On the Rim

Isn't that a pretty view? This is what we saw every day on our camping trip last week. To give you an idea of how close it was to us, here's a picture of our site:




(Benjamin is showing me his lost tooth, in case you're wondering...)




This is a picture looking in the opposite direction...




Cross that little dirt road and take a couple dozen steps and this is what you see...



Mmmm, gorgeous. Looking to the left of this view was a very inviting trail...


...but I didn't take it. Maybe next time.



A few miles down the road from our site was a Rim trail and we did walk it one day.

A very nice lady took this picture for us. Christopher's expression cracks me up. It looks like he's thinking "Huh??"

It's a loooooong way down!



The boys had a grand time throwing pine cones over the edge.

This year we went to the Woods Canyon Lake area, which is about 2 1/2 hours outside of Phoenix. It's definitely worth the extra 30 minutes past Payson. The area was beautiful and we spent most of our time relaxing right there at our site.

I should've taken pictures of us playing card games, because we did a lot of that. (Ask Brian who the Gin Rummy champion is... go ahead, ask him. Heh heh.)

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The hammock is always a hit...

There was a huge open area behind our tent - nature's playground...

I took these photos the first day, and Ben's not in them because he was sick the first day.

Poor guy. But he did feel better by mid-afternoon, so that was good!

I love this picture:
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On the day of the hike, we drove down to the fish hatchery.

Brian and I have been there before, but the kids have never been. Also, we've never seen them loading up fish.

One guy gets into the tank and pushes a screen through the water to crowd the fish. Then the other guy gets the big loading machine going. The fish are sucked up through the orange tube (the picture doesn't show it, but you could actually see tons of little fish bodies zooming through that tube), then the fish slide down the white chute into the truck while the water goes through the gray tube and back into the tank. It was pretty cool watching them do that. This fish hatchery is government owned and they stock several lakes throughout the state.

They have a very small visitors center, and inside are several mounted fish along the top of the wall. These are representations of record-breaking fish caught in various lakes here in the state. The tag on the wall tells what kind of fish it was, when and where it was caught, and how big it was. The fish on display show the actual size. I think that's incredible!

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You can't feed the fish in the holding tanks, but at the base of the hatchery is a big pond where you can feed fish until you run out of quarters.

Every time you throw in a handful of pellets, tons of fish come swarming to the surface. It's pretty fun to watch. Even after we ran out of quarters (and we brought a lot just for this reason) the kids started hunting for stray pellets on the ground so they could toss them in too.

This little squirrel came right up to John! He got so close that at one point he was almost between John's feet. I thought he was going to try to climb John like a tree!

Playing at the stream fed by the hatchery.

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On the way back from the hatchery we stopped at a place called Rancho Tonto. On our last day when Brian asked what everyone's favorite part was, this was at the top of everyone's list. (Oh, except for Christopher. His favorite part was playing with sparklers every night and having those glowing bracelets every night. But he liked this part too.)

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Anyway, behold Rancho Tonto...
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That's a stocked pond. You can rent poles for $1 each, and any fish you catch are $0.75 an inch. Sounds cheap right? We thought so too until we got the total at the end. I honestly can't bear to print it, but that's okay, I'm over it now. (Really. I promise.) It was a fun experience though and since everyone enjoyed it so much, I'm glad we did it. (Not that we'll be doing it again - it would've been cheaper to buy those kiddie fishing poles for the kids and take them to the lake - so guess what they'll be getting for Christmas.) Anyway.

Guess who caught the first fish?

Christopher! Yeah baby!

Brian couldn't get the hook out of this poor fish. He ended up putting it in the bucket, hook and all, so the guy at the shop could cut it out later.

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Once the boys caught their fish, Brian asked me if I wanted to try. I surprised myself by saying yes...

That's my fish baby!

This is Brian demonstrating how to hold the fish so we could take a picture of me with my catch. He put his finger into the fish's mouth and brought it back out through the fish's gulls!

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Yuck.

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I borrowed Christopher's fish for my photo opp instead.

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Our last night there we went down to the amphitheatre at the lake to watch a ranger presentation. Here are the boys playing on the stage while Brian and I figured out we were at the wrong place...

We had to drive up to another campsite and by then the presentation was half over, but that was alright. I was a little disappointed in the topic - sheep herding through the Arizona desert - but it was interesting anyway.

Finally, on our way out of camp to go home, we stopped to check out this sink hole.

It looked a little different from what I expected (up the road about 7 miles is another campsite we went to years ago and that had an awesome sink hole before it got ruined by bark beetles) but it was still kinda pretty. I like all the ferns.


And that was our camping trip. A fun time was had by all.

Mindfulness Insomnia Remedy

Today I came across an interesting article at a blog called Healthy Fellow. It's about trying to cure insomnia with mindfulness techniques. There's even been a study done with impressive results. (Click here for the article.) This caught my attention for a couple of reasons. First, I know a fellow who struggles with insomnia, in spite of medications (I sometimes have a hard time falling asleep myself). Second, the whole concept of "mindfulness" has been brought to my attention a lot during the past several months. What I was told is that it's important to be "in the moment" when you do things. Instead of thinking of the next five things you have to do, focus on what you're doing now, what you're experiencing now.

I gotta say, it's been a struggle for me. The times I've tried it, it's been nice. I'm able to enjoy the simplest things more when I'm actually paying attention to what I'm doing. It makes enough of a difference that I've come to have the sneaking suspicion that that's what life is. Moments. That's all. And if I'm constantly thinking about future moments instead of living current moments, I'm missing out on a large part of life.

This isn't a natural state of mind for me though. My mind tends to go, go, go. All the time. When I'm working on a task, more often than not, I'm thinking about getting to the end instead of enjoying the journey getting there. My "mindfulness" awareness tends not to last more than a few minutes then I slip back into my old ways. I've made improvements over the last few months, but it's been difficult.

I want to slow down, not just in terms of my daily routine and obligations, but in terms of how I think and feel on the inside. A simple life appeals to me. I love the idea of being calm and centered, enjoying the moment. So why do I keep working against myself? Why do I keep giving myself so much to do?

The end of the article gives an example of a simple meditation, 5-15 minutes morning and night. I've never connected meditation with mindfulness before, but it makes sense. I've heard regular practice yields a calmer mind, less stress, fewer tense muscles (don't even get me started on tense muscles - it's like on the subconscious level I'm in a constant state of "flight or fight").

Anyway, I read the meditation and it looked easy enough. I want to say I'm going to do it. But I wonder if I really will. About a month ago I returned to the library three meditation CDs that had been sitting on my nightstand for 12 weeks - the longest you can check something out at the library - and I only listened to one of them. Twice. For the three months I had those CDs, I told myself "I'm going to do it, I need to do it." But I didn't.

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What is it that makes me hesitate? What is it that makes me feel nervous about it? It's like deep down I just can't handle the idea of letting go of that "fight or flight" mode. Why?

I don't know. But I'm going to try it anyway.

I think.

A Snippet

Yesterday we got back from five days of camping, so today I'm catching up. I'm doing plenty of laundry, but not near as much as I would've been if it weren't for my fabulous Brian doing TONS of laundry yesterday. (He's such a sweetheart.) I'll try to get a camping post up soon (ish), but until then, check out today's cool APOD pic.

Erupting Volcano Anak Krakatau

Explanation: A volcano on Krakatoa is still erupting. Perhaps most famous for the powerfully explosive eruption in 1883 that killed tens of thousands of people, ash from a violent eruption might also have temporarily altered Earth's climate as long as 1500 years ago. In 1927, eruptions caused smaller Anak Krakatau to rise from the sea, and the emerging volcanic island continues to grow at an average rate of 2 cm per day. The latest eruption of Anak Krakatau started in 2008 April and continues today. In this picture, Anak Krakatau is seen erupting from Rakata, the main island of the Krakatoai group. High above, stars including the Big Dipper are clearly apparent.

Very Impressive, Blog-worthy Topic

I won three rounds of solitaire tonight.

Just thought you'd like to know.

Miscellaneous What-nots

Here are a few more pics from Uncle Freddie's visit, including pics of this cool Barefoot Wine cork Aunt Moira got for me when they were in Vegas. Cool baby!!! :)

Allow me to model...

Hee hee. (Thank you Aunt Moira!!)

Uncle Freddie happily visiting with his other niece, Wendy. He remembers her as a baby and has thought of her often over the years.

The fellas...

and an oversized alien dog named Huckleberry...

Last Friday I went to Tammy's so we could have another all-day gab fest. It totally rocked! I love that girl.

This time I remembered to take a pic of our munchkins:

Last week my friend Edith was cleaning out her house and gave me a box of dishes she's been toting around for ten years but never used. Since the theme in my kitchen is red, I've been thinking it would be fun to have black dishes. How perfect is that? Not as perfect as FREE black dishes, lemme tell ya!

Before:

And after:

Now I need to figure out what kind of glasses I'd like to go with these, cuz my mismatched plastic is a tad bit more noticeable to me now. :) I'm in no rush though. It's not like I'm entertaining the President for dinner or something. ;)

Slightly overdue soccer pics. This year I took them myself and saved a TON of money. I'm never buying through the league again.

Last but not least, a wee project I'm working on...


Nope, not a book. (Well, I AM working on a book, but this ain't it. This is the binder I used last time I wrote a book though. The manuscript was about twice this size.)

Have a good Fourth everyone!