Awesome Labor Day Weekend

This weekend we celebrated Labor Day by getting the hell out of Phoenix! :) TGen let me out at 2pm, so I was able to go get the car packed and pick up Rohan and Mara when she was done with clinic. It took us over an hour to get out of Phoenix (normally 20min) with all the traffic, and there was a lot of it! We headed about 5500 vertical feet (~140 linear miles North) to Flagstaff. You will never hear Mara and I complain about the heat in Phoenix. It's just one of those things you deal with while you wait for the awesome other 9-10 months of the year. But this August was brutal. We set several heat records, and it just sounded like a great idea to get out and cool off a bit...:) Schroeder did not enjoy the ride so much, and we also found out a little secret of his. Apparently he's been eating poop in the backyard (hopefully just his and Linus'!) because about halfway to Flagstaff he threw up in the back seat and it smelled horrendous!!! We drove on, and Mara cleaned up what she could while we had the windows open on the interstate going 80mph. We hit a rest area and rinsed off the floor mat and tried to get as much of that smell out as possible..we'll spare you the pictures... One thing that probably helped ease the smell is I left the floor mat (we think) on the roof of the RAV4 and it probably blew off on the interstate...oops...:) The smell never went away and we've been airing the RAV out since... We made it to Flagstaff and eventually drove down some random forest fire access road and came across a campsite with a fire ring and set up camp. It turned out to be a VERY isolated area, given that on Labor Day weekend we only saw ONE other car come down that road, and they camped somewhere else, so we didn't even see another person! I think we've found a pretty sweet camping spot...:) Rohan had a blast running at 7000ft above sea level...didn't seem to slow him down a bit! He eventually crashed in his camp chair and then found a more comfortable spot laying with Mom. We spent the rest of the evening watching stars and chatting next to the fire since there was a slight chill in the air...hadn't had one of those in a while...:) Since Mara had to work early on Sunday, we only stayed one night, but we had a whole day left in Flagstaff. We hit up a new coffee shop (again, new to us) called Macy’s. Very good coffee, awesome people, and we got to enjoy our french press outside, which was awesome! We love sipping coffee outside and relaxing! Afterwards we hit up a park in Flagstaff called Thorpe Park. Rohan had a blast playing on their giant playground equipment, firetruck, and enjoying real grass (as did Mara). After the park we met up with friends from AZR (Kim, Angelica, Jeremy, Shantelle, and Melissa) and hit up a new climbing spot (new to us anyway) just outside Flagstaff called The Pit. It was awesome climbing rock (limestone) and we could not have asked for a better day! The sun was intermittent, and mostly behind huge clouds, so we all stayed nice and cool on the wall. We got to lead a couple longer routes and explore some awesome canyon walls. It's great to have explorer friends that can introduce us to places like this! We climbed for almost 6 hours before everyone got all their energy out. Mara and I had to head back to PHX eventually so we grabbed a bit to eat at an awesome restaurant called Salsa Bravea. Awesome salsa bar, and really good food. Turns out I think I also left the leftovers on the roof and it blew off somewhere in Flagstaff...not a good weekend for me...:) We got back to PHX and crashed Sunday was pretty laid back for me and Rohan. Mara had to work 10hrs in the Peds ER. We all were pretty tired from the trip. Monday I got up and golfed with John (and his buddies Mike & Bud) at Desert Canyon in Fountain Hills. The 6:45am tee time made for some spectacular scenic views of the sunrise and surrounding mountains. I shot pretty good until I imploded on the last 2 holes, but a bad day of golf is still better than working, and nothing an ice cold beer can't help erase...:) Greg, Nico, and Mila came over in the afternoon to grill out. It was Greg's birthday, so we sang and danced for him...at least Rohan did... It was great catching up with them too. Greg has been crazy busy with school and extra curricular studies that his time is pretty precious. Mara was able to pass on some of her COMLEX study guide to Greg to help him bone up for the MCAT and eventually Med School. We spent the rest of the night replacing a ceiling fan since the fan quite working (but the lights still worked). Unfortunately the new fan worked, but the lights didn't... It's still up now, but we'll have to take it back to get a new one sometime this week...ahh the joys of a house...:) Enjoy the pictures, there are a ton of them! :) I do have a couple videos to add, so check back later tonight or tomorrow and I'll have them added (maybe)...
 

Updated with some videos... Rohan singing about Monkeys (sorry for the road noise...): Rohan Counting to 14: Fun little tool within Picasa's program. You can tag faces (and have it try to recognize and group them for you). You can then make a movie out of it centering on the face in the picture. Pretty cool. Could be fun with a small subset of good pictures, or time lapse over a few years. Here is Rohan over the last 32 months or so. The pics are not in any order, and it runs through them pretty quick...enjoy!: