Arizona Vacation Part 11

Did you hang in through the whole thing? What a good sport. Here we are. We have arrived at Friday. Our final day in Phoenix. We did take it rather easy and just did a nice walk around the preserve to hunt for bunnies and other animals. We found fish in the canal.

Bunnies and lots of birds.

And we even met some horses.

Then we had to head back to say good-bye to our beloved Lego creations

and our family. Who were wonderful hosts as always. See why we were so sad to leave?

Arizona Vacation Part... what is it? 9?

What are we up to now? Still hanging in there? Let's see... Wednesday night we went to ASU to participate in their free observatory show. Prior to going up Chloe was invited in tos et up the fulcrum (?) pendulum. She was rather nervous to be in there with the big swinging ball but super excited too.

You can see Uncle Ryna giving Lexa a shoulder boost so she could see in the background.

Arizona Vacation Part 2

After visiting the Botanical Gardens in the morning the kids cooled off by getting into their swimsuits and having a spray bottle battle in the backyard. They were joined by Uncle Ryan who raised the battle a notch by adding the garden hose.

Christmas Part 3

No visit to the Island could be comeplete without visits to the beach. We find it especially fun in the winter when there really isn't anyone else around. You can find all kinds of "treasures" that wash up on the beach after the winter storms.

I will admit wearing your snowsuit and boots to the beach isn't the usual attire.

Uncle Ryan found some neat things in the tide pool.

I claimed the oar that we found. I took it home with me. I have yet to decide what I will do with it, but I think it will be hanging on my wall soon.

I had Andrea pose with this bouy we found. We returned quite a few of them to the "lost bouy" pile at the end of the town dock... we put them there so the owners can find them. I don't know that they ever will, but it prevents the kids from trying to take them home.

Christmas Part 2

With eleven people packed into one house there was lots of time for hanging out with family.

Alexa was chatting with Aunt Andrea.

Uncle Ryan peeled his clementines in shapes that Annabel and alexa thought looked great as hats.

I even caught Chloe voluntarily reading to her sister.

Chloe spent a lot of time outside playing with Grammie Eva's goose and two ducks.

Chloe also created this amazing T-rex chasing an Archeopterix in the snow. 

After nightly games of Bannanagrams my kids became addicted to it.

Arizona Adventures Part 4

Finally we come to the Grand Canyon. Really this part of the vacation was much earlier, but I went about writing them up in no particular order. Uncle Ryan treated us to a train ride to the Grand Canyon. We caught the train in Williams, Arizona. If you drive straight to the Canyon from Williams it will take you about an hour... the train takes two. Which sounds kind of silly, but the train trip was half the fun. The kids had never been on a train before (they were very quick to tell me the the subway doesn't count) so they were really excited about it. The train company really plays everything up with an old west show and a very hokey train robbery on the way back.

Chloe poses with one of the actors and his horse. Alexa was too afraid to go meet him. Later Chloe offered this man a Cheeze It while he was "robbing" the train.

I found this sign funny. It was outside the station on the other side of the tracks.

Aunt Andrea would pose at the set. I was trying to get the kids to but no luck.

Alexa is wide eyed as the train starts off.

Chloe and Alexa at the Canyon. It was really windy!

Uncle Ryan amused the girls with a wrestling match while we waited for our table in the restruant for lunch.

Arizona Adventures

It has been a rather crazy couple of weeks. Last week the girls and I traveled to Arizona to visit my sister Andrea and her husband Ryan. We had a great time invading their house. It has taken me a while to catch up from the trip and have a chance to post the pictures. I will try to break it in to stages so you can see some of our adventures in no particular order.

One of our stops was to visit the Lava Tube near Flagstaff, Arizona. This is a tube of lava that formed from an erupting volcano something like 800,000 years ago. The tube extends about 3/4 of a mile. You need to bring flashlights as you are exploring a tunnel under ground. I wasn't too sure how this was going to go as Alexa was not sure she liked the idea of this adventure. We headed out though and Andrea and Ryan were able to gather headlamps for everyone.

Alexa looked great outfitted in her headlamp but took one look at the cave...

and decided this was not for her. Chloe made it down to just passed the mouth of the cave, but opted not to go either.

in the end Andrea and Ryan explored the cave and I stayed up top with the girls. They happily passed the time building fairy houses.

Alexa enjoyed climbing around on an old log,

and Chloe collected lava rocks.

It was warm and sunny and I think we were all just enjoying the woods.

Thanksgiving

OK, so I have been holding out on you a bit. I owe about a weeks worth of posts. Things have been rather busy around our little house. We had a lot of company over Thanksgiving which made for a really fun week. Along with the usual turkey and fixings, there were...

Cute, cuddly, little babies named Sam...

piano playing...

tiara adjustments and princess finery...

dance shows...

a lot of taira wearing factored into things...

butterfly sunglasses...

cute, cuddly dogs...

pathetic mooching dogs...

worn out squirrel chasing dogs...

and more cute, cuddly Sam moments.

We also learned a few things. We learned:

• three girls can all sleep in one bedroom and actually mostly sleep
• two little girls can share one bed and actually sleep, if they are properly worn out from a long day
• making a good case for downsizing the McMansions of this world five adults and four children can actually get along in a house just under 1,300 square feet with one bathroom. Although I wouldn't want to test that for too long.
• Grammie Eva will just keep on knitting things for ever if you keep feeding her and giving her access to new yarn. Her week's work: three hats, three pairs of mittens, and one pair of socks. The woman is a machine!
• snow pants are excellent protection for children going ice skating for the first time.
• a scant 1/8 inch of snow can send three children outside on a quest to build a snowman... not terribly successful, but it cleared them out of the house for a bit.
• Three little girls can take a shower at one time and think it is fun too
• four adults working together do not actually know a lot of the crossword puzzle answers

We really enjoyed having everyone. Alexa told me on Sunday, "I am really sad that everyone had to go home." We miss you and are so glad you came. Next time we will make sure to pack in Aunt Andrea and Uncle Ryan. I know they both look great in tiaras.