Spring break was so much fun this year! After we had a two night visit to the Phoenix area, we headed back down to the Tucson airport to meet up with our driver from the Tanque Verde Dude Ranch.
The Ranch is in the mountains outside Tucson. We loved it. Go!
The ranch is all inclusive, and has a great kid's club program. It is very rustic, but very serene and pretty. We rented a one bedroom casita. It was off a quiet courtyard with a bunch of other rooms. It was pretty basic, but we were comfortable, and we had plenty of space, which was so good. There is only one television on the property, other than the one in the kid's dining room that they played movies on. No television in the rooms. We didn't even notice.
We were up early every morning to get our activities started for the day, and we had the kids in bed by 7:30 every night except the night of the cookout, and they were begging us to leave right after the show because they were so tired. The ranch kept them so busy with new adventures, they could not keep their eyes open!
We met so many nice families on this trip! I was amazed at how many of the guests had been to the ranch multiple times! It is a tradition every year for many of them, and the others just had such a good experience that they came back again. A LOT of the guests were from the Chicago area. I guess it is really popular with the Chicago crowd for some reason! Probably because it is warm! We were told there is a family that has booked their entire family for Christmas at the ranch every year for the past thirty years! Very cool!
There were a lot of people from big cities. We met quit a few from Manhattan, as well as Chicago. It was interesting to chat with people at meals and get a glimpse of different lives! Really cool people! There was one group of collage age girls all visiting with their families, but once they met each other, they spent all week together. They were all enrolled in Ivy League schools, so they were like a really smart , really pretty, horse riding, posse. Ha!
Here we are at check in, before changing into our more ranch appropriate cowboy clothes. I wondered if we would really feel like we needed all the western duds going into this thing. I learned that boots for walking through corrals, long sleeves, and at hat are the only way to go! I wished I had packed more!
We went to the pretty dining room after check in and had a really tasty lunch, and we were good to go!
Right after we checked in we went straight to the small lake for some fishing.
Walker was the only one in the family to score a catch! It was so funny! He called to me that it was too hard to reel the line in. So I came to check it out, and sure enough he had snagged a Bass!
The ranch pretty much assigns a horse to each child rider for the week. It is so cute to see them feel like they know and love "their" horse! Walker's ride was named Thunder. I told Walker to look at me and smile and I would get a picture with Thunder behind him. Right then, Thunder moved his head over the fence and nudged right into Walker's side! It was so funny! It was like he understood just what was going on, and was game for a photo shoot!
All the horses on the ranch are male. They do this on purpose to try to avoid drama within the horse population, with horses forming partnerships and getting jealous! Isn't that interesting? They said there are still some really strong friendships, and even that can cause issues, because some of the horses don't like each other at all! They are so smart!
One day as we were all getting saddled up, one of the horses on an adult ride took off to the kid's horse corral out of the blue! No rider on him yet, luckily! The wrangler said that he had seen his best friend in that other corral, and took off to go hang out with him. Sure enough they stood right next to each other by the fence and knocked heads. Amazing to me, who has little horse experience! There are 180 horses on the ranch! One evening I watched them release the horses to go eat. Watching all those horses flood out of one corral into anther was almost like watching a pack of wild horses run free! It was really cool!
Walker and Thunder, and off to the right, Georgia and her horse, Golden Eye.
I went out to the kid's corral for all of Walker and Georgia's rides to walk along side and help them with the commands. Unfortunately, they always rode at different times, and in different corrals than Wally and Will. So I have very few pictures of those two!
Here is a video of Walker going out on a ride, while Del walked with him.
Georgia saddling up!
After one ride, Georgia got off her horse and ran her hand over his nose to say goodbye. Her horse stepped toward her and nudged her side. The wranglers got so excited for Georgia and told her to give him some more love. They said that does not happen all the time, but her horse loved her! It was sweet! I missed the actual moment, but this was right after it happened. It is very short.
The girls that ran the kid's program, and managed all the rides were really cute, nice girls. They kept good track of a lot of kids, and knew what they were doing around the horses. They were the right amount of cautious, and were not afraid to let the kids know when they needed to be more careful. I thought they did a nice job!
The one picture of Will. He started on a horse names Blitz, but then he switched to Blackjack during the week.
Here is a short video of Will taking his horse to the line up for a lesson.
Wally on his horse.
Wally grooming his horse.
Del went on a long mountain bike ride. He had a lot of fun. I avoided those activities this time around.
Del also went on a four hour ride way up into the mountains one morning. I caught a picture of him giving his horse a pat before getting off. (And walking funny for a minute, unavoidable for us city slickers!) The ranch offers all kinds of horseback activities. I only did walking rides. It was nice and relaxing, and I loved it. If you pass a loping test with a wrangler, you can sign up for loping rides, which I heard are a lot of fun! I need to go back when I am not expecting!
Del also had fun in the penning game they had. I could hear them getting started as I headed out on a ride. Lots of "Hah!!" being yelled out in an effort to get the cows to move!
A little down time on the wide, shady porches.
Our kids wanted to follow the same routine every day. Kids club with lots of games and riding until 3, then hit the pool, shower, eat dinner, maybe the kid night games, and straight to bed! Nothing thrilled them more than knowing that is what the day held!
Georgia discovered cheesecake in the dining room one night, and I don't' know how many pieces she ate. It was plenty.
Wally and me, outside our casita.
One night of our stay was the cookout in a pretty grove of trees. The guests got decked out in their finest cowboy duds! The food was super yummy! Every meal, every day, all week! I still think about the turkey they served! It was so good! The food was pretty simple. Not a fancy pants dish kind of place. That is just right for me, because it is hard to keep my nut allergy needs in check when we start getting fancy. They were really good about checking on ingredients for me, and the chef came out multiple times to walk me through what dishes were safe.
We snagged a table before they had thrown a table cloth on it.
After dinner they had a guy come preform gun slinging and rope jumping tricks. He was pretty darn amazing. He had a little rope for his daughter that he said the kids could try out. Georgia was very anxious for her turn. When we got home, Walker said he was going to show us how to dance one night. He put his fingers up in the shape of guns and started hustling his feet around. He told us he learned to dance from the guy at the ranch! So funny!
One morning we went up the mountain to the original homestead of the ranch founders for a sunrise breakfast. The boys rode with Del, and I walked up with Georgia and Walker.
Here are the boys and Del ready to ride.
We had one night in Tucson before flying out early the next day. We checked out old Tucson, the neighborhood around the spot Prosidio Fort used to stand, and the art fair they were holding. It was so cute, and made me daydream about placing the characters from the book "These Is My Words," in the area. That is where it was set, and I loved seeing what it may have been based on.
Here is Georgia eating her meal in first class. This flight passed so quickly, and our kids were extra well behaved. I was so relieved about that. I'm sure it was due in large part to the fact that they had a big plate of food in front of them to keep them quiet!
It was crazy! And apparently pretty unbelievable, because everyone acted like we were making the whole thing up! I made a stop to get some of the basics, after they gave us a toiletry kit, and we enjoyed visiting our parents and siblings.
I was still a bit taken aback with our new baby news at this point. We had decided to wait to tell anyone for a long time.
When we knew we were seeing our families, Del said he wanted to tell them while we were in Salt Lake. In person! It ended up being so much fun to surprise everyone with our announcement! No one saw that one coming! They were as certain we were done having kids as we were! He, he! What do you know! Turns out life is full of surprises!
We had a great trip! It was hard to come home and do my own cooking, and entertainment for my kids! What amazing memories for our family! We had a feeling going in that would be the case, and Tanque Verde did not disappoint!
