My brother's wedding

The girls had a fun day out at the salon where grandma treated us all to manicures and pedicures for the wedding. Aubrie is looking pretty seriously spoiled.My brother Kc and his bride Shayla were the reason for coming on this vacation. I was happy to get to see them married, Shayla is awesome and they get along so well.

Kc and his boys, Kaiden and Morgan waiting for the bride along with Shayla's brother.

The boys hanging out waiting for the show to get on the road.





The wedding party.

White Mtn. Lake, Arizona

The final leg of our journey was arriving at my parents house in White Mountain Lake, for those who do not know where in the world this is, it is near the town Snowflake and Showlow. They live "out in the boonies" on 2 acres of desert land and cedar trees right next to my grandmother who owns 8 acres right next door. This is a picture of my parents house or 5th wheel trailer. They have made it very comfortable after installing this huge roof to take the heat directly off of the trailer. They also have solar panels installed for their only source of electricity, a well with water and a septic tank for sewer. The love living here and the grand kids love to visit.The kids like to ride the four wheelers and there is plenty of space for them to do so.Another favorite activity is hunting rabbits and finding indian pottery pieces. This is Jayden's collection. The big piece is not from this trip but the rest of the many pieces are just from this trip. He also found the neatest arrowhead, which sadly he lost while building a tree house. The kids had so much fun building this treehouse, they worked on it for hours and we had to beg them to stop for a bite to eat. I know that they would have loved staying for another week to finish it.

Grand Canyon

After arriving in Williams, Arizona a tiny little town next to the Grand Canyon we went to explore the historic town. The kids enjoyed the gift shops.

We liked seeing all the fun places and signs along the famous Route 66. After exploring the town the kids enjoyed the indoor pool at our hotel with Grandma while I spent some time doing homework.

The next morning bright and early we went to the train station where we watched a shootout before boarding our train that would take us to the Grand Canyon. The ride was long but we had live entertainment on the train to help pass the time.We finally arrived to see the Grand Canyon. There were breathtaking views but I was suprised to find that there were so many places with no rails. I am not afraid of heights but that changes when I am resposible for children. There were a few places that made my heart beat fast and I am glad I have pictures to enjoy the scenery later after the kids were away from the edges.(yikes) I was telling them the whole time that they were close enough.After my nerves were frazzled from kids being next to a very long drop we stopped to see the Hopi house where we enjoyed watching the Native American dancers.Soon it was time to get back on the train for the ride home where we were told that there was the possibility of being stopped by train robbers. The kids were pretty excited about the train robbers and my cute nephew Morgan dug deep into his pocket and found a penny and he announced that "I think I will be alright". He held onto that penny until the train robbers came.
Here came the train robbers and Morgan was still holding onto his penny and when the train robber came by he told him "give me that". He took the penny but Morgan still had a happy smile on his face and kept exclaiming that the train robber had taken his penny. What a funny kid we sure enjoyed the trip with cousins and grandma.

Floating the Colorado River

Here we are at the bottom of Glen Canyon Dam, to get down there we had got to take a bus through a man made tunnell through the walls of this rock. Very cool because there is no public access to this road. Since 9/11 this dam has been under high security.

What a fun trip. The kids loved it and it took 5 hours where we started from the dam and our trip ended at the very beginning of the Grand Canyon. Halen liked chasing the lizards when we stopped for lunch and to see the petroglyphs. The kids liked playing in the river except that it was absolutely freezing, I think our guide said that it was 40 something degrees. I got a mini geology tour on this trip which was fun since I happen to be right in the middle of geology class.

This trip has been so much fun, my mom and I have gotten many stares with 7 kids trailing behind us. Tommorrow I will try and post more because we are going to the Grand Canyon!