Arizona Vacation 2009...

Last week we took a family vacation to Arizona to visit some family. My sister Kim and her family just moved to Tucson this Summer so we were excited to see their new place and let the kids play. We decided to drive since it was only 12-13 hrs each way. We left early Friday afternoon so the kids would sleep about half the way. We knew it wasn't going to be good when about 45 minutes into the drive Peyton said "my bum hurts, are we almost there?" Anyway, the drive there was pretty rough on the kids, even after they fell asleep they both kept waking up crying. With about 1 1/2 hrs to go we stopped for a bathroom break and Peyton started crying and saying "I just want to go home!" He was sure glad we didn't when he got to spend 4 days playing with Hannah and Penelope. Of the 8 days in Arizona we swam 7 of them!! It was toasty hot so we really had to in order to stay cool. We had a great time with Kim and Nate, we swam every day, did a little shopping, cooked some yummy meals, played some cards and hung out a lot. It was nice to just catch up and visit and of course the kids really enjoyed playing with their cousins!
It was that funny when we left Kim's and Peyton didn't really say anything until we had been on the road for about 20 minutes then he asked "so, we're going to visit aunt Kathy then going back to Hannah and Penny's?" after we told him that we were going to visit Kathy then going home he broke down, he was sobbing and sobbing for almost 10 minutes. All we could say was "we know son, it's sad". Poor guy!

After spending 4 days with Kim's family we headed over to Yuma, AZ to spend some time with Dan's sister Kathy.

(I just have to mention this) On the way to Yuma we stopped at a McDonald's for lunch, We ordered the chicken club. Before eating it we noticed there was quite a bit of mayo coming out the sides so Dan took the top bun off that this is what we found...

YUCK!! Someone probably thought they were doing us a tasty favor! Yet another reason why I don't like McDonald's!! Next time we'll have to say NO MAYO!

We had a lot of fun with Kathy and her friends in Yuma. We spent some time at the school she teaches at working out in the gym which was nice. The kids helped her get water for the football team since they are doing 2 a day football practice and she is the athletic trainer so she had to be there in case of any injuries. They really enjoyed spending time with her and Peyton commented that he was sad that we couldn't "hang out" with her more. It was not the best time of the year for her for us to visit since school was starting the next week. She made a lot of time for us and we felt bad that she had so much on her plate. She has some great friends there in Yuma that are like family to her. The Mark and Trish and their girls were very generous and fun to be around. Peyton and Bailey loved playing with their 2 adorable daughters (I wont post their names for their privacy). We all had a great time hanging out and eating at some of the local restaurants. One of our favorites was Ron's Taco's (not sure what the real name is, that's just what they call it) it's a little taco stand outside a bar called Ron's Place hence the name Ron's. They also took us boating on the river 2 of the days we were there. We all LOVED riding the tube, especially the kids. Riding the tube is one of my most favorite things to do, unfortunately I'm not as young as I once was and I can't withstand some of the rough crashes like I used too. On the first day I took a pretty bad beating while riding with the Ellsworth's 10yr old daughter. We came flying out of a huge swell and I really hurt my shoulder, bad enough that I was done for the trip (I'm still recovering!). Those riding the boat said we were about 8ft in the air! Of course their daughter was fine!! Little stinker!

Mark and Trish

The river was beautiful. They took us to a spot that had some cliffs, of course Peyton wanted to jump off them so Dan helped him climb up the small one. I would guess that it was about 15 feet tall. Peyton loved jumping off it so much that he wanted to do the bigger one after Dan did it. We had to get Kathy back to practice so we talked him into waiting until the next day to do it (all the while I am freaking out that he just might do it!). I think that cliff was maybe 40 feet tall. The taller one was scary because you kind of had to run and jump out because it sloped down on the top so you couldn't stand right on the edge. Dan said he hit the water flat footed and bruised the bottom of his foot. The next day went by and P didn't say anything about it until we said it was time to go and he started crying saying "but I didn't get to jump off that cliff" luckily we talked him into waiting until next visit.

Since the ride there was so hard on the kids we decided to leave late Saturday night after spending the day boating and stay in Vegas to split up the trip a little. We left Yuma around 10:45pm and got to Vegas around 3ish.

The next morning we planned to visit the Hoover Dam. We drove over the dam on our way to Kim's but it was night and we wanted to visit during the day so we could see it. We were all really excited to see the dam since we are big fans of Transformers. It was a very hot day but the Dam was awesome! I would have loved to stay there longer but we were roasting and anxious to get on the road since Dan had to work Monday morning.

The drive home was 100 times better. Bailey slept almost 5 hours of the drive and Peyton didn't complain once. We got home around 9:30pm just in time to sit for a minute and head to bed. We had an awesome trip, thank you to everyone who made it fun, let us stay with them and provided entertainment. We hope to come visit again soon.

Random pictures from the drive.