CA Vacation - The Grand Canyon & Utah

After getting in the car and starting our drive, everyone immediately settled in. Lauren, Matthew and Michael read; Sage slept; and Collin played a game on his phone.

I gave in to Collin's wishes and drove an extra couple of hours so that we could stop at the Grand Canyon. When we arrived there I wished we hadn't gone. It was so scary! There were no guard rails or anything. Collin saw this scary outcropping and wanted to go out on it. There was a trail down there, so he took off. I kept telling him not to do it, but he wouldn't listen to me. All these people were walking by saying, "Oh my gosh! Do you see that guy out there? What's he doing out there?!" I was terrified. I kept yelling for Collin to come back and he wouldn't come.

And then he walked out further! I think he was amused by it all.

These are a couple of the pictures he took while in danger:

Collin finally did come back. I was hoping to take a few more group shots and then go.

Collin took off walking further, much to my dismay. He found this spot that was even scarier than the first spot. People were in line, taking turns walking out on this ledge. I said, "No way. You are NOT going out there. I will seriously have a heart attack. You know, if you fall there is no one there to catch you!" A foreign family was sitting there listening to me and the little boy said, "I will catch him!" So cute.

Collin was insistent, so I went over to a spot where I could see him. Matthew also went down so that he could take a picture of Collin. My heart was pounding SO hard, I really thought I was going to have a panic attack. Collin went out, Matthew took the picture, and I said "GOOD. Now let's go." But then MATTHEW started heading out there! I said, "No, Matthew don't do it!" I wasn't yelling or anything, but they said they could hear me and they thought it was really funny. I couldn't believe Matthew stood out there for a picture.

At least we got this one nice picture of all of us!

As we were driving out of the Grand Canyon, a rock flew up and hit the windshield. Nice. That went perfectly with the crack that had already started in Arizona. Lovely.

Talking about lovely, the drive was so scenic. I loved all of the colors and the mountains.

We stopped so Collin could check out this place.
I love that the sign says to control your children.

The rest of the drive was so awesome.

Utah!!!

Oh, how I wish I knew now what I didn't know then. We originally were not even planning on going to Arizona. That part was added in at the last minute after I had already bought Matthew's flight home for scout camp. His flight was on Saturday. The only way to add in AZ was to go before Saturday. We would get to UT, send off Matthew Saturday morning, spend Saturday with Dave and his kids, spend Sunday with Ben & Marianne and their kids, and then go back to CA on Monday. Didn't really work out that way . . .

I only emailed Dave about getting together on Saturday, and never heard back from him. I figured they HAD to be in town since school would be starting, so I wasn't really worried about it. Well, they WEREN'T in town. Dave texted me when we were halfway to Utah. Great. He said we could have dinner with them Sunday night. AND Matthew ended up not going to scout camp. We could have gone to Utah first, brought Sage home, spent time with everyone, and then visited Arizona on the weekend when no one was in school. Ugh. I was so frustrated with myself.


As it was, we arrived at Marianne's house very late Friday night. I went in with Sage for a quick hello, and then we headed over to the hotel. We went back on Saturday and spent some time with Marianne's family. Sorry, no pictures. :(


There was a huge Cabela's by our hotel, so we went in to check it out. Lauren's fish impression was pretty good!

We drove around BYU on Sunday, and I showed the kids where we lived when
Collin was the born. Since we lived in the basement, we entered through the back door.

I couldn't get a good picture of the front because the people who lived there were
out on the porch, so I just got this shot of the side. At any rate, it was fun to see.

We had some extra time before dinner at Dave's house, so we drove through Salt Lake City.
No one wanted to stop at Temple Square, so we just drove by. I was disappointed.

We STILL had extra time, so we picked up some ice cream and sat at the park to eat it.



A nice couple feeding the ducks gave the kids some bread.

Are you wondering who Dave is?? I'm sure I've mentioned him before, but maybe you forgot. He is April's husband. April is my bestest forever friend who passed away unexpectedly in 2004. We always wanted to raise our kids together, and she passed away when it was the perfect time to start getting together. So, Dave and I decided we should go ahead. Dave and April have two kids: Abbi, age 13; and Griffin, age 9. Our family met their family in Yellowstone (along with Abbi's grandparents Stan and Pat) the summer of 2005. We have tried to see them at least once a year since then. It was funny this time because Michael said "Why don't we call Dave 'Uncle Dave'?" I said "Because he isn't your uncle!" And I had to remind him what the connection is. They really are like family though. I wish we could get together more often.

So, once again, no pictures. :( We had a nice dinner and a nice visit. The kids connected right away even though it had been three years this time since they had seen each other. Pat and Stan were also there which was really nice. No one wanted to leave, but we had too.

On to Death Valley . . .

CA Vacation - Arizona

Will this vacation ever end?? It seems to go on and on and on! It was most definitely a long trip, but I have managed to drag it out even longer by not doing these posts right away. I was away for three weeks, and have been home for an additional 4 1/2 weeks. Enough already! I really need to wrap this up. So, let's recap: Aug. 1-4 Mineral King, Aug. 5-8 Trip down the coast, Aug. 9 Disneyland. And here we are! See? Only 10 days in. I have this post and maybe 4 more. Let's do it!

OK, so we got back to the hotel after our awesome day at Disneyland very very late. It was around 1am. I had originally thought everyone would want to leave after dinner! Yep, it was a good day. Now, unfortunately, I had to wake up at 4am the next morning to take Mike to the airport. And then I had planned to get back around 6am, wake up all the kids and hop in the car to drive to Arizona. The Arizona kids were starting school the next day, so we wanted to get there as early as possible. That plan wasn't sounding so great on three hours of sleep! Mike quickly helped me decide what to do when we woke up that morning and he announced that he left his credit card at the restaurant. That obnoxious waiter didn't give it back to him! Why didn't I punch him when I got the chance?? I couldn't talk to anyone until 8:30am, so I just went back to sleep. Win win! (not really win win, but i just saw letters to juliet again and it's really funny when the stupid fiance says that all the time)

Once we all finally got up and had breakfast and went over to get the credit card and took our time looking around at some stores, it was late morning. So much for getting to Arizona around noon.

I did get some extra sleep, but it only added up to about 5 hours. That drive to Arizona was sooooooo booooooorrrrriiiinnnnggggg. I had to stop every hour and get out because I was seriously falling asleep. And it was hot! We stopped at this one disgusting rest stop in the middle of no where, and it felt like an oven outside. 112 degrees was quite a drastic change from the 50's along the coast.

We arrived at Darren & Carries' house just in time for dinner, so we all went out.
Crazy thing to do the night before the first day of school, right?


**pictures borrowed from strawberryland**

All of the big kids (including Kylie!) went to school the next morning. I enjoyed just relaxing after all of the busy days of our vacation.

The boys went out in the back yard to take a ride with Walter in his jeep. What a crackup. I had to go out to see what they were doing because it sounded like they were on a roller coaster. Walter was driving Matthew and Michael around, even up the slide! I wish I got a picture of that, but this one will have to do.

Once everyone came home from school, we went over to Amazing Jake's for some indoor fun.

The kids had a great time running around together doing laser tag, bumper cars, the Frog Hopper, video games, mini golf and more. It was such a good deal. One rate to do everything, and it included an all-you-can-eat buffet. Win win! (ha ha ha ha ha)

The go karts were insanely slow, boring and ridiculous. It looked like Carrie was going to fall asleep. The rest of us waited in line for our turn. Why?? It was totally lame.

Kylie talked me into going on this thing that spins around and around.
Once again - Why?? It was like a walk in the park for Kylie though.

One the second day we went to the beach pool after school.
Beautiful! But it was really hot and the water was too warm.

We made the kids enjoy themselves though because Cheryl came over to visit! I hadn't see Cheryl since 2004. Six years ago?? That's WAY too long. It's was SO nice to see her and catch up. I'm sad that we didn't think to take a picture, and I'm sad that we didn't have more time. But at least we did see each other!

Jack certainly grew A LOT since Lauren and I
saw him just after he was born. What a cutie!

Jennifer and her kids were still staying with Darren & Carrie, so we were able to see them the whole time too. What a bonus! I had hoped to see Mike & Amanda and their kids while were there. Not really sure what happened there. I guess we'll have to try again for next time.

We had dinner at Baja Fresh on our last night. Yum!
And Collin got this awesome shot of the moon.

I'm afraid we wore Carrie out! Or it was the trauma of Darren's birthday helicopter (from david) trying to take her out. She actually had to swat it away with her iPad! He said he wasn't trying to hit her with it, but we all know it takes some concentrated effort to launch a missile "accidentally" aimed directly at her.

SO SAD. Time to go. I tried to get the kids up to take
pictures before Thomas and Ashlyn went to school.


Matthew & Michael wouldn't budge!


Goodbye, Walter!