Hmmm, January Murphy Family Excursion to......

As much as I would love to say we took a trip to Paris, Delhi or Casablanca, we headed north to Payson and the Tonto National Forest to visit the Natural Rock Bridge. By the way, the above photo is from the bookstore Julie and I visited on Wednesday. Her bookstore photo is equally fun-check it out.
We walked on three different trails and made some fun discoveries. The first trail was a short but steep walk down a staircase to see a small waterfall up close. Much of the waterfall was ice, but we got a decent sprinkle from the actual waterfall. The boys were amazed at how the ice was "so cold!"
Ian's latest smile is furrowing his little eyebrows in a Frankenstein manner. I had to really work to catch him candidly, because he gave me this quirky smile any time he knew I was snapping.
Connor climbed back on the stairs with some help and Ian climbed the stairs on his own.



I even gave up the camera twice and let Tom take a few photos.


We then took the next trail down under the Natural Bridge, which also involved more stairs. Connor was strapped into the backpack for this part and Ian held my hand and jumped down much of the trail steps. Ian really loved the bridge and the walk, but found the end of the trail a bit anti-climactic. He was ready to walk back up, but we took a snack and photo break. The ice was falling and crashing into the stream below with some dramatic sound effect.


Ian and I walked back up together while Daddy and Connor hiked up quite a bit faster. Some comments along the way from Ian:
"We are totally beating Daddy and Connor, they're losing!-Hey Daddy, WAIT FOR US!"

We took the last trail along the top of the bridge, which was the most exciting for Connor, who regained his freedom.
The boys discovered a covered grate with a view all the way down to the bottom of the stream from the top of the bridge. The boys also discovered some paw prints made in the concrete. Ian also worked hard to read each sign as we are teaching him how to sound out letters and words.
Here is the view through the grate, using my macro setting (Julie, you would be proud!)-it was a looooong way down!

By the way......we visited this very same park back in March 2005 and here is the photo from that visit....Ian was around Connor's age now and Connor wasn't a twinkle in the eye at that point.
And all of us today, almost three years later.
We finished our road trip with a pit stop at Dairy Queen for milkshakes before heading back. The boys took naps on the way home. All four of us enjoyed each other's company and everyone was pleasant and happy all day! Originally, we had planned to go to Flagstaff, but there wasn't really any snow to play in and this just worked out better over all.

Our family goal is to make an outing once a month, with the idea of trying to visit some new places. So consider this the January Murphy Family Excursion!