I'm back...

I'm back.
And you know what that means. The second half of the report on my trip.

Above, you see pictured our cabin in Oak Creek. Beautiful, isn't it? The cabin belongs to my two aunts and uncles. My grandparents built it when they were still alive... my Grandpa loved to go down by the creek and fish while my Grandma worked in the garden. Neither are alive today, yet this cabin seems to be a sweet reminder of them every time we go up there.

The rest of the week in Phoenix was... well, I don't want to brag, but it was pretty wicked awesome. I haven't used that phrase in awhile and I thought it was appropriate to describe the condition of our trip... that, or RELAXING. Our days consisted of... sleeping in until whenever we felt like it, usually 10 or 11 when we finally rolled out of the king-sized bed we shared. Then, down to the kitchen for breakfast and out into the sun for the rest of the day. Of course, about 15 minutes into it we had to get in hte pool. It was over 110 every day we were there, and the pool was like bath water. Nonetheless, it was fun... Heather and I got pretty good at water volley ball and PIG basketball. Actually, we usually played HORSE to give ourselves more letters, and the last day we played WINNER so whoever lost still felt like a winner. Sadly, the tennis courts weren't finished but it was probably too hot to play, anyway.

On Friday night, we all went to a play in downtown Phoenix that my friend, Richelle Meiss, was in. She has been acting her whole life and is VERY talented. It was actually a play done by professional actors, so it was VERY good. It was actually Beauty and the Beast, but it was absolutely darling and the costumes and everything was great. I am always so amazed at how perfectly coordinated and timed these plays turn out... from the lighting, to the dancing, to the singing, to... everything. Everything has to happen at the exact right time for it to look right to an audience, and it always does! Wow. I was told they only practiced for 3 weeks, putting in 8 hour days. Yikes. No wonder they are all so good. We saw Brittany Esterling, Ashley Hoerr, and Katie Schick at the play as they drove up to see it from Magdalena, MX.

So this next picture is Heather and I at the play. We tried to take this pic like three times by ourselves while walking and finally just had my 15 year old cousin, Jared, take it for us.



Let's see, what else? Another highlight was just getting to see family. I usually only see my cousins only once a year, if that, so it's fun to see them and their kids. Everyone grows up so fast... time flies.

So all week, I got to hear Heather talk about wanting to climb the mountain that my aunt and uncle's house is situated on. My uncle said it was maybe a 45 minute hike to the top, so we decided to do it this morning after a failed attempt on Sunday morning (an alarm clock was "accidently" shut off). At 6 a.m. this morning, I hear Heather whisper, "Taryn, do you still want to climb the mountain?"

Ok. Number one, let me just state the obvious and say that I am NOT a morning person. It's just not a real good idea to really talk to me until about an hour after I get up. Number two- when trying to wake me up in the morning, whispers and little taps and nudges don't quite cut it. If you want to get me to respond, you hire a band to play a couple tunes by my pillow or dump a bucket of ice water onto my body. It takes me about 20 minutes to come to life. My NREM cycles must wipe me out completely. Number three, I am the master at pretending to be asleep, especially when I want to avoid getting up. And I'm really good at it, too. I wake up without opening my eyes becuase like I said before, it takes me awhile to drift into consciousness so when I do, I keep my eyes shut and play "dead." I've learned a lot about what other people think of me when they think I'm asleep but I'm really all ears :-) Hee hee.

Anyway, Heather knows those 3 secrets about me by now, but the little "softly whispering into my ear" act at 6 this morning was not working too well with me. Knowing that Heather wanted to climb this mountain, I grudingly rolled out of bed, got dressed, and up the mountain we went. I had to come to a halt about 50 steps up the mountain when my heart almost stopped (never try to climb a mountain 5 minutes after waking up in 90 degree weather) but I was ok until I leaned down onto a rock for support and got those little invisible sticker thorns in my hand- about 50 of them. I had to stand and pick them out and while I did, I gazed up the mountain that seemed to only be getting steeper.

So we stopped there. We had a pretty amazing view of Phoenix from that point, and if it had been 20 degrees cooler and I had brought along jeans, I may have ventured to the top. Heahter was a little disappointed that we didn't go the whole way, but we got some pretty cool pictures and it was fun. Below is a picture of a cactus and I. I thought I would at least throw one of those in there since I WAS in the desert with a bunch of those this week.



It was kind of funny because on the plane ride home today, I took the window seat (IMHO- always a good choice) and Heahter always likes to have the aisle seat, so this poor guy was stuck sitting in the middle of us two. Neither of us were un-stubborn enough to get up and take the middle. I occupied a lot of my time taking pictures of clouds. The image below is one I took... what a grand sight when you are right next to them! I wish you could just reach out and grab a bunch of cloud and just play with it. Unfortunately, clouds are just for looking.



Which makes me thankful, after a week of such beautiful sight-seeing, that I have eyes to see. I can't imagine going to a place like Arizona or even on an air plane without the keen sense of sight. Something I don't think about often enough... even in a spiritual sense. We should be thankful that God gives us eyes to see his beautiful creation but also an eye to see His will clearly... maybe it's not always as beautiful or as clear as we would like for it to be, but God is a loving God with a reward of peace as long as we trust, obey, and continually seek him... and remember that we are on HIS timetable... not the other way around. :-)

I suppose that's enough information about my trip. Have I hit my word limit, yet? Heather's not here this time with the egg timer. Only kidding. Thanks for reading. Have a good rest of the week... I'm sure I'll be back before long!

Love, T