All You Need Is Love

Today is our 12 year wedding anniversary. Twelve years. I can hardly believe it. For our 10 year anniversary, we went to Vegas. It was the first time we did something big for our anniversary. Last year, we went to Chicago. We didn't plan anything big this year after an expensive Fall Break trip to New York City with the kids in October.

David was going to go to work, but decided to take a personal day instead. With the kids all in school now, we can spend the day together. Alone. We decided to go for a hike that we knew would be too hard for the kids, mainly Noah since he's little. And out for some lunch.

I decided to take selfies along the way. I'm not very good at it.  Can you tell?  It was so sunny out that I didn't realize I had a shadow of a cell phone on my face.  That and my walking stick.  And David literally looks like he has a dead tree sprouting out of his head, like some sort of unmagical unicorn.

We had to stop and rest along the way. It was about 1500 feet elevation climb and some parts were mighty steep. So, when we stopped, I'd snap a selfie and try to get some of the pretty scenery in the background.

Then, we got to almost the top and it was such a pretty view of Prescott.

Then, this nice man and women were up there and offered to take a picture of us that had more scenery than our selfies could handle. And no, I will never get a selfie stick. So, he got a pic of us.

We started talking. Sometimes, I am just like my mother. It's a good thing. Evelyn was telling us that she comes up there as her son was killed by a gang years ago on this day. They spread his ashes up there. So, they try to come up there every year. She used to live in Idaho, about 45 minutes from my Dad and Suzy's cabin, but she moved back down her to be near her son and grandkids. And guess what? The son and grandkids live in our neighborhood and we know them pretty well. Small, small world.

Then, we hiked some more and found a memorial for the 19 firefighters who died a few years ago. Who would've though there was a memorial at the top of the mountain?

It had all their ID badges. The top one there is the son of another neighbor. See, that's kind of how small towns work.

We could see this nice tree at the very top of the mountain. That was a separate trail. It looked like The Dreaming Tree from Dave Matthew's and we wanted to head up there. So off we went. What a view!

That's the dreaming tree behind us.

Then, on the advice of a hippie with a giant blood hound dog, we rock climbed almost to the tippity top. Another 20 feet or so. And, I learned one very valuable lesson today. When a blood hound shakes his head, you better prepare to get soaked in his saliva. Holy moly, it was awful, but funny. So, we left our hiking sticks and water as we needed our hands and rock climbed to about 15 feet from the top. We probably could've went all the way, but literally, if you slipped, there was nothing under you, so we stopped. We didn't want to make the kids orphans today.

Then, it was down, down, down and our knees were killing.

Here's a view at the end of what we climbed. It really doesn't look that big in the photo, but it was.

Then, we got Mongollon BBQ for lunch. YUM!

It was a wonderful day and I'm glad we got to spend it together. If I could go back and do it all over again, I would. Exactly the same. Well, I'd stand back when the blood hound shakes his head. I'd redo the past 12 years too, exactly the same.