We are on our way back from our week-long, not-so-planned, awesome trip to Arizona that started Christmas day.
Maybe I should explain a bit more about how this thing came about before I go into the details.
I was feeling horrible. For the first time in my college career, I failed a class. I knew it was coming, but I couldn't do anything about it. There was literally nothing that could fix it. This was happening in the midst of a bunch of other things that kept keeping me from focusing and being able to do what I needed to to finish the class. Anyway, I was feeling down and Christmas was coming and I couldn't wrap my brain around it. My house was a disaster, nothing was decorated, I had nothing for anyone. I didn't have time for my class, and Christmas wasn't on my list of things to prepare for. I just wanted to get away from everything. I wanted to take my family and just run.
So, enter my mom's timeshare thing. She has this timeshare that has different locations and she has to just use her points to go and stay wherever has an opening. I asked her if I could use her points to go somewhere and she was okay with it (she always has too many and gets desperate to book something before they expire). I started looking for anything within driving distance that we could escape to on or around Christmas. I found one in Arizona. It was the middle of nowhere, but in the mood that I was in, that sounded perfect. Later I found out that it meant that it was 30 miles to the nearest grocery store, and that wasn't as good, but it appealed to me at the time of booking.
Tony was good with it. He's usually up for my crazy ideas, and knew I needed something to feel better.
We left Christmas day. We stopped by my grandmother's apartment and saw my mom and grandma, they loaded us up with breakfast, snacks, and crayons and coloring books, then we were on our way.
The best thing was that I got excited planning the trip. I had this idea to give the kids little gifts every hour that they could enjoy. I set a timer for 1 hour, numbered the gifts, and put them in a basket where they could search for the right one to open when the timer went off. It was the best idea for traveling on Christmas. It wasn't an original idea or anything, my sister-in-law did something like that with her kids while we were traveling last year up to Oregon. I adapted it to fit my kids and it worked out well.
We got to the resort and vacation really began.
There are so many things that I am thankful for over this trip. Here are a few in no particular order.
1. I got out of my funk. I am determined to do what I need to so I can graduate this Spring.
2. Tony was amazing. He is so good about rolling with anything. No plans? No problem! We planned as we went and told the kids when we figured out what we were doing.
3. Tony and I got back to our tag team Micah parenting that has been out of whack lately. Probably my fault, but it's better now, so I am just going to be thankful.
4. We took the kids to 2 National Parks. That was cool about being in the middle of nowhere, everywhere was a long drive, so going a bit further to see really cool stuff wasn't a big deal.
5. The fact that my kids are impressed by rocks, animals, museums, random facts, and historical stuff. It's cool to have my kids impress the park rangers with their intelligent questions. The Junior Ranger thing was one of their favorite parts of the trip.
6. The little church in Overgaard, Az that made me feel at home in the middle of nowhere the Sunday morning we went. I wouldn't want to live there, but it was good to have the "family" feel even though we didn't know anyone.
7. The random couple my kids decided to talk to on the shuttle bus at the Grand Canyon. They were really nice to my kids and when we kept running into them, my kids remembered them and they always said "hi" and asked the kids about their adventures that they were having. I don't know your names, random couple, but thanks.
8. Gas prices in Arizona. Paying a dollar less a gallon after passing the border was so nice.
9. The great staff at the Grand Canyon Inn where we stayed our last day because we just couldn't bear to go home after only a few hours of the Grand Canyon. When Zoe left her souvenir in the room and we realized it far later, they let Tony go back in the afternoon, several hours after we checked out to see if it was still there, and then checked with the housekeeper to see if she saw it. We never found it, but they were extremely accommodating and helpful. That made up for the fact that their "free wi-fi" was horrible.
10. The park ranger that went over Micah's work with him as he was earning his Junior Ranger badge. She didn't flinch when she saw his writing, treated him like the 12 year old that he is when he was showing off his autism flag, and just respected him as an intelligent person. He recognized her attitude and responded to her as well as he could being so excited. That could have gone very differently if she had been any other way.
11. The native couple we encountered on our way up to the Grand Canyon who saw all our kids and kept piling up gifts upon us from their little shop. They were such lovely people. They spoke with all of my kids and were so sweet to us.
12. The cool trails that were not far from us in Overgaard. There my kids looked for wildlife and saw quite a bit of it. Elk, squirrels, wild horses (!), deer, several birds, and whatever else I can't think of right now. It was cool to see their eyes light up. When they weren't seeing wildlife, they learned quite a bit about pictographs and native lifestyles from long ago from the info in the tour guides and signs.
There's so much more, but we are almost home, so I should stop. Pictures and stuff to come later.
