Arizona

After the Grand Canyon trip (post below) we finally settled into Arizona. We met up with my parents and my uncle David and Aunt Sandy for the last few days of our vacation. My uncle and aunt kept us very busy doing fun and exciting things.

My uncle is a pilot.........hence the name "Captain David" and he took the kids to see his jet. Bre was sick that morning but Trey was in his glory!! He loved it and it is literally all we hear about now days! My airplane this, my jet that....ahhh!! It's too much. Sandy, I now know what it must be like living with an airplane enthusiast.


This here is an in depth lesson on fueling up an airplane, how fast it can go and how many gallons of fuel the tanks can hold. No lie.........Trey was listening so intently and retold all the information to his 1st grade teacher and also his Music teacher.


David and Sandy took us to the Starr Pass for an overnight stay, some swimming and relaxing by the heated patio while viewing the desert sunset. Beautiful.

But there's no rest for the vacation savvy traveller. We headed out in the morning to the Shamrock Farm. My uncle flies for Shamrock so we went to their main "farming quarters"

Here we are with Roxy the Shamrock Cow!
And below is another faithful and supportive employee of the Shamrock family!

His photo made it to the Shamrock Hall of Fame and I'm sure the Shamrock family is so grateful for his professionalize portrait showcased in their milk parlor for all to see!

This somehow proves that all us Stoners are a little.......... off!


We took a tour of the farm in an open seated bus but unfortunately we came on the day that they has a huge dust storm. Our eyes were burning and gritty by the end of the tour but it was still tour worthy.

No Shamrock tour would be complete without Shamrock milk and a cone of Shamrock ice cream. If you're licking your lips just head out to Subway for some Shamrock milk they got it there!!

Grand Canyon

After our visit to California (3 posts of that below) we drove over to Arizona to spend time with family that live there and Arlan and I took a short anniversary trip. Since my parent were in AZ at the same time we were they watched the kids and we took off to the Grand Canyon.

We drove up to Williams, AZ and got a train that took us right up to the Rim of the Grand Canyon.

We spent the night at El Tovar hotel which is just feet from the rim and over 100 years old. It's one of the original Harvey Hotels and is beautifully kept with so much wonderful history in it. Our balcony looked right out over the rim and sunsets and rises were amazing.
It was such a relaxing trip. It was wintertime for the Grand Canyon so the tourists were very minimal and we just walked everywhere. Miles of Canyon pathways.

So many beautiful photo ops. Wish I was a seasoned photographer.

Me and my wonderful Husband of 10 years

Same Day

Thank goodness we had another activity planned this day. As you can tell from the post below the morning did not go well for Trey. To girlie of a morning for him. So we headed out to Griffith Park (right outside of LA) and visited a train park. His attitude perked up pretty quickly and bless Breanne's little heart, she never complained once about the activities we did that were more up Trey's alley. Such a trooper.


There were lots of trains to ride on.

And tracks to walk on

Vacation Part 2

The next day we drove up to LA. Arlan was not happy about this part of the trip because he does not think that driving a minivan into the heart of LA is "relaxing". But we left bright and early on Sunday morning and apparently the whole city of LA sleeps until around 11am so we hit NO traffic....NONE!!! Unbelievable huh????

The American Girl Museum was our first stop.

If you've never been to an American Girl store....it's amazing!! Huge!!! Pink!!

Breanne actually loved it (she's not much of a doll girl but this store totally intrigued her) Trey on the other hand was in his misery. He kept nagging Breanne to hurry up and pick an outfit and kept saying how rediculous the place was.

We ate lunch at the cafe and as you can see Bre is just smiling from ear to ear and happy to have a seat next to her doll and Trey.....well that's the look we got all day.

Vacation Part 1

Arlan and I and the kids took our first big vacation this last month. We decided to go to California for some fun and sun then hop on over to Arizona to visit family. It was a busy trip but oh so fun!!

First Stop: Legoland in Carlsbad, CA

This place was amazing. The whole park looked like it was made of legos. Trey was in heaven!

The kids went to "driving school" where they earned "drivers lisences"

Trey's course even had traffic lights and stop signs that they were expected to obey. Trey obeyed them all (except he did drive on the wrong side of the road most of the course)

At the end of the day Breanne was begging to climb the palm trees. Arlan and I literally spent about 30 minutes trying to talk her out of it because we knew she wouldn't make it to the top; and this activity cost "money"

We finally caved and wouldn't you know it.....she climbed straight to the top no hesitation whatsoever. Go figure!!! Sorry we didn't believe in you Breanne we'll never do that again!

Trey did it after Bre and he was much more comical about it but he too got to the top!!

And so ends our day at Legoland. On to bigger and better things!

It's Mario Time!!!

TREY TURNED 7!!! Can you believe it? Yeah, neither can I!
We talked him out of a train party again this year. (does that make me a bad mom? I'm just running out of ideas for train cakes. Truely I am) So, second best is......Super Mario Bros.
We had a lot of fun with games; a coin hunt, hot potato with a Mario Bros. bomb and mushroom lottery.

It was a great time!! Here's to another wonderful year filled with joy!!