The Grand Canyon

 The Grand Canyon crew- me, my parents, and my two oldest.  Anderson was at the hotel with a sitter and Tyson was hard at work.

 

  We hadn't been in the plane for 10 minutes and Walker was fast asleep.

 This picture is hilarious- looking at my dad holding out his hand asking Jake for some Oreos.  Hahaha!  Busted!

 Sedona's Red Rocks.  My camera didn't do the red justice.  It was beautiful.

 I couldn't figure out what the narrator was talking about, but there was a volcano around this area at one point.  Jake heard the word "volcano" and thought this was the coolest part of the trip.

 The Painted Desert

 The Grand Canyon

 The Colorado River

 

On the way back, we got to see the sunset behind these beautiful mountains.

 

 And a random shot of Anderson, who was glad we made it back safely from the Grand Canyon.

 

 

When I found out that we were going to the Fiesta Bowl in Arizona, the first thing I said was "we're going to the Grand Canyon no matter what!"  My mom, my grandparents, my cousin, my sister, and I drove out to the Grand Canyon when I was about Jake's age, and I wanted my boys to have the same experience I did.  (Although, the Grand Canyon was very anti-climatic for 6 year old Beth...I told my Granddaddy "you mean we drove all this way to see a big hole in the ground?"  He'll never let me live that one down!  Ha!)  Anyways, little did I know at the time that the Grand Canyon was at least 4 hours away from our hotel.  4 hours is not do-able with a 5 and 3 year old, 3 month old, and an very arthritic 71 year old...our only option was a plane ride.

 

We literally threw this trip together on our next to last day before the game.  I called the travel company on December 31st at 10 am and by 2:30 pm, we were on a plane to the Grand Canyon.  We had tried to prepare the boys for what they were about to see, but Walker (who had been asleep for most of the plane ride) responded to my constant nagging to look out the window at the Grand Canyon with "I know...I know" like he'd seen it a hundred times.  Hahaha!  Jake was mesmerized, or at least it seemed...he might have been faking his excitement just to shut me up.  Hahaha!  Oh well, mom, dad, and I thoroughly enjoyed our trip to the Grand Canyon.

 

Here are some more funnies from the trip: there was no bathroom on the plane, so I wouldn't let the boys drink anything for a few hours before and certainly not on the plane.  When we landed and there was a dead silence, Walker very loudly said "I think I just tee tee'd in my pants!"  I was mortified.  Luckily, he was just very sweaty in the crotch area.  And I posted this one of facebook- as we got back to the airport, Walker asked me why we had just taken a plane.  I told him we took the plane to see the Grand Canyon, and he asked "Where was it?"  Hahaha.  And lastly, when we got back to the hotel, Tyson asked the boys about their day...Jake said, "it was great...we went to Target!"  I couldn't believe it...we had just forked out all of this money and Jake's highlight was going to Target!  Walker responded with "Daddy!  I saw McDonalds from the airplane!"  Geez Louise.  Maybe they'll look at these pictures one day and think it's pretty cool.