Spring Break!

Ok, spring break was a few weeks ago now, but it feels like it lasted until just recently with visits from family and friends and a trip up to Escalante.  Here's what we've been doing:
For the official spring break, we headed down towards Phoenix and instead of going to Ada's opthalmologist appointment (they cancelled ON OUR WAY DOWN- who does that??), we decided to see a new town in Arizona- Fountain Hills.  You can probably tell why it's named that.  We first discovered this fountain last time we were camping and we saw it in the distance and thought there was a water main break or something.

Then, we went back to our new favorite campground near Phoenix and let Ada loose with her new sand pail and tools while we set up camp for the night. 

Bryan made dinner

and Ada "watered" all of the surrounding shrubs and trees.

The next day we took a short hike and saw some desert flowers,

 

caught a glimpse of a lake,

and ended somewhat disastrously with Ada now being terrified of any kind of shrub or tree touching her while in the backpack carrier.

The rest of the trip was spent hanging out with the Higbee and Trowbridge families and sightseeing around Phoenix.

We got to ride a train (Ada has been kind of obsessed with trains lately, and everyone was willing to indulge her)

We visited the Mystery Castle (this photo does not do it's eccentricity justice)

and found an overlook of the entire city of Phoenix. 

At the end of the week, we had to rush out of Phoenix to make it home before...

 it snowed 2 feet!  And promptly melted 2 days later.