Flagstaff in August

Jeremy's parents graciously allowed us to stay in their house in Flagstaff while they were in Montana in August. We so enjoyed the chance to get away from the Phoenix heat. Jeremy worked most days and I did some schoolwork with the kids, but we also took some time off for a day trip to the Grand Canyon, a long weekend camping trip, and early evening hikes. 

We spent lots of time in the backyard and got several afternoon monsoon showers! The kids and I went across to the forest several times, and we also hiked with Jeremy to Elden Springs, the Elden homestead site, the crack/gap, and on other trails. 

The kids love climbing the boulders--the more challenging, the better! Even Clara kept up well with the bigger kids and scaled many a steep rock face. Here she is "riding her horse":

Abby

The kids were thrilled to find some water trickling out at Elden Springs. They set to work to clear the streambed and redirect the water where it ran into obstruction.

We originally planned to go to Whitehorse Lake campground with some friends from Phoenix during our middle weekend in Flagstaff. But all the campgrounds seem to be booked and overly busy since the pandemic. So we took Scott and Dortha's advice and went out FR151 to a beautiful area sort of to the back of the peaks. The higher elevation meant much cooler weather--and lots more weather than we bargained for! We had monsoons every afternoon, and Saturday's monsoon turned into a thunderstorm that became a pounding hailstorm. We got hail and rain all afternoon; our shade structure leaked, everyone got wet and cold and dirty, and all the girls ended up half-frozen in our tent to change and cuddle up in sleeping bags til the weather cleared. It was such a difference from the 90-degree weather we'd been having in Flagstaff!

Bridget was a happy camper overall. She had a bit of trouble sleeping in her pack'n'play in the tent, of course, but that was to be expected. Poor baby got pretty cold at night. I tried to keep a hat on her and bundled her up as well as I could, but it's always a bit of a challenge to keep the baby warm. She enjoyed playing on our mat and thankfully hadn't quite taken off with crawling yet at this point, so she was slower to get to the dirt, leaves, and pine needles on the edge. 

As you can see from the succession of pictures below, Bridget is an active baby! Most of my pictures of her include some blurry appendage . . . 

Here she is bundled against the cold:

We drove out Thursday morning (and Jeremy had scouted and claimed a campsite on Wednesday night), and our friends joined us Friday afternoon. We camped on a slope that was heavily forested with lots of deadfalls and boulders nearby. The kids had a wonderful time making fort after fort with the logs and caves and boulders. 

We took some hikes around--one back into the trees, which was hard going (so many deadfalls)--and a few up the nearby trailhead through a meadow and onto a larger meadow where the trail met the Arizona Trail and also led to Bismarck Lake (not a lake, just a dry tank). There were still a few wildflowers--some late, dying lupine; Indian paintbrush; and others I didn't know. The kids were too loud for us to spot elk or deer, but we did see a red-tailed hawk up close and some birds, including mountain bluebirds and white-breasted nuthatches. I think I saw a red-breasted nuthatch, too.

I got a few pictures of all five kids together--unintentionally color-coordinated!--just before we left the campsite on Sunday:

One of the highlights of being in Flagstaff was getting to see the relatives! We spent an afternoon with all of them, and then separately time with Emily and her boys, and Anna and her girls (and got to see Justin, too). Sadly, we didn't see James. But we did get to spend time with the newest cousin, Mia (born in June)! She's a sweetie. The girls even got to hold her. Cedar and E wanted to hold Bridget, too. She wasn't as cooperative as Mia. She really doesn't prefer to be confined. 

Clara and Mia

Cedar and our Birdie-girl

Abby and Mia

Clara and Cedar

Especially with the opportunity to spend time with cousins, our kids didn't want to return to Phoenix. Lydia in particular cried about going home for a couple days leading up to our departure. They were sad to miss Pa and Grandma, too!

We took up most of our food so as not to have to do much shopping in Flagstaff. We kept meals simpler and did a few repeats (pesto pasta with chicken sausage one week, and with salmon one week; burritos a couple times; etc.). Dortha left a couple cast iron specialty pans for us to take if we wanted, so I tried them out while there. One was an abelskiver pan, but the other we had to look up. We discovered it's a plattar pan to make Swedish plattar pancakes, which are like tiny crepes. Here's a recipe I tried and liked: https://monasterykitchen.org/swedish-plattar-pancakes/ (minus the sugar, plus a teaspoon of cinnamon). The kids gobbled them up.

 

Camping in Flagstaff

We spent a wonderful long weekend spanning the last couple days of July and the first couple days of August camping near Lake Mary in Flagstaff. Even though it was hot for Northern Arizona (high 80s, low 90s), we were so thankful to escape the Phoenix temperatures that reached 116-117 the weekend we were gone!

Dortha helped us find a dry camping spot (national forest) and hauled bikes and water for us in their truck on Thursday when we drove up. She and Scott returned on Friday to spend the rest of the weekend camping with us. The kids were over the moon to have Pa and Grandma with us for a few days, and it was so nice to spend time with them, be outside all day each day, chat around the campfire at night, and generally get a dose of fun and normal human interaction. 

We had spectacular sunsets a couple nights. One evening we drove to a spot on the shore of upper Lake Mary where we could get Scott and Dortha's rowboat into the water. The big kids loved pretending it was a pirate ship in a gale--it was pretty blustery at first and poor Scott had to row against the wind! But the wind blew itself out and the lake was quite a bit calmer by the time Jeremy took over rowing. Clara got herself all wet so undressed and curled up in Grandma's blanket while the older three attempted to fish while Jeremy rowed. Bridget was overtired and cranky, so I stayed on shore and bounced her in the ergo.

Abby on the left, Clara wrapped up with Grandma on the right 

Thar she blows!

At and around the campsite, the kids loved tearing around on the bikes Grandma and Pa brought for them, or riding nearby trails with the grandparents. They explored and played spy games using walkie-talkies (using code names, of course, but very muffled, since they don't know how to keep their mouths a proper distance from the mic). They started a fort in a stand of trees nearby, dragging limbs and stones over to it. Jeremy taught them how to start a campfire (very thrilling to his pyromaniac proteges). They played some baseball, read Calvin and Hobbes and Redwall, roasted marshmallows, sang campfire songs (Michael Row the Boat Ashore was a favorite), and all in all loved their time being in the forest, "wild and free" (Lydia's words).

Overall, Bridget did better than I expected after a bad first night (she woke often, cried loudly, and didn't even want to settle down next to me after several episodes of waking-crying-nursing-crying). That first night was colder than we expected, and I think Bridget felt cold--but it was also awkward trying to warm her with me in my sleeping bag, and she didn't want to feel restricted. Thankfully she was warmer and more worn out the other nights!

Bridget can get what she wants with her long reach, determination, and army crawl. But she can't yet get places very quickly, which was a boon to us while camping. She did attempt to grab and eat dirt, pine needles, sticks, etc. every chance she got, but it usually took her long enough to get from the middle of a mat to an edge that someone stymied her most times.

Our campsite was an easy walk from lower Lake Mary, which was mostly a meadow of grasses with hordes of grasshoppers. The mountain bluebirds flew in little flocks and low sweeps, eating the grasshoppers. Clara and Josiah avidly caught many (the twins caught a few but weren't as interested; they played "wild horses" and "capture the elk" instead). Clara was especially thrilled with the grasshoppers and so cute and earnest in her exclamations over them and descriptions of her successful catching.

Abby

We found a game trail and a scattered, whitened elk skeleton in the nearby woods. The evening we drove back from upper Lake Mary, we saw an entire herd of elk come out of the woods and across the meadows to drink from the little water left in lower Lake Mary. On the opposite "shore" was a wide field of pretty yellow wildflowers. Their coloring reminded me of Black-eyed Susans, but they were much smaller.

Clara and her grasshoppers

Lydia

Josiah and Jeremy

Sunrays and clouds over lower Lake Mary

Pa and Lydia use their superior strength to push over a tree

With my boy at the campsite

Eating lunch

Poor Lydia, who already has a perpetual stomach ache, incurred several injuries on Friday that made her feel like the world was falling apart. First she was tumbled out of a hammock onto rocks and got a black eye and some scrapes on her face. Then she crashed on a bike and got a handlebar to the stomach. And then she tried to kick a stump over and instead got a gash on the leg. After many tears she did finally agree to take a bit of tylenol and ended up having a better evening. She was eager to show Grandma and Pa all her wounds when they arrived.

See the eye/face injury?

I bought a travel paint set that the twins enjoyed trying out one afternoon. Watercolors are still a lot harder for them to use than pencils, so they didn't produce much, but they enjoyed trying. I probably need to sit down and do a few tutorials with them.

Clara with the coveted walkie-talkie

Bridget headed to the edge of the mat, ignoring her toys for more interesting quarry

Grandma and Bridget

On Saturday Anna, Justin, Kez, and Willow came out to our campsite for a few hours. They brought their new dog, Gibson, to everyone's delight. We all enjoyed spending time with them. The next day we drove over to Babbitt Springs with them and hiked to the creek. It was considerably lower than when we hiked there in June, but the kids still had tons of fun wading, splashing, playing at being deer or elk, etc. Josiah even caught several crayfish, much to his delight! Clara and Josiah both liked trying to catch the water striders, too.

Bridget gets acquainted with Gibson

One of the crayfish Josiah caught!

Lydia started mourning the end of our camping trip the day before we headed home. Her ambition now is to own a horse and live out in the forest for weeks at a time. We did all immensely enjoy our time away, and we're looking forward to another camping trip next week!