What a fun, yet tiring day! Thankfully Steven had the day off because I know we woukd not have made it to the top without him! There is a mountain just to the east of our house with a yellow stripe on it. Within this yellow stripe is The Wind Cave. Of course, all of the hikes that we've done pre-kiddos sure seemed different than they do now (and this one was no exception). Yet we are determined to not let the little ones deter us from these adventures. We've learned that the kids seem to do well with hiking sticks, so we figured we would treat them by letting them use ours. They had a blast with them! Hunter led the way much of the time and it is fun to see how much stronger he is getting. We were probably close to being half way up when Alton and Kailyn began to complain, so we figured that maybe Hunter, Kinley and I could carry on to the cave and Steven would head back to the car with the younger two. Once they heard us talking, they would have none of that and were determined to get to the cave as well. So, we regrouped and began to hike up & up. The cacti were so amazing and dotted entire landscape like a beautiful forest of trees (minus the shade from a great tree). We sang songs and continued to praise their efforts until we all realized we had made it to the shade of the mountain (which meant we were getting super close). There would be no talk of turning back now! It was so amazing to see the valley below grow in size as we got higher and higher up the trail. The kids really loved the reward of seeing so far away and feeling the cool mountain breeze. We could see the entire city, Camelback mtn, the zoo mtns and even a fire (which they were very concerned about) off in the distance. Once we arrived at The Wind Cave, of course we had to take some pictures for our memories of this accomplishment and then we had ourselves a yummy snack, which included chocolate. Yum!!! There was also a pretty cool looking beehive right near the entrance of the cave, which was very active and kept us on the alert. The bees seemed to be used to people bee-ing around and we never really felt in danger from their numbers. On the way down, Hunter told me all about "Spy Kids" the movie, which he had seen at a friends house. It was super cool to hear him tell all the little details of the story and before we/he knew it, we were in sight of our car. We had such fun just having some quality family time and realizing the great rewards that can wait in store if we don't give up. The kids are so brave, strong and fun! We sure feel blessed to be their parents (even though they keep us on our toes 24/7)!
Also, I thought I would add a few more fun pictures from our hike thru the Tonto Natural Bridge (that Steven had on his phone) from last weekend.
Hope you enjoy!! Also a little funny side note. Alton has now started putting things that he wants to eat later in the freezer. One morning, I opened the freezer to find his bowl if popcorn from the night before and Yesterday I found a partly eaten apple. What a funny kid!!! Makes sense to me!!!
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