he got a free ice cream Sunday out of it
After that, we invited a few friends over to eat this lovely peanut butter cheesecake that I was quite proud of. Just look at the shine on that ganache!
Max drove all the way down from Provo to meet us over Memorial Day weekend! He brought his girlfriend, Morgan, our friend Jason Richards from McLean, and another friend named Emily. I appreciated being able to plan some activities with Morgan since Max is incapable of spending more than 2 minutes making any form of plan. It is part of his spontaneous charm.
The thing that I was most excited about was trying some barrel cactus fruit. I have been wondering if the mini pineapple looking fruits were edible for years, so I finally looked it up. They are edible! They taste like cross between citrus and bell peppers. The ones we ate were a little dry, but that might be because it is late in the harvest season for them. We ended up putting a few of them into our tuna/egg salad for sandwiches the second day.
"may I offer you some fresh picked cactus fruit?"
Morgan was not a fan
Annie is always happy to munch on anything
They have tons of black seeds inside that the internet says are edible
Max feeling fly with a cactus
Annie insisted on carrying this stick back. And not being carried.
Good thing she has pals that don't mind going slow
We also took them to the Desert Museum. This place is always a hit. The best part was definitely the Packrat Playhouse. All of us went up in the big net crawling area and had a generally good time. We eventually had to leave to get Annie down for her nap, but the guys stayed to attempt to go bouldering. Their report was that it was too hot, and the boulders were too advanced for them to climb with no equipment.
Max hoisting up Elliot to smell the creosote
Annie and Morgan were always fighting over who got to hold Max's hand
Classic saguaro pose
Don't ask
We went to Reid Park after the Max Mandated lunch at El Guero Canelo. We explored the Rose Garden more than we have in the past.
I always love having Max around, and not just for all the great massages he gives. It was fun having his friends around too. Annie and Elliot were in heaven with all the attention. Jason and Max subbed in Annie's nursery class with Aaron on Sunday. We'll call that devotion to the little sweet pea instead of a desire to skip Elder's Quorum.
