Trip to Flagstaff, part 1

Ben is set to deploy on the 25th of this month.  He'll be in Bahrain for about 6 months, serving the marines on base there and will travel some to Kuwait.  Although we feel like we just did this, we are encouraged by the news that we should have more communication this time...and he won't be on a ship in the middle of hurricane season...or was that just me that that stressed out?  Anyway, Ben wanted one last family trip before he left and picked Flagstaff so we could cool off and soak up some time outside.

I got home SUPER late Monday night from Michigan and woke up Tuesday to these handsome boys.

Ben did a good job of spoiling the kids while I was gone.  He sure did spoil me!  I came home to a spotless house, happy kids and a family trip completely planned out.

I had just enough time on Tuesday to do some laundry, repack and catch up on sleep before hitting the road Wednesday morning for Flagstaff, or as Colin says 'Flag stack'.

#1 priority for our trip was to go to a park, so that was our first stop.  Yes we did drive 5 hours so our kids could play outside and it was worth every minute.

Alison was craving a big burger so we went to a local place downtown.

I didn't have time to do my usual stock up on road trip snacks, so I promised the kids we would pick up a treat along the way.  We actually made it the whole 5 hours without a snack...complete craziness, I know.  There was a sweets shop across the street from the burger place, so we stopped in after dinner to make up for my treat-fail.

Alison got her first caramel apple and the boys got marshmallows on a stick.  I'm not even going to think about how much we paid for a marshmallow on a stick.

After dessert, we went to the Lowell Observatory.  The kids and I watched an I Max movie on the observatory at the Children's Museum in Virginia.  I was excited to see it in person, but Alison kept asking  *insert 9 year old drama voice*, "Why do we want to see the stars???".  Her radar went up when she thought we were trying to be educational, which we kinda were because she's studying astronomy this year, but then the coolest of coolest things happened...my goal in educating our kids came to life...her attitude changed and a huge smile came over her face and she was SO excited to be looking through a giant telescope.  We saw Saturn and she was jumping up and down and talked about it for days.  That's what I love; seeing them love to learn and see what they're learning in real life.

picture taken the next day when it was light

See?  Happy 9 year old.

at the telescope Pluto was discovered through

This year of traveling has made Ben an expert at navigating hotel rooms with 5 people.  Hotels don't like it and will often make us get 2 rooms and 99% of the time they aren't connected.  Ben finagled us a "conference" room, that had a large living room and joining room with 2 double beds.  We made up camp for the kids in the living room and then we had our own little area to watch HGTV after they crashed :)

Thursday morning, I went for a run in the glorious, cooler air.  Altitude had a fun time laughing at me during that run.  Between high heat and altitude running this year, I think I'm set for conditioning.

Then we went to Walnut Canyon.

We were walking up to the canyon when I realized that all of the kids' pants were above their ankles!

It's a good thing we won't be wearing pants for awhile in Yuma so I have time to find pants for all of them.  I really wish kids would give you a heads up when they're about to hit a growth spurt.

Colin pretended to be Spiderman the whole time and said that when he put his hands on his hips, he was shooting out webs.

This was a historic hike for our family.  It was about a mile long, but with steep steps and a narrow path along the cliffs, but everyone walked the entire time!  There wasn't any complaining or carrying kids and we were SO proud of them!  Minus the watching kids like a hawk so they didn't fall of a cliff, it was a great hike.

We explored the ancient ruins along the path:

And Ben got the absolute best picture of Eli on his phone...I will definitely be framing this!

We were reading about what the different rooms were used for and Eli asked some really great questions like, "Why did they leave the caves?" and "How did they take all their stuff with them?"...I loved it that he was really thinking through what we were seeing.

In my angst over the snacks, Ben assured me that our "conference" room came with complimentary snacks.  Little did we know that they really meant a big box full of chips and candy.  Well, our kids were happy with their snack choices, but they didn't make great hiking food.

Colin was trying to put bunny ears on us and somehow it turned into a 4.

The beauty of hiking with boys.

Talking about what it must have been like to live in the canyon.  I sure do love his sweet smile.

When we were talking about the day's plans in the morning, Eli said that we needed to find a stuffed animal.  Ben and I just started laughing as we realized that somehow we've unintentionally created a tradition of getting stuffed animals on our trips.  I blame Ben.  Colin decided to be a rebel and picked a Ranger jacket and I am still kicking myself for not getting the matching hat because he is so stinkin' cute in it!

 We went to lunch at a place I discovered on my run.  It was like Panera, but better.  Colin devoured my chicken coconut curry soup...he's got good taste, that one.

That afternoon it rained and while crazy Ben went for a run, the rest of crashed.

Eli requested pizza for dinner so we found another local place.  To be honest, it wasn't kid friendly, but the food was great and even better, our kids did great.  I'd love to start steering away from the kid menu anyway and have them eat real food.  Alison and Colin shared salads with us and every slice of pizza was gone, so I'd say it was a win.

Clearly they were a little wiped from the day:

After dinner was walking in the rain to REI.  I'm pretty sure it's impossible to not want to go camping after being in REI.  Someday we'll camp...some day.

Did you notice how it's impossible for Alison to NOT pose?  She can sense the camera coming out!