thursday: sabino canyon

after checking out a little park near my cousin jen's house, and then chilling at her house for a bit and hitting up some in and out burger for lunch, we renedzvoued with vanessa, micah, and wyatt, and headed off to sabino canyon.

a picture is worth a thousand words they say, so here are some pictures:





(in this last picture, i'm reading barbie, a fashion fairy tale, to the girls. it's even worse than barbie: a mermaid tale. in the fashion fairy tale, barbie gets help from 3 flairies (they're like fairies, only they give things flair. really) named glimmer, shimmer, and shyne (ugh). the book is filled with gag-inducing platitutes like "magic happens when you believe in yourself!!")


sabino canyon is in the mountains that surround tuscon. they're really beautiful, the mountains. anyway, there's a shuttle that takes you 2 or 3 miles into the canyon, and it makes 9 stops. you can get on or off the shuttle anywhere along the road, so you can do a nice mix of hiking and driving. we drove to the turn around spot, and then hiked for maybe a half mile, to the next shuttle spot. i guess i can't really call it hiking since we were just walking on a paved road.

anyway, it was very beautiful. nina has so much energy and had no trouble keeping up, and maggie fell asleep on the shuttle ride in. she napped in my arms for maybe a half an hour total, and then enjoyed the walk with us. this was, fortunately, a day she agreed to wear shoes without any struggle. the rest of the week would not go so smoothly...

after our trip through the canyon we indulged in the complimentary cocktails and hors d'oevures at the hotel. the girls were exhausted so we decided to stay in instead of heading out to dinner. after a family dip in the hot tub, i crashed (it was like, 7:30, but i was exhausted!!). nick tells me that the girls went to bed soon after me.