"Vacation" Day 7

Day 7 was difficult for me. I was really missing Ryan. I had gone to bed the night before crying because I didn't have Ryan around to hug me. I just melt like butter and all my worries just disappear when he hugs me. After not having that for an entire week, I was starting to go crazy. I was also missing my bed and a sleeping baby and a routine for the kids. V won't sleep without her swing. I didn't realize until we were gone how much I had depended on her swing. She takes most all of her naps in her swing. Without it, her naps have been maybe 15 minutes each. I have resorted to putting her in her carseat and driving around just to get her to sleep well for any length of time. I was getting cabin fever pretty bad by this point. The kids were driving me crazy inside the house, even though they were outside most of the time. I couldn't handle them coming inside for even a few minutes. I knew it was time for us to get out of the house for the day.

Since we had already gone to Holbrook, we decided to go the other direction and do things near Show Low. After visiting Show Low's webpage and learning about what a "wonderful" place Pintail Lake was, we decided to try it out. We should have realized that it was a sign of things to come when we saw that the entire parking area was empty. We started down the trail and stopped to look at the map.

I liked that it was a nice short trip, since it was a little warm and the only shade was a bunch of juniper trees no taller than a house. The walk was so exciting that the kids decided to play "I spy" and it sounded just like the movie "Brother Bear". I spy something brown. A tree. I spy something round. A rock. I spy something tan. A rock. I spy something... A rock. I spy a vertical log. A tree. I spy... A rock. It was a blast. ;-) You can tell from the picture below that there was not much to look at.

 Once we got to the lake, we quickly saw why the parking lot was empty. There was no lake. Even with it being a reclaimed water lake, there was no water. Do the people of Show Low not use enough water to even make a little pond? We were disappointed obviously, and were very thankful that we didn't have to walk very far to see nothing. The area behind the kids in the picture was supposed to be the lake. It didn't even look wet.

We decided to try another spot to hopefully find somewhere decent to play outdoors. Our next option was Scott's Reservoir. This one turned out to be a much better option. There was actually water. At first we went to a side with only a little access to the water. It was pretty, but not what we were looking for.

There were two really tall dead trees out in the middle of the water. The kids thought they were a little interesting.

The walk down to the lake on this side was pretty steep and rocky. Aimee realized halfway through why I told her to take off her water shoes and put on her tennis shoes. As she was walking over a rock, her shoes slipped and put her face first on the rocky ground. She got a few bruises and scrapes from it. She admitted at that point that she should have listened to me earlier.

We wanted to get to the other side of the lake, so we got back to the car and drove down the other road to get a little closer. This side actually had a walking trail along the edge of the lake. When we got to the area I wanted, the kids went to the lake to see what they could see.

 

Mostly they found cloudy brown water, but at the edge they found a bunch of baby frogs. It took a minute to catch them because they were surprisingly very fast and could jump quite far. The boys finally caught some and were thrilled.

Once again, V was quite happy in the Moby and was blowing raspberries the entire time! I did have to tuck a blanket around her legs because I forgot to put sunblock on her.

And again, Aimee realized that it is important to listen to and obey her mom. She thought it would be okay if she didn't use the potty before we left. She quickly realized her mistake when she needed to go "right now" and there was nowhere to go. We had to walk back to the parking area and use the outhouse, which completely terrified her being able to see 6 feet down into piles of %*#@. Outhouses are nasty!

That evening, we went to the park for family night. We couldn't have chosen a more perfect way to end the evening. The boys played racquetball while the girls played on the playground equipment. Kate did get a turn to hit the ball, but didn't actually play a game.

The girls found a 2-seater dinosaur to play on. They loved it!

 V, being the girl she is, always gives the best facial expressions.

I can just see her asking me, "Mom, don't you think you have enough pictures yet?" Never, dear. I could never have enough pictures of my sweet kiddos.

She even sat up for the first time unassisted for more than 1/2 a second while we were at the park. It was like a whole 3 seconds. :-)

You can tell she's already starting on her way down by the time the camera finally took the picture.

 And there she goes!

She was getting tired of the moist grass, so I put her on the blanket to try sitting a few more times. But every time just looked like this.

 Once the sun went down, we decided to go back to my parents so we could go to bed. At the top of their road, the kids asked if they could get out and walk. At first I said no, but then realized it might help wear them out a little before bed, so I said yes-as long as they beat me in the van. So J, E, and K all scrambled out of the van and started running. J didn't have any shoes on and credits his speed to being barefoot. They all beat the van, but only because I stopped several times to take pictures of them running.

 They were all glad to arrive before me since I told them they owed me a treat if I got there before them.

Even thought the day had a rough start, we were still able to enjoy the time we had.