Weekend in Sedona

This weekend we went camping up near Sedona. It is so beautiful up there! One crazy thing about Arizona is the different landscapes. We went through 5 different landscapes from our house to our campsite! We have been having record heat (105+) and it was really nice to be able to excape once again to 65-70 degree highs!
We drove up a trail road (Schnebly Hill) to see this beautiful view! The city of Sedona is at the bottom...

Once we set up camp we went and did some offroading to really break in the Jeep! The roads were pretty rocky which wasnt exactly the greatest feeling for me, but it was still fun! Im still feeling a little sore from that and sleeping on the ground.

Jeep Club

We had a couple animal encounters.. we spotted a Mule deer (no pic)

a super pretty Collared Lizard

A king snake(non-poisonous) (which we thought was a corral snake (poisonous) until we googled it so Tyler blew its head off with his pistol. He felt bad afterwards...) We now know the saying "Red on Yellow Kill a Fellow" for next time...

and of course the most ferocious animal we came across...

Tyler brought and set up a hammock. This is where I SHOULD have slept but I was too chicken that a bear or mountain lion would attack me if I was out there all by myself...

(me in all my 32+ week glory!)

 On Saturday, we tore down camp and headed to find Colby a place to fish. We ended up at Beaver creek where Colby caught 4 fish! 2 trout and 2 smallmouth bass (for anyone who knows the difference )

Claire and Kylie playing in the creek!

We had a great time! Thanks Coltons! The benefits definitely outweighed the discomforts, although an actual toilet is most certainly a preferred route while pregnant to a hole and a shovel! :)

Saturday

This past weekend we decided last minute to head up to the mountains and go to the lake (s) on the Mogollon Rim. It was so nice! It was supposed to be 103+ in the valley and it was only 65 on the rim! Thats the nice thing about Arizona, a short 2 1/2 hour drive away the temperature drops 30+ degrees!
We decided to take the dogs, we havent taken them anywhere like that ever! They had a great time getting dirt all over me, barking at all the other dogs that were up there, and pulling me around on their leash! It was funny for onlookers I am sure, a big pregnant lady walking two dogs on a hiking path that is not even. I slipped and fell on my butt once and am lucky it wasnt more than that! Colby eventually switched me for the dogs and I carried his fishing pole.  :)
He didnt catch anything but we still had a great time exploring a different (and much cooler) part of the state!

There was a wildfire that had just started as we drove up and had grown quite a bit by the time we drove back down. It made the sun look pretty cool through the smoke. You could see the flames (in the distance) from the road, but they had cops so we couldnt pull over.

I had Colby take a picture of me in all my loveliness but all three of them were focusing on a tree behind me.... Oops! :)

weekend!

This weekend we wanted to something fun. We considered heading up towards Flagstaff, but the weather turned crazy so we stayed in town. We ended up going to the desert and testing out the trucks off roading abilities.

Anyways we had a great time!

You can see the north side of Surprise from here.

15 weeks here.



Also, Here is an official picture of me at 14 weeks .

A little bump is starting to come out!

Recently

Well we have been busy most of December too! Colbys parents came to visit the first weekend in December, of course, it was the coldest weekedn we have had so far!
We took them to the Mesa Temple Christmas lights and to a Christmas festival in Peoria!

Yes we are both wearing our winter coats, thats how cold it was!!
It seems like we constantly have something going on, but everything has been poorly undocumented!!
We had a fire in the backyard the other day because the weather was so nice! We trimmed all of our trees and bushes and have enough wood to last us a while!!

One thing AZ does not lack of is beautiful sunsets! They always amaze me!!
Another thing that I love is all the fruit trees! Every where you go you will see trees filled with oranges, lemons, limes and grapefruits! They are so pretty!

Dont they look delicious!
Oh and for good measue and because they havent been on the blog in a while,
Krone - and his new sweater and really bad bed head!

Kazzi looking innocent as usual

We are so excited for Christmas! We are heading up to Vegas to celebrate! It will be nice to spend it with family!

Hot Chocolate and Giant 'Mallows..

Fall has finally arrived! I am so excited to be able to sweatshirts, boots and cardigans without sweating to death!
We took it easy this weekend! November is going to be a busy month so we decided to relax while we still can!
Friday night we enjoyed some delicious hot chocolate with one giant marshmallow!

We bought those GIGANTIC smores marshmallows for our camping trips and it was wonderful in the hot chocolate!!
Yumm!
Saturday I had a newborn photo session with Claire & Tyler! She is a doll! When I got home we went to enjoy the outdoors at the 41st annual Litchfield Park Festival of the Arts! There was so many neat crafts, arts, and miscellaneous things! We enjoyed some Native American music (pan flute & violin!) and walked around smelling all the delicious food!
Sunday we went to church, if I havent mentioned it before we were called to be nursery helpers. We enjoy playing with the kids for two hours and eating cheerios and other snacks! They are always doing something that makes us laugh!
After church we watched movies and cuddled under blankets for the rest of the day!
It was quite the relaxing weekend, now on to a busy week!!!

Haunted!

Halloween is almost here! It doesnt seem like we have lived here for 5 months, and I really cant believe that October is nearly over! Our heat wave definitely came back after one week of 80's it went back into the upper 90s and even low 100's! I am ready for fall food (yummy pumpkin) and fall weather but it just doesnt seem right since we can still go swimming!
There is a pretty big farm just around the corner from us and they set up a pumpkin patch, petting zoo, and corn mazes (one being haunted)! It was a blast! Its the weirdest thing being surrounded by fields in middle of a big city, especially in the desert!
This was my first haunted corn maze, and COlby & I's first haunted experience together! We went with some of our new friends Nathan and Kira (it was Kiras first time in a haunted anything!) and we all had a blast! There were several times that we just ran through it because we were so scared, which made it even more fun because then more people would just pop out of no where!
Obviously I couldnt take pictures of the corn maze, but here is us at the petting zoo! We found out Colby is the horse whisperer and that it really tickles when ducks try to eat from your hand (especially when you dont have any food in it!)

right after we had all been terrorized!

 Cute litte kids!

No idea why its so fuzzy!

We love the great outdoors!

Well this past weekend was pretty much the last weekend before all the mountains here start to get snow, so we decided to take advantage and go on one last camping trip! We headed up to Chevelon Canyon Lake on the Mogollon Rim. It is what is called a primitive campsite, meaning no water, showers, bathrooms, and you have to hike down 3/4 a steep, very steep hill to get to the lake. We enjoyed watching the stars and eating our tinfoil dinners and went to bed early so we could head to the lake early the next morning.

We bought these awesome kayaks a couple weeks ago that turn into backpacks, which is cool because we can take them anywhere and Colby can fish from them, etc. The only negative is you are carrying 40lbs of extra weight on your back. We spent about four hours out on the lake and then we had to head back up to pack our things and get home before it started to rain.
I thought , knew i was going to die! I felt like we were climbing straight up and that we were never going to get back to the campsite...Poor Colby, there wasnt much he could do (obviously he couldnt carry both kayaks!) except watch me huff and puff and wheeze all the way up this mountain, in my defense it was 7000+ feet and the air is a lot thinner than it is in Phoenix. We eventually made it...somehow! and I survived with only sore legs!
Anyways, other than the awful hike, it was a wonderful little camping trip!! Colby caught 10 fish, but didnt keep any.

 The closest to fall I will see around here!

Camping Trip!

Colby & I decided to take a quick camping trip! Colby took work off on Tuesday and we headed up Monday afternoon to a place called Crown Point, about a 3 hour drive. The last 30+ miles are on dirt roads climbing up a mountain to 6500+ feet! It was a little crazy and Im glad that we drove it during the day and not the night!
There was plenty of wildlife on the drive up...

There were cows just roaming the dirt roads on the way up! They definitely caught us off guard a couple of times! 

But other than some birds, and an occasional squirrel we were the only ones at or around our campsite!

Before we set up camp Colby decided to cast out a couple of times and try out his fishing pants..

You might notice that its seems that Colby has changed his allegiance to Carolina to the Sundevils.. no worries. Kazzi just ate his favorite Carolina hat (bad dog) we found the same exact hat at marshalls, the only difference, it was Sundevils instead of Tarheels!

We were only at the lake maybe a total of 10 minutes because we could hear the thunder and wanted to set up our tent before the storm came in. We were able to get set up and start a fire just in time for it to start pouring down rain! Luckily there was a little shelter for us to sit in on our campsite!

After the rain was over we had to restart our fire. A couple wet branches and lots of gasoline later we had a nice fire to cook our delicious tin foil dinners in, and of course roast marshmallows!
We headed to bed and had planned to go hiking in the morning, but it was raining again and we decided to just start heading back! It of course decided to stop raining so we stopped at a couple places a long the way to tkae pictures and walk/climb around!

 Colby's Truck

 There was a wildfire a couple years ago that destroyed most of the forest. Alot of the trees ended up looking like this. Pretty cool!

Mountains for miles and miles! You can see one of the roads in this pictures, looks like the one that we had to take to get up there!!

We had a great time and cant wait to go camping again! The weather was a perfect 75 degrees and not to cold at night!!

The weather is finally becoming bearable here! It was 90* today! So much better than 110+!!