Spring Break....Day 4

The Grand Canyon...one of the seven natural wonders of the world. The weather was gorgeous, a perfect day for a hike. We got to the canyon around 10 am. It was packed! After finding a parking spot, we got ready to go. Ashley volunteered to carry Abbie in the carrier. Abbie was fascinated with it for a minute or two. Then she started screaming and throwing her body around, trying to get free.

It was almost half a mile from the parking spot to the rim of the canyon. The boys busied themselves playing with what they called acorns (and everyone else calls pine cones). Andrew thought he'd give a tree a hug after he saw his brother hugging a tree for fun.

Our first view of the Grand Canyon.

Photo op - Abbie was more interested in eating rocks than sitting on a rock.

Pretty much every time Abbie got put down, she tried picking up rocks and eating them. The path is paved, so she could see the rocks, but not pick them up...until she found them alongside the path.

Austin kept climbing trees.

These signs were all over the place...guess it's for the people with no common sense or really accident prone!



The only way I would go near the edge was if it had a fence like this. Of course, that didn't stop Austin from tripping over a rock and falling into it. That scared me pretty good.

Of course, I'd freak out a little if any of the kids got too close to the edge...kinda like this.


This is Andrew pouting because he wanted to go back to the hotel and go swimming.

Abbie grabbing the camera as I'm trying to take a picture.

Good thing I brought Aaron along to do the heavy lifting.

Oh, look. A picture of me. How exciting.

It took us about 4 hours to walk almost 4 miles. ALL the kids were whining and complaining by the end. Andrew rode on my shoulders for quite a while at the end because his "feet were tired." Aaron and I were both kinda grouchy by the time we got back to the car. The sunburn didn't help my mood either. I remembered to put it on the kids, but it didn't even occur to me to put in on myself. Why is that?

Once we made it back to the hotel in Flagstaff, we had laundry to do. I can't even remember the last time I went to a laundromat. We had dinner while the clothes washed, but then hung around waiting for them to dry. We finally had the kids watch a movie in the car while the clothes dried. Then it was back to the hotel. Aaron took the kids swimming while I put Abbie to bed and put all the clothes away. How fun.