Arizona 2019 Edition (The Grand Canyon)

As I mentioned last week, I intend to do seperate posts from our time in Arizona about our trip to the Grand Canyon, Emily's Wedding, and Family pictures.  If I was going chronologically, the Grand Canyon would be last but for practical reason I have decided to blog about it first.  Also, given that I need to get caught up before Christmas, you can look for a bonus mid-week blog post sometime this week with all our family pictures we had taken during the trip.

In a word, the Grand Canyon was magical.  I haven't been since I was a teenager and I am not sure I have ever really experienced it the way we did this time.  From my child/teenage hood, I remember stopping at lookout and I remember hiking Havasupai, but that was the extent of it.  We had a lot of different experiences this time.  First of all, I don't think I have ever visited with snow on the ground.  Now, I may have when I was too young to remember, but this is that first time that I can recall.  This was a bit of a double edged sword.  It was breathtakingly beautiful, but also made it a bit more challenging to navigate.  I think I was the only one who didn't slip and both Merrick and Carrigan fell twice.

Overall, this trip to the canyon was much more interactive.  After our first few lookouts, we hopped on the canyon bus.  We took a ride to the Yavapai Geological Museum where we learned a lot more about the rocks and how the canyon was formed.  We then took the bus to the visitor's center where we went to a critter talk and learned more about long-horned sheep and we watched a video all about the canyon.  Did you know that the canyon is 10 miles across from rim to rim and almost 300 miles long?  Or that this first explorers to find the canyon said it was a wasteland and that no one would ever be interested or would ever want to spend any time there?

After the visitors center, we drove to another lookout and then Merrick, Jeremy, Elsie, and I went on this geological timeline walk.  The fascinating thing to me wasn't actually the geology, it was the almost 1 mile walk that went right along the edge of the canyon with spectacular views the entire time.

Like I said, it was a magical day.  As we pulled away from the park the kids were all asking when we could go back.  I hope the answer is soon. 

Arizona 2019 Edition (Part 1)

AHHHH! I am looking over my pictures of the last two weeks and I really don't know where to begin.  We spent two weeks in Arizona and packed SO much into everyday, not to mention a major holiday, a wedding, family pictures, and seeing one of the natural wonders of the world.  I think I will have to do individual posts about the wedding, the family pictures, and the Grand Canyon.  It is just too much.  I guess today I will just focus on the smaller events, which were plentiful and still pretty amazing.

While in Arizona we helped Grammy move.  She now lives directly across the street from Jeff and Carolyn and what a blessing that will be for all of them.  They will have her close to help her when she needs it and she will be able to just walk across the street to sleep at their house at nights rather than driving all the way across town.  We spent a fair bit of time loading, unloading, unpacking, cleaning, and organizing.  I didn't take many pictures of the process but one day Grammy and I were out exploring her backyard and were looking at a "lemon" tree.  I came across this monstrosity tucked inside.  It doesn't look like any lemon I have ever seen.  I told her she has to send me a picture when she cuts it open.

Now onto the fun, we went to so many parks over our time in Arizona.  Since we moved away eight years ago they have really done some amazing updates and upgrades on many of the local parks.  Since the weather was so great we tried to visit as many as possible.  It killed Carolyn though that my kids were always in their "summer clothes" since to them it was not cold.

Another really cool thing we did was take a tour of Chase Field (where the Diamondbacks play).  It was so cool to see behind the scenes.  We got to go in the visitor's clubhouse and in the Diamondbacks dugout.  We went onto the edge of the the field, up to the upper decks, and into a private suite.  It was so interesting to experience the park from so many different perspectives.  One day I am going to rent the pool and experience a game from there...

One of the other major events of the trip was getting to meet our sweet new niece/cousin, Betty.  We all took turns snuggling her.  Elsie was even willing to share her mama a bit and let me hold her, which was a big deal, but sometime she insisted that I hold them both at the same time.  She loves her new cousin, let's be honest, we all do.

All that and I still haven't touched on all the shopping, eating, visiting family, paintball shooting, go-cart racing, or even Thanksgiving.  No wonder we have been so tired since we got home...