the great outdoors

{hiking}

Right about now is perfect time to be outdoors in Arizona.  It's starting to warm up but hasn't quite gotten too hot yet.  A few weekends ago we went for a hike just north of Matt's school.  

Graham always loves being outside, but he sort of lagged on the hike.  This is what our hike looked like...

...and even more like this.  Matt ahead waiting for us, especially Graham who was looking off into no man's land.  Silly.  

We completed the hike, carrying Mason the whole way.  We're super cool and left our carrier on the dryer right by the back door, and realized it was there once we got to the trail.  Oops.

{yardwork}

We spent MLK day cleaning some of our bushes.  It froze one night while we were away for Christmas, and most of our plants are ugly and full of dead leaves.  According to AZ gardening laws you shouldn't trim your trees yet, but wait until spring instead.  We didn't listen, and trimmed some of our bushes down.  A lawn guy who was working on a house across the street even came over and told Matt he shouldn't be cutting the branches.  Too bad.  The plants here are super wimpy in the cold.  We feel like they should be more hearty. 

{camping}

Not only is it good weather to hike and do yardwork, it's also a good time to go camping!  We can't go too far north yet, because it's still snowy and cold, but it's nice and warm here.  We made our plans to go to Lake Pleasant, and reserved our spot a week ahead of time.  The weather forecast was clear and sunny about a week ahead of our trip, but the closer we got to our camping trip, the rainier it was getting.  We were still going to go camping, though, rain or shine.  

The rain let up for us to get our tent set up, and get a fire going.  It rained a little while we were getting dinner ready, and then let up again so we could sit around the fire for awhile.

After we ate marshmallows and smores we went to bed, and just in time.  It rained all night long.  It was kind of nice being in our tent all warm and dry and listening to the rain.  It doesn't rain much here, and it's a nice treat to hear rain once in a while.  Especially from inside a tent.  All our stuff held up really well, and we were dry come morning.

Good morning, Mason!

Wake up, Graham!

We made some breakfast, and it continued to rain.

We think we found the best campsite in the campground.  Because there aren't any real mountains near the lake, or real trees for that matter, many of the campsites tend to be right next to each other.  Some of the areas look more like a KOA than a real woodsy campground.  But we found one that's kind of elevated, and is a ways from any other sites.  It was really quite nice, and had a great view of the lake.  Even though it was wet, we had a blast.