McKenna in Town

It had been waaaaaay too long since I had seen McKenna, one of my best friends. We were wanting some family photos and LOVE her work. But she was in Oregon and we were here in AZ. We decided to fly her out since 1. I missed her and wanted to see her. and 2. It was cheaper to buy her flight tickets to come out for a weekend than it would've been to hire a decent local photographer. Win-win! I'll share the family photos in another post, this one is for the fun weekend we had!
We spent all day Saturday in Sedona, where there's lots of outdoor things to do! We had a bunch of activities planned out and were worried we wouldn't get to do them all because of all the traffic heading up to Sedona. Luckily we got everything done just fine though!

First we visited Slide Rock State Park! McKay, Kristi (his sister), and I had stopped here during our huge national park road trip and we loved it! We had so much fun coming back. The water was freezing cold! But that didn't stop us. We had James and our friend's daughter with us too, Addie. It was too cold to let them play in the water, but they did get to splash around a bit in some shallow puddles where the sun had warmed the water.
 
After Slide Rock and some lunch, we drove over to Devil's Arch trail head!

 
This was a short hike and it was so fun! There's not much to see along the trail (yay desert landscape) but the ending where the arch is -- WOW! It was great!


The arch is actually a lot wider than it looks, it was probably about 10-12 feet wide, but from the side it looks like it's like 4 feet! We heard people gasp in fright when we took a jumping photo.

BUT THEN.
I'm pretty sure some people were about to faint when they saw Becca and I kick up into handstands hahaha. We had to assure them it wasn't as narrow as it appeared!

The babies were so tired from all the adventuring they both slept the entire 2 hour car ride home, woohoo!
*Long story ahead about a scorpion sting!*
On Sunday evening McKenna, Becca, and I went out to the Star Tower, a cool spot just at the base of some hills where you can see lots of stars and constellations. We wanted some girl time without the husbands! We had a great time. We did end up leaving in a haste though because I was stung by a scorpion. YIKES.
All in all, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I know I do have a decent pain tolerance, but I've also wondered if I was stung by a younger scorpion who's venom wasn't as potent or something. Right after it happened we quickly (with the help of other people there) figured out what had stung me and then we called poison control. Calling ended up being a really good move because most people go to the emergency room, where they can't do much for you other than offer pain meds. So anyways, I was told what to expect and what symptoms to look out for in case I needed to go to the emergency room for real.
New symptoms can keep appearing for 6 hours after the bite, after that time frame, if something didn't show up, it likely wouldn't. All the symptoms the poison control lady listed did happen. My entire arm was numb, up to my bicep (I was stung on my pointer finger of my left hand). There were muscle spasms causing my hand to twitch and move uncontrollably, the pain was bad, and my hand felt like it was burned. My throat also felt like it swelled a bit (normal) and it felt cotton-y and dry. And lastly, my vision blurred. So crazy!
I slept with an ice pack on my hand all night, and didn't sleep much. But by morning, most symptoms were gone, leaving only the pain/burning and numbness. The numbness gradually traveled back down my arm and left, but it took weeks! It's been two months now and if I tap my finger sometimes I still feel a zing of numbness going up my nerves, it's crazy.
All in all, the weekend was SO much fun! And the scorpion sting added a lot of excitement, that's for sure. I am so happy I was able to see McKenna for a few days though! Highlight of the month!