A Scary Cabin in the Woods?

Last week I took Sierra and two of her friends, Jena and Zayda, to the cool pines of Flagstaff. As you may have read in a previous post, Sierra was anxious to experience that scary cabin/slasher movie feeling. The cabin had a loft which served as the horror movie den (with the help of my lap top) and after the first night of scary movies, they were all ready to move downstairs to sleep next to mom. They seemed to have a great time scaring themselves silly... to a point.

Although for some people, it may not sound fun to hang out with three pre-teen girls, it was mostly enjoyable. To be sure, there was lots of screaming, laughing incessant giggling and dancing around punctuated by " We're hungry!!!!". However, I let go of my adult self occasionally to be goofy with them and when I didn't want to do that, I discovered the magic of ear plugs. So, I spent quite a bit of quiet time reading and doing easy cross word puzzles (because I'm not that smart). The earplugs worked so well that Sierra scared me a few times because I didn't hear her come into the bedroom. Perhaps it was the fascinating book I was reading about Jack the Ripper called " Portrait of a Killer; Jack the Ripper,Case Closed" . I also found time to listen to some of my favorite podcasts such as Skeptics Guide to the Universe and This Week in Science.

I took our new telescope up there, but only managed to use it once because it was so cloudy. I found Jupiter on my own without Devin's help! Yeah me! The girls were more interested in taking pictures of each other than looking at the stars.

The girls enjoyed wandering around the site, taking pictures of interesting things ( especially pictures of themselves)

Zayda, the most adventurous of the three, was the only one up for an extended hike of the area with me. Although I managed to let us get "lost" We were in the city of Flagstaff so we really weren't all that lost. I just headed for a road and found someone to ask where we were. It was a longer walk than we anticipated but it can be fun to be lost as long as you are sure you can be found again. For the record, it's always better to stick to trails rather than go wandering off in the forest. This picture shows my relief when we finally found our way back home.

We had a heavy thunderstorm almost every afternoon. Its fun to get wet in a climate where that isn't possible very often.

One day, we packed a lunch and went to Lake Mary. The girls swam for a little while, but it wasn't long before a HUGE thunder and lighting storm chased us away. The road visibility was so bad, we had to pull over and wait for things to calm down. Luckily this little lake is only about 10 minutes from the resort.