The Desert Museum

After many suggestions to check out this museum, it was on our hit list today.  Here are a few shots from the day;  First crazy stop was the mountain lion....i don't think we have EVER seen one so close!  It was cool to lean over and tell the boys "THAT is what often creeps around our property that we have to watch out for"

 Cheetah

 Armed with brushes and goggles, our little archeologists dig for bones.

 4 years old and so cute.

 AND smart!

 Taking a break.....

 Extinct black tailed gophers....the only ones recorded were here at the museum.

 We do alot of map reading on this trip....

 Watching a raptors flying demo

 Riding the wild boars

 Do people really DO this???

 I love Arizona.....the desert museum was very cool....Cristin, i purposly left out the pictures of all the snakes they had here...but whoa, i watched a diamond back rattlesnake crawl right up the wall of the cave it was in..i think it was trying to get to the top to get out, there was just a little chicken wire......and i was on the other side.....easily the most freaked out i got today.

But its beautiful here....little sad to leave tommorow.

A day on pause.....

Today was a 'pause' day as we waded through without Chris.  He slept for most of the day...joining the boys and I at the pool for a little while around noon, only to fall asleep on the lounger......

The boys and I had a nice day together....though strange because normally daddy is at work, or just gone...it was weird having him around, but asleep.  The boys would approach him carefully, sort of poke at him and ask if he was feeling better, and when he would say no, they would quietly step backwards away....like he was going to potentially projectile vomit all over them! 

So, as chris rested and recovered, here are a few snapshots of what we did today:

2 hours of pool time:

 Learning to eat with chopsticks:

 Learning to wear chopsticks....

We watched 'the last airbender' tonight and made rootbeer floats......{well, chris watched us have the floats...}, but it overall was a nice day on pause.  It unfortunatly takes chris being sick for us to be able to stay still for awhile.  But the good news is that he is feeling better.....

A shadow fell on our holiday last night....

Remember how we went to Subway for supper last night after jazzercise?  Figuring it was a healthy option......chris went to bed feeling a little 'funny' only to wake up starting at 1:38 violently ill.  That poor guy....and when he is sick, he hates being asks questions....but you know, its hard to help someone when you really aren't sure what they need!  So, we were up for most of the night.....now he is sleeping and the kids and i have been just puttering around.

I think i will get our suits on soon and head to the pool while Chris keeps sleeping.

We sure take our health for granted.....I am glad we called in last night to sign on to stay here for another few days to give him time to rest and get better.

Tucson...yup, still here!

We signed on for another few days here to take us over the weekend....i love it here!  It's warm, low key, beautiful......here are a few of the highlights and pictures of the day:

We took a walk this afternoon since the resort has some pretty sweet trails just out our back door.  The boys were pretty big on finding 'treasure' for their containers, so we all ventured out together.  Its been sweet having no itinerary......i did have a jazzercise class at 5:45 that i wanted to check out, but we had an hour to kill before that, so here are some cactus shots that chris took along our walk.

Everywhere you turn: cactus plants......good night dad...you can go to bed now!

Tucson, AZ

This morning we slept in a little, had breakfast and headed out to get the boys haircuts.....after haircuts we went out for lunch: the boys found a pizza place similar to a low-grade chucky cheese and i was able to take in my own lunch at an awesome indian restaurant buffet!  One of the best parts of my day was skyping with my mom over lunch!!  It was so funny to sit there alone across from my laptop, eating my naan bread, chatting with my mom across the table!!  Definate highlight!

After lunch, it was off to Sanbino Canyon where a tram takes you 5 miles up and through the canyon and you can get off at any stop. 

Our family got off at stop 8, second from the top to take in the hike down to a shallow pool with a waterfall.

 Feeling like the only people in the world.....

Brave soul...he is the only one in this family who is crazy enough to go in the glacier water!....

My Handsome man....

Tonight after playing at the canyon, we came back here for dinner and then headed out to the theatre to watch "Tangled"...such a cute show, Cristin, your girls will love it...Elliot, on the other hand, with all the girlie songs and hair every where...he was like a robot "i hate this show, i hate this show'...but i think he loved it....the horse; Maximus, was the highlight.

We are all exhausted after a super nice day.....

Childrens Museum, Phoenix, AZ

Still on the road heading to Tucson {yes chris, i realize i totally left out our stop in Wickenburg, the old ghost mining town, but was there really much to say about that other than it was my birthday?}  So we are going to continue the story from Phoenix onward: we stopped for coffee at Starbucks (thank YOU Carrie!!) {Chris had his first Starbucks frap, and was so not impressed, he still pines for Timmie's} and we hunted out the childrens museum for a place to let the boys run for awhile....we can all only take so much of riding in the car!

 We learned about Liquid Nitrogen....very cool.

 Isaac on a bed of nails, i was able to get Elliot on afterwards, but i guess i didn't give him the full explanation of what was going to happen, cause the minute the nails started to come up {you aren't supposed to move, cause THEN it hurts....}, his eyes got real big and he freaked out-i had to lift him off.....sheesh.

It was a fun afternoon at the museum...we did all4 floors and learned about pully systems, nitrogen, electric conduits, computers, our bodies, the boys favorite was a stomach exhibit where you run into the room which is the stomach {you are the food}, you get digested, and then you sit on the top of the slide{which i guess was the colon and the whole thing farts real loud and poops you out....they thought it was hilarious.

Got to the Tucson Worldmark last night and went for the swim after supper......

Las Vegas, Nevada

Flew into vegas to arrive around dinner...it was chilly.  First thing we did was pick up our rental car - which was sort of awesome, here is why: we went with an SUV from Alamo.  We were able to sign in via machine, then  walk out to this huge parking lot to a long line of SUV's with keys in all of them and told to choose which ever one we wished to have for the 3 weeks!  Tons of options but we went with a silver Kia Sedonna, it had 3rd row seating, i figure to haul our cousins around in when we get to LA.

Got to our hotel, no problem.....decided to walk the strip for dinner....ended up at the MGM at the rainforest Cafe....lovely environment....the boys loved the huge fish tanks, fake elephants, monkeys, cougars, thunderstorms.....

After a good sleep though, it was still chilly....bottom line: lets get to heat!!  Went to check out, turned out the hotel really tried to screw us with a crazy upcharge to a 2 bedroom the night before.  Lines got crossed and i understood an extra $11 for the 2nd room, they understood that they told me the 2nd room would be $70!  {WHO in their right mind, would upgrade for one night an extra $70 for their kids to sleep in??} If we had stayed for that 2nd night {we were checking out early to get to heat}, i would have had a fight on my hands to get back $140, and not just $70!!  When i saw the bill, i freaked out....in my mind, i am thinking 'I could have stayed at the Bellagio for my birthday enstead of being practical and staying here!!'.  Bottom line, I told them, was that if they made me pay that additional $70, they would get a scathing review on trip advisor from me.  So, i finally walked away having it lowered to $20, which i could live with...but i was still ticked.

Hooever Dam has a new bridge to bypass the actually dam.  Funny; they give you the option to take 'hoover dam, or bridge'..we figured, lets drive over the dam....they actually didn't show any further signs until you got all the way around and they closed the road saying we have to use the bridge!! wha??  So, we turned around, laughing at everyone else who was coming the direction we just came...and decided to walk over the huge bridge before we drove over it:

 Isaac and I raced down....he's actually quite fast...i wonder if i could ever get him to train with me?

Starting Out....

Starting out really wasn't too interesting.  Lots of things to wrap up at home, quite bit of stress attached to some chalet issues i was having with some of my chalet owners, i wasn't sure if it would resolve itself before we left....it did (to a point), but there is a little to still work out when i get home.  And a few minutes before we needed to be on the road...a water pipe broke at the camp!  Seriously??  But chris is amazing and fixed it, and we weren't too much later getting going.....

But whatever was happening, time was coming for us!!  Things needed to get wrapped up (literally and physcially!)--we have presents wrapped, a perfect location for our christmas tree when we get back, everything always seems to come together.

They were a little excited to get going: Backpacks and suitcases were packed...cutsy matchy matchy outsfits were laid out {i mean, they will only let me do this for so long, right?}

And....we were off.

Staff Christmas Party

Elliot got a tummy ache about an hour before we were to leave for the staff christmas party!  So after they all went ahead and inhaled yummy buffet food from the chemainus theatre...i skyped in with them for the gift exchange at Jinny's.....here i am hanging with Mel with Chris looking on.

 It was quite the ultimate, and i may opt for it again...cozy on the couch, no pressure, no dressing up...it was quite great.

 Chris, always the party boy, at one point won the Disco Ball earrings.....

Mel....also the fun party girl!!

Saturday......12 hours prior to departure

...well, departing our house, that is.

Chris and i are currently watching a show called 'Best. Trip. Ever'  Its an awesome show about 4 olympic atheletes who have 6 days off and are doing crazy things in BC.  So far they have done the Grouse Grind (i TOTALLY am in!!  Next time on the way to k-town, we are pulling over to do it!!)....mountain biking, kite surfing, tree climbing......it does look like a great trip.

And to think, we have 21 days to fulfill the hopes for OUR Best. Trip. Ever.

Early Birthday

If you have known me for any length of time, you would know that i like to stretch out my birthday for as long as possible! Elizabeth helped me get a head start this morning - we headed to the spa up in Courtney at the KingFisher for lunch and the Hydropath.

There were waterfalls, mineral pools, a glacier waterfall (not a huge fan)....cold glasses of water at each station...at one of the stations, i prefered to throw it at Elizabeth....(she wasn't a huge fan-haha)

But we had an amazing lunch before the hydropath that was included in the package and sat by the fire....man, she makes me laugh.  The above picture is where we were able to finish off the afternoon...i think we both almost fell asleep over looking the ocean, wrapped up with a cup of tea in our hands....it was wonderful.

Before our arrival, i was presented with the following birthday gifts: A new hat to wear for our next Times Colonist 10K, i wore a yellow hat last time so she could find me easily in the crowds...turns out, everyone else had the same idea, so she me made me my own hat:

Gift #2 was a 'gift for the trip' according to her....it was a new 'dyed-by-elizabeth' original tee, white, now blue!!  It was very pretty, i held it up and said thank you....however, i turned it over and read the back and looked over at Elizabeth and asked "Did you think I wasn't going to turn this over?"  

The back read "I miss Elizabeth" 

.....and i will.

wednesday

i am off to bed

sledded with boys down the bmx track tonight

had coffee with a good friend morning

talked with my whole familiy at some point today...

sometimes more than once

put 50 pictures in frames today...

i have beautiful children whom i love to photograph...

must close my eyes.....

goodnight.

5 more sleeps

Til holidays

Til chris doesn't have to leave

Til i get to hunt for deals for our next night,

where ever that may be!

Til my boys get to swim every day if they want,

without having to pay double because we live in the wrong part of town!

Til In N Out Burger!!

Til Red Lobster!

Til fun cousins in LA

Til Disney land!

Til Lego Land!

Til sleeping in.....til having no itinerary

Til we move hard-core into making more memories as a family.

Think i am excited?