Sedona

On Monday we went to Sedona with Erin and Chad. We started with a hike in Oak Creek Canyon, on the West Fork Trail. We had lots of creek crossings that were so fun!

























Then we had lunch at a restaurant in downtown Sedona that had an outdoor patio with amazing views of the red rock features. After lunch we went on a Pink Jeep Tour!! The girls were so excited about it, as Jessi pointed out, her favorite color is pink, her favorite car is a Jeep, and she loves tours! It was super bumpy and tons of fun. Megan sat in the very back the whole time, smiling like crazy, and bouncing all over the place.
















We walked through downtown to see all the crazy shops, and we drove to see the chapel on the rocks of Sedona before driving home.

Some of our MI friends are here in Phoenix visiting family, and we stopped by their house last night for pizza and s'mores. We all slept well last night after a day full of activities!

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Phoenix

After a whirlwind tour of Grand Canyon natl park, we've spent the last few days at "home" in Phoenix with Erin and Chad. Saturday morning we hiked in Shaw Butte park for several hours. We managed to climb one of the tallest foothills and enjoyed an amazing view of Phoenix. Only one pic on the iPhone:



Then we came home to cook thanksgiving dinner with all the fixings! We had a feast with Chads brother and sister-in-law, and we watched lots of football. Go Irish!

Today we went to Saguaro Lake for a picnic lunch. There were lots of huge saguaro cacti!



Then we saw the fountain in Fountain Hills, and the girls had fun in the playgrounds there.




Then we went to the McCormick Stillman Railroad Park for an afternoon of train fun! We toured several train cars and the huge miniature train display, and we took the train ride around the park (twice). We got ice cream and the girls rode the carousel, too!







Tonight we went out to dinner at Chino Bandito, famous for being on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. Imagine a combo of Chinese, Mexican, and Caribbean food!




At home, the girls went swimming and had several ping pong matches. They just went to bed. Tomorrow we head to Sedona for the day!


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Grand Canyon!

We flew out to Phoenix on Wednesday for a week long vacation with Erin and chad.

Our first stop was to the Grand Canyon on Thursday. We hiked for 3 miles down the bright angel trail.

















We stayed the night at a hotel in the park, and got up early to watch the sunrise fri morning. We took another 3 mile hike into the Grand Canyon, this time on the south kaibob trail, which had the most amazing views!































After our hike, on the mile walk back to our car, we saw an elk right by our path! Like 10 ft away! We slowly walked past him and he didn't mind us at all. I was nervous because the edge of the Grand Canyon was just 10 ft on the other side of the path... With no rail!!








We took a shuttle bus to the far western edge of the park and back, and then drove back to Phoenix. We enjoyed a beautiful sunset for about an hour.



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Halloween!!

My editing didn't work last night, it looks like just the pictures were posted.  I'll try again:

Carving pumpkins a few days before Halloween.  See our neat trick we heard about from a friend - carve out not just the top, but also the back, so you have easier access to the guts and scraping.  It worked great!

Cinderella is ready to go to school on Halloween Day!

I got to help out at Megan's class's Halloween Party.  I ran the Bingo (with smarties) table and passed out tattoos.  See Megan, third from the left in the back row?  She dressed up as Saint Kateri.

I snuck down to Jessi's classroom for a minute and got to say HI to her in between their party activities.

See Saint Kateri in the school costume parade?

And there's Cinderella!

We carved a few more pumpkins after school on Halloween Day.  Nothing like last-minute!

It was very cold/windy/rainy so the girls all ditched their original costume ideas, and instead went as triplet babies.  With clothes underneath their footie pajamas.  And Uggs.  Babies always have Uggs!

Chris (the pyro) created these flaming pumpkins off a YouTube video I showed him.  They were a huge hit with all of the trick-or-treaters!  Am I the only one who wondered why Carter didn't do this first??  :)

Before trick-or-treating.  The vampire cheerleader in the back is one of Katie's friends from school who lives in our neighborhood.  She went t-o-t-ing with us.

Katie and her friend were deathly afraid of the flaming pumpkins, but Meg and Jess were brave enough to pose for a picture by them.

Pumpkins!

More pumpkins!

The pumpkins looked pretty crispy by the end of the night.

Our decorated porch

Time to trade candy!

Katie's haul, all organized.

Megan's goodies.