Grand Canyon

Per the request of my dear niece Natasha, I am blogging about the Grand Canyon sooner rather than later. :)  Since Natasha has similar aged kids I would offer this advice: don't get your hopes up too high of your kids recognizing the grandeur before their eyes, and to eat at 'We Cook Pizza and Pasta' since it's the best pizza we've had since Craigos in Rexburg.

So while we were road tripping, we did something sort of crazy. We decided that we wanted to not only stop at the Grand Canyon on our way back to Colorado, but camp there too! We had never camped as a family, but always wanted to. So who better to help us than Amazon.com? We got all the gear we needed and got ready to camp!

Considering that we were camping near the Grand Canyon and visiting it, you would think it would all be one blog post, but they were truly separate events with how the kids acted. Camping? loved it. Hiking at the grand canyon? Hated it. So the camping post will be next :)

I'm not sure what it was, but the kiddos, and therefore the parents, did not have a good day at the Grand Canyon. One element was that Cade had decided in his mind that we were going to hike down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and camp down there. Never did we say such a thing, but if you know Cade, when things don't go as he has planned you're in for a rocky day. So we get there and see this A.MAZ.ING view and he is throwing a fit.

Alex is our homebody. He didn't want to walk. He didn't want to look at the views. He asked for food every 5 minutes and a drink every 2. He was just being super stubborn and difficult to work with. So Cade's unmet expectations plus Alex's stubborn homebodiness = frustrated parents desperately trying to get their kids to appreciate what was before them.

I know we haven't done a ton of hiking, but we certainly walked more than drove in Korea and this was a flat paved trail. No hills, nothing. 3 miles of sidewalk with amazing views and all they remember is the 'trail of time' where there were pennies in the ground. If you ask Cade about the Grand Canyon he'll tell you he loved seeing all the pennies. Great.

For those like Natasha who haven't been and are curious about going with kiddos  I'm sure you won't have the same experience as us. It's great that there are such easy trails that go along the rim. There is convenient parking and shuttles that take you everywhere else. We stayed in the BLUE area (of the south rim) and after about 3 hours we were done. Now what? We went into town and ate a second lunch since our bottomless pits ate our PB&J's at 10:00, and went to the IMAX of the grand canyon. I know, I know, the real thing is right there, but we weren't about to roast at our campsite for the next 8 hours.

The most interesting part of the whole adventure is not what happened that day, but what happened the next day as we were leaving the area. Since we get into National Parks for free as military, we decided to take
64 back through the park and exit out the east side. That little drive along the rim there had some great pullover spots and views, and also had a watchtower you could go to the top of and see even more. If we had known how awful our kids might have acted we would have just driven straight through the grand canyon with all those neat pullover spots and made our way to Mesa Verde or something else interesting to see on our way back. That's life, right?

So here's the pictures of our day at the canyon. We really wish we'd had our good camera with us, as these definitely don't do it justice. I know the kids will always remember that they've been to the Grand Canyon, and the sour memories don't seem to last for them. We will be able to remember the breathtaking views and just wish we'd had more time to be 'at one with nature'. I guess that's what the camping was for. :)

Squirrel!

These are pictures from the second day as we were driving out. I love the view of the colorado river here.

 And here's the cool watch tower I was telling you about.

Farewell Grand Canyon. I'll come back with my teenage sons when we can do some real hiking!

Arizona!

Sorry for the LOOONNG delay. In fact, I'm not sure why I'm up blogging right now, but when you're in the mood you have to, right?

In the previous blogs [like a TV synopsis], we had decided to road trip while we were homeless and had made it through Albuquerque and the Petrified forest. This means we were only a few hours from making it to Phoenix!

It was so awesome visiting with my sister and getting all the cousins together. It's the first time all 5 had been together, and ages since the older cousins had seen eachother. They had a blast playing together, but poor Emma needed a girl cousin to play with. Aunt Laura tried to give her some girl time :)   We played, crafted, shopped and just had a great visit. And I've found that most the times I'm visiting family I don't take many pictures. Valerie remembered to snap a few the day we left so that the grandparents had pictures of all their grandkids together.

Also in the Phoenix area is Dan's niece Natasha and her awesome family. They have two boys and they all played really well together. We hung out, went to a splash pad, the boys biked, and then we hiked up Hole in the Rock, or something like that. It was an easy hike and had a great view. Thankfully we remembered to have someone get a picture.

After about 4 days in Phoenix we made our way to Parker, AZ where Dan's sister Marsi lives. They have 3 girls, 2 of which are almost exact in age to our boys. She also recently had a baby and it was so great to see the newest addition to the McBride clan. No pictures were taken, but we had a great time with them. They live right by the Colorado River so we spent some time in the water and just hanging out.

When we chose our route through the southwest, we didn't realize we were going to be seeing all the families that had similar aged cousins for our kids. It was just awesome letting them all play and get to know each other. After being out of the country so long, we were loving the opportunity to see so much family. After all the visits we decided to take a few extra days on the route home and stop at the Grand Canyon. That interesting adventure will be blogged next, and who knows how long it will take me to get to it again!

Whoa!

I know I SHOULD be blogging about all the visits we did this summer but it's just been so crazy moving into this house. We've been in it for a week and a half now and every day is filled with box opening, organizing, installing, shopping, craigslist-ing, more organizing, installing and box opening! I've gone to bed exhausted every night.

BUT, I will say that living in our very first home is amazing. Every where we've lived as a family and married couple has been small, especially in Korea. We were just always on top of each other and every noise was heard. But, for example, yesterday when Cade got home from school he disappeared to the basement for a half an hour while Alex did something in his room while I accomplished something of my own. We had a snack and then returned to our separate activities. There is still fighting but it is not as much and not so in my face. This is going to be a great place for us, I can feel it.

Dan is finally inprocessing after 40 days of leave and reports to the band tomorrow for the real fun to begin. We have Colorado plates, Colorado licenses and a Colorado address. I think this is home :)

1st day of 1st grade!

I'm going to interrupt the blogging of our road trip to post pictures of Cade's first day of school! It's been a whirlwind of a summer, and it felt weird getting him ready in our hotel and driving him 25 minutes to school, but that will change soon!

I would normally have printed out a cute sign for him, but no printer required a little handy work on mom's part.
































And then I wrote the wrong date... I could've have sworn today was the 17th, but the iPhone never lies.

 

Good luck Cade!! I know it's going to be a great year :)

Petrified Forest

Once we had exhausted our days in hotels that the military would pay for we decided to take a road trip. I really didn't want to stay in an extended stay hotel for 3 weeks before closing on our house. After much debate we voted to head to Arizona. Day one of driving took us to Albuquerque, NM, where Dan's sister Kristina met us for the night. She took some more pictures so I'll have to get them from her. It was nice to get our kids together with her kids, even if it was for one night.
 

Day two of driving led us right by the Petrified Forest. Since it wasn't far off the highway and military gets into national parks for free, we took full advantage!

The forest wasn't anything I expected. I guess I had always pictured it to be big tall trees that had died away so you would be surrounded by dead trees. But instead it is chunks of tree that have gone through this crazy process that turns them into rock. It was crazy to look at!

It was amazing how tree-like they still looked, but felt as hard as rock.

This is Dan in front of the agate bridge, a natural formation that has had supports added to it. No one is allowed to go on the bridge.

Other than the petrified wood, there were lots of peculiar sites to see, like this area where the rocks where white, purple, blue, and red layered, and in teepee shapes.

Then there was an area you could hike to and see petroglyphs on the rocks!

And lastly a 'scenic outlook' with deep red canyons and beautiful views.

It was a fun stop, though I was a little anxious to make it the rest of the way to Phoenix.

Take me out to the ball game!

Before heading on our road trip, we made a stop in Denver to enjoy some time with Grandma Kathy and Uncle Kevin at a Rockies/Reds game. The weather was perfect for a fun night!

Say 'Rockies!'

 

Dan is of course a Reds fan, and the Rockies put up a good fight all the way to the last pitch, but the Reds came out on top.

What a fun night!

Fly me home

So, I have a LOT of posts to do because we've done and seen a lot of cool things over the past 3-4 weeks, but we'll see how much I can get done. On Monday we move into our house and we'll not only be without internet for a little bit, but we'll be unpacking and getting our house set up! So exciting!!

First post is dedicated to some travel pictures. You will see the main guest is our two iPads that have made this transition bearable. The boys can play for hours and that came in handy for long plane rides, long house hunting trips and long car rides!

Here's the boys on the plane from Seoul to San Francisco.

Cade is watching the Hulk movie.

Alex playing temple run, one of the boys' favorite games.

Dan likes taking self shots :)

I just love this picture of the boys sleeping. After a long flight and a long day at the San Francisco airport, we got bumped from our flight (grrrr) and they put us up in a hotel. It wasn't long before these boys were out!

Yoshi is all buckled up for the shuttle back to the airport!

And for a few pictures from our flight into Colorado. I was sitting somewhere else with Cade and didn't think to snap any pictures, but Dan got some cute ones of Alex.

After this traveling adventure we didn't realize how much more of an adventure we were in for before starting school and getting into our house!!