More Hiking & Pool Time!

With the temps hitting 110°F+ regularly, we have been spending a lot more time poolside with Rohan. He has so much energy, it's impossible to keep him confined indoors. The pool definitely does the trick! He is always sacked out on pool nights. He's having a lot more fun running and jumping into the pool (after he saw me do it), so now we spend 10-15 min just doing that! He's trying to swim a lot more as well, mostly flailing now, but he tried hard, so that's whats important. He also likes going underwater too...or maybe he just tolerates us dunking him...:)
Last weekend we headed North to an area called Fossil Springs Wilderness, which is just between Camp Verde, AZ and Strawberry, AZ, on a very slow travelling forest road. It took almost an hour on the rough road, but it was worth it! We stopped at the bridge (where a lot of people stop) since it's shallow and the water is amazingly clear just out of the mountain! Rohan had a blast in the water, especially watching the fish! The water is really unique and drops off from 4' to about 25' just after some rapids, so that was cool to swim around in. We don't have many pics, because we weren't sure if we should bring the camera. You'll just have to come visit and we'll take you out there...:)
We had planned on camping and meeting up with some friends at a trail nearby, but because of the massive fires raging in AZ, they've shut down a lot of the forest roads and restricted a lot of the camping we usually do...:( We drove around for almost 3 hours trying to find an isolated spot, but everything was packed. Not to say there wasn't spots, but camping immediately close to drunken hillbillies on quads didn't sound like fun. We found one site that we got Rohan and the dogs out at and let everyone stretch their legs and run around. Turns out the reason the site was vacant was because it was overrun with huge black ants...not really an appealing site for Rohan and the dogs. I did manage to take lots of any pictures though...:)
We ended up grabbing a bit to eat in Payson and heading back to PHX and spent the rest of the weekend climbing. We'll get back up to that trail in a while when Mara has another weekend off.
Other than that, we've been adjusting to Mara's schedule, and meeting up with other residents at a DBacks game and an ICU physician's house for an awesome cookout. All good ways to stay cool!
Hope the weather back home is warming up! Sounds like it's been cool and rainy there!


Running & Jumping Into The Pool:


Running & Jumping Into The Pool With Dad:


Rohan Reading (we were standing under the A/C vent...so it's a little noisy):


Rohan Discovers The CD At The Back of His Book:


Here is some video from Rohan's 0.33mi run last week. It was shot on my phone (decent quality, low frame rate), choppy (sounds gets off a few seconds at the end) and shot at night (phone has weak light sensor), so it's sub-par, but still pretty cool to see him powering through and having fun...:)

Oak Creek Canyon Hiking

This last week was mostly normal for us. Running, climbing, late night walks, etc. With Mara starting her residency orientation this week we decided to get out and hike in Sedona. We don't make it as much as we'd like, but it's ALWAYS beautiful! The brilliant red rocks and stark contrasting green pines make for awesome pictures. If it's a clear blue sky (like when we went), it's even more stunning.
We hiked a little area called Oak Creek Canyon just North of Sedona. It's crowded (took us an hour to get into the parking lot!), but well worth the hike. It's a 3mi trail, followed by an 11mi additional trial which we'd like to check out sometime. We just did the 3mi trail, but stopped at a creek area and hiked in a little off the path. We had a GREAT spot for a picnic and hung out there almost 2hrs! The water was shallow and the dogs had a blast exploring. Schroeder turned out to LOVE the water and even snorkeled a bit...the video is hilarious...:) Rohan was able to run around with Schroeder in the water and brush, and we got to sit back and enjoy them having so much fun.
It was nice to escape the heat too since the weather is getting warmer in PHX. It's supposed to hit 106°F this week...:) We are already planning our next trip when we can backpack and do some overnight, deep woods, canyon camping!
Hope everyone had a great week!


A 8.5min Peak Into Life With Rohan:


Schroeder Bobbing For Chickpeas:


Rohan Tromping Through Oak Creek:


Rohan Fishing:

Mom & Rohan Time While Mike's Vacationing In MI...:)

This last week I was out of town for a retreat with TGen & VARI (our partner in research). The VAR Institute has quite an impressive operation and Grand Rapids was actually a pretty awesome town! The retreat took us to the North woods of Michigan to Chrystal Mountain Resort. It was a lot of fun, and a lot of cool science is being done! Pretty much it was talk science for 12-14 hours, then socialize for 2 hours (sampling some of the local brews...:P), before crashing into bed. It was nice though, I managed to get in a couple run in Grand Rapids (near SteamPig!), and even ran up the ski hill at the resort. All in all a good week for networking, learning, and showing off my "on-the-fly image analysis" to a couple investigators...:)
Mara and Rohan got some good one-on-one time before she starts residency next week. Nothing too hard then, just orientation. They hit up a bunch of parks, the Children's Museum, and of course a couple splash pads! Rohan has been awesome with potty training too. He went for almost a week without an accident (day or night!). One of Mara's goals was to get him trained for when she starts residency, and she has done and awesome job with it! He pretty much has to go at all the most inopportune times. Last night he peed next to the car in the Wal-Mart parking lot...:)
Not too much planned this week, just enjoying one more week before Mara starts again, enjoying the heat (hit 105°F yesterday), but it's not too bad. Still haven't turned on the A/C, and hope to hold off on that for a while. Eventually we'll probably just turn it on at night.
Hope everyone had a good week/weekend and got outside to enjoy the weather (or escaped somewhere that had nice temps!).