On Our Way

We made the trip to Arizona for Thanksgiving again this year. My whole family (minus my mom and Jake on their missions) decided to gather to celebrate not only the holiday, but my brother, Rib's, 40th birthday, too. It seems that most of our family vacations are to go see family, and we mostly just drive there and back without any detours or stops to add time (or money spent) to the journey. This time we decided to take the kids out of school for the whole week and make the trip more of an adventure. 

Rophone booked us a hotel in Henderson, NV (handily near the place we always stop to eat and buy snacks) so we could take our time and make the drive in two days, exploring and seeing things along the way. I think I was even more excited about this drive than the kids were! 

It was so nice taking our time getting out of the house the morning we left. Starting out the drive feeling pretty rested rather than kind of sleep deprived from having to get up so early made a real difference. It was a little cold and snowy that morning and I was actually kind of bummed to be leaving it behind for sun, but I think everyone else was pretty happy about it. 

After we stopped for lunch, we visited a little park I'd read about. It was so much fun for the kids to explore, and the red rocks were beautiful. Sadly though, like the reviews had mentioned, broken bottles littered the ground. In some places the ground glittered and shone because of how many little pieces of glass were mixed in with the dirt. Such a lack of respect. Anyway, it was still a ton of fun.

Bud, our rock climber and explorer, especially loved it.

There was a neat cave, and when we entered it I realized the lighting was perfect for photos. Edith's poses were cracking me up. I'll post just a couple, but I took probably 10 shots and she did a variation of her pose in each and every one. She's a crack up.

Hiking and exploring make me happy, so to be able to get out of the car for a bit to do it made me feel good. I think it made the kids feel good, too. Good thing Big isn't thinking about how high he is-- not a fan of heights, that kid.

I sure do love Rophone. I totally scored in the husband department.

This last picture from the park is probably my favorite. There was this hole in the cliff face, and I managed to convince both Pen and Edith to sit in it. I think I'll title it: "Big Kid and Little Kid in the Same Hole". Ha!

Every year when we pass by Las Vegas on the drive to Arizona, the kids ask if we can go to The Strip they can see in the distance. The answer is always, "One of these days…", so we decided this trip would be that day. That one day. We're only doing it once kids. :) So, after we checked into our hotel (super posh, and cheap on a Sunday night! I wish I would have taken a picture!) we headed to The Las Vegas Strip.

It was interesting to watch the kids faces as they absorbed all there was to see. I think that Pen and Bud could have gone on indefinitely, finding it an interesting study in human behavior, but the rest of us were ready to go after a few hours. The Bellagio fountains were definitely fun to see, but I think I pretty much decided that the rest of The Strip is one big migraine trigger. :)

After a night's rest (I'm not going to say a 'good night's rest' because I shared a bed with Edith and she's a bed hog), we got up and continued on our adventure. After a delicious breakfast we made the rather quick drive to our next stop: The Hoover Dam. We opted not to take the tour, and our visit was rather short-lived.

The minute scared-of-heights Big looked over the dam wall, he hit the ground and wouldn't move. Rophone admitted that his knees were shaking and he was tempted to do the same thing, but he managed to stay upright long enough for me to take a photo.

Well, that was fun! Guess it's time to go now…

I promised Bud we'd come back together another time without the scaredy cats. :) I did manage to snap a few other photos on our way to the wall and back out, though, luckily.

The top of the dam wall in macro:

The shadow of the stair railing looked really cool.

Now, on to Arizona! I'm so glad we made our drive a little more of an adventure. Definitely something we need to do more often. 

Oh, and I have to make a record of what was probably my most favorite part of the drive-- it was when we stopped for gas and I took Edith into the strongly scented bathroom. All of the stalls were full, and as we waited this conversation occurred:

Edith: "It smells good in here."

Me: "It does?" 

Edith: "Yeah. What is that I smell?"

Me: "I don't know. Smells like maybe it's some cleaner and maybe some of the soap people use to wash their hands."

Edith: "No, that's not what it is."

Me: "It isn't?"

Edith (with absolute certainty): "No. It smells like unicorn."

(snickers and laughter from the women occupying the stalls) 

Me: "It does?"

Edith: "Yeah. It definitely smells like unicorn."

Well, she would know. She's the expert. Ha!

A Little Post

This is just a quick little post covering what we did in the week before we headed to Arizona for Thanksgiving. The next few posts will be long, so prepare yourself! :)

We had promised the kids that we would take them to see 'How to Train Your Dragon 2' at the dollar theater, so we decided we'd better do it before it left the theater. It was Edith's first time going to a theater to see a movie, so I had to make sure to document it. The kids were super excited.

It was going great at first. But, I have to say, I don't know who it is that decides that a before-movie trailer "is appropriate for all audiences". Some of them were way intense and pretty violent, which kinda freaked Edith out. And then I didn't realize that the movie we were seeing was actually PG, or I wouldn't have taken Edith. Anyway, she and I ended up in the lobby about halfway in. I must admit I was pretty bummed to miss the movie because I was really enjoying it, but I'm also not too keen on scarring my children. So, the lobby it was. 

But then I went ahead and scarred Edith further anyway. I guess a dark photo booth when she was already frightened probably wasn't one of my brightest ideas, but I thought it might cheer her up! Yeah, I was wrong. Sorry, Edith, my bad.

A few days before we left to go to Arizona for Thanksgiving, I took Edith out for what I thought might be our last tricycle ride ever. She's getting too big for the trike, and the weather was really getting chilly. As usual, she had an absolute blast. I just can't get enough of watching her ride.

Edith is like me and can't stand to be cooped up inside all day, so I think our tricycle rides are rejuvenating for us both. I'm kind of sad to know that it's the end of an era, but I know she'll love a balance bike. I'll be sure to take photos of that, too, of course. Thanks for all of the rides, Edith!

Not Just Edith

I'm so excited! This post isn't only about Edith! Well, a lot of it is, but there are other kids in it, too. 

I adore how Edith is such a fashionista-- she loves to put together her own outfit creations. Before we put the Halloween costumes away, she managed to self-style an awesome two-skirt Batgirlwoman outfit. I think it looks awesome. 

Of course we went on another tricycle ride.

While Edith was riding, I tried out the macro setting on my phone camera app. The sidewalk looks so, so cool. The early evening sun created just the perfect lighting. 

I tried it out again to take this cool photo of Big's eye while we were waiting for Pen to come out of school. If only it weren't for that one, errant eyelash. I have such an OCD personality. Ha!

I can't wait to fiddle with the macro setting some more. 

Bud convinced me to walk the kids to the park one day last week. I'm glad he did, because now it's too cold to go. We had such a great time. Big and I even tossed the football back and forth a bit. We need to do that more because I really enjoy it.

I've been trying to remind the kids that they can do fun things together. Without me. I think they forget that sometimes, and I'm trying really hard to make sure they know that I am not the only source of their entertainment and happiness. They need to figure out how to create it for themselves. Anyway, Ginger decided to take my advice and she invited Bud and Edith to make cookies with her. They had a blast. It was so fun to watch and to not have to be involved (except in an advisory capacity).

Edith insisted we get out of the house early to go pick the kids up from school one afternoon, which left us with a bunch of time to kill while we waited. So, while Edith explored around in the car, I took some pictures. 

Out of all of the cute photos I took, I think this next one is actually my favorite. She stopped moving around the car for a minute and this happened:

Ha! Poor, tired zombie-child. I know just how you feel, Edith. The same thing happens to me when I sit for a few. She shook it off and got her second wind, though, posing for this just minutes later.

She's alive! Oh, how I love this girl. Both versions. :)

This week was Red Ribbon Week at the boys' school and Wednesday was crazy hair/mustache day. Bud decided that his everyday curls were crazy enough, but Big let me shave his hair into a horseshoe-head mullet. Rad. I should have buzzed the center shorter to really make it noticeable, but I knew Big wouldn't want his whole head of hair that short later. Anyway, it still looked awesome.

After the boys left for school, Edith told me she felt left out. Not too hard to remedy the situation. 

There was no way I was going to turn her down when Edith asked if she could take some selfies while I was doing dishes. 

So awesome. I figured we might as well make it a complete spa day with a mani pedi. A mani pedi and gettin' your mustache did = best spa day ever! Ha! Edith has really been practicing her wink.

Edith and I weren't sure what we could possibly do with our day yesterday to top our spa day, but then she had a grand idea-- tattoos! She was pretty bummed that I wasn't going to give her real tattoos, but she got over it when I told her I wasn't a very good artist. She was happy with the results, anyway.

While we were doing tattoos, the first snow of the season began to fall. Our little Elsa just had to run out to touch it. 

It's not like we don't get enough snow around here, but for some reason the first snow is exciting every time. When the boys got home they were eager to play in the snow and invited Edith to play, too. It cracked me up how long they stayed outside, playing joyfully in the one inch that had fallen. And the fact that all three were playing together nicely, reminding Edith how to make snow angels and snowballs was priceless. Something wonderful to see take place, and no fights to break up….it's a first-snow miracle. Totally worth the pile of soggy snow clothes. Maybe that's why the first snowfall is so exciting to me every year! 

 We've been having such a good time these past few months. Life really is good.