These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

We have been so fortunate to travel for over a year now.  We have been exposed to more wonderful things than I ever thought I'd see in my lifetime.  And yet, nothing is grander to me than being able to sit and watch this:

and this:

or even this:

On top of the fact that I love seeing kids just being kids, they are entertaining.  Josh and Lauren are staying with us tonight and it's been non-stop laughs for Nathan and I.  The latest was Josh announcing his "great idea" to Nathan, which was that he was going to sleep with me and Nathan could sleep on the couch.

 

Yesterday he taught us how to deal cards which begins with "shoveling" and "sprinkling" the cards.  And don't forget the part where you straighten the cards and do the "tap, tap, tap".  Man, do I love kids and their brilliant little minds.  I love how free and uninhibited they are.  I love how real they are with their emotions and thoughts.  I love how one of them tells me multiple times a day that he loves me.  Trust me, the feeling is sooooooo mutual!

Living the life in Arizona!

Hummer Tour in Sedona Arizona

Last year at this time, we went on a whale watching tour together.  So it was very cool to do a Hummer tour together today.  Daryl and Diana have done one of these tours together, but this was our first time.

 

 

 

 

 

Based on the kids' expressions, I think it was a huge hit:

 

Living the life in Arizona!

Holbrook AZ to Cottonwood AZ

Today we left Holbrook to drive a very short distance to Cottonwood. 

This was the first place that we've come back to visit since we started our life on the road.  Minus Florida cities that is.

  It was a very odd thing to know the place on the first day.  We love the Thousand Trails here, so we are excited to be back.

This is a beautiful area and we are happy to be soaking up the beauty once again.  Living the life in Arizona!

Newspaper Rock~Petroglyphs

The kids (and the adults) are really getting into seeing all of the petroglyphs here.  We were so tickled to find some in the Petrified Forest.  These were on newspaper rock there:

 

 

 

 

Living the life in Arizona!

The Painted Desert

We loved seeing this lovely natural artwork too:

 

 

 

Living the life in Arizona!

Get Your Kicks...On Route 66

We were able to add an interesting stamp to our passport book today-the one for Route 66.

 

We also saw this cool teardrop RV that was handmade by this clever gentleman, who said it took him about five months working eight to ten hours a day:

 

 

 

Cortez CO to Holbrook AZ

Today we moved from Cortez, Colardo to Holbrook, Arizona.  We are still moving much quicker than we normally do and we are enjoying seeing so many neat things with Daryl and Diana in doing so.  It was nice to be in warmer weather and we hope that continues!

The Spruce Tree House~Mesa Verde

Another trip to Mesa Verde, this time to see the Spruce Tree House and the Square Tower House.

 

 

 

 

Cattle Catcher Practice

I've been a lazy blogger lately, so I apologize that I am doing all of my catching up today while it is raining outside. We have just had so much fun here that I want to be sure to capture it before we leave and I forget some of it.

Some of you will remember the damage done to our truck due to things that go bump in the night and how Nathan decided to fix that damage in Texas. For those that don't-in short, we have a lovely cattle catcher on the front of our truck. As if a F-350 dually isn't eye catching enough on its own, we now have more evidence of manly manliness in the form of a vehicle. I've actually gotten used to it. That or I just ignore it, in the same way I ignore the stares of people (except in Texas) who can only imagine why I drive this vehicle when there are so many other choices. I still find it to be a tad bit of an impractical addition to the truck though.

Until now. We now have an opportunity to pretend that we need this piece of gear on our truck. Because the road leading into Thousand Trails here has cattle roaming across it. We first encountered them the other day while I was chatting with my travel buddy on the phone. I interrupted myself to let her know there was a bull next to our truck. Since I had the phone in hand, I could not snap a picture though.

Yesterday was my chance:You'd have thought I never saw such creatures as I squealed something along the lines of "Cow, cow, cow, cow". They were less excited about me than I was them:
Truth be told, they seemed downright annoyed that we were driving on their road:Even the babies (awwwwww) seemed to be annoyed by our being in their area. This would have been really interesting if we were pulling the RV and this happened. We pull out tomorrow so I'll have to let you know if we get to weave around them with our house behind us.Just a little fun fact, I had no idea until we got here that Arizona is a big dairy state. I've been paying around $2.00 for a gallon of milk. Contrast that to almost $5.00 a gallon that we were paying in Florida when we left 10 months ago. I've been thrilled with that price, although sadly, ice cream has not followed suit. If ice cream were that cheap, I'd have to find an excuse to stay here even longer.

Living the life in Arizona!

More Sedona Arizona

Red Rock State Park~Sedona, AZ

Today we visited Red Rock State Park in Sedona. To say this park was beautiful seems like such a huge understatement. Mikaylah was excited until she realized the park was outside at which point she asked me: Why do we always have to go outside? She keeps me laughing all day long!

We started out by hitting the welcome center. We liked the welcome center. It had neat stuff to learn more about the park and the rock formations. And there was some mountain lion information there which thrilled the cutie pie because in her pretend world she is a lion.

Then we went over the the theater to watch a movie. I'm not mentioning any names, but someone kept talking, so me and that someone went back over to the welcome center. That's ok though because we were able to do our Junior Ranger Buddy book there.When Nathan was finished with the movie, we went down on the path to look around.
It was an abundance of breathtaking views everywhere we looked!
All of the sudden I spotted something in the trees. This was Mikaylah's reaction:Not one, not two...but three of these beauties:And they were tame enough to let us get pretty close to them.Then we hiked down to Oak Creek. And I do mean hiked in the most generous sense of the word, given I had a skirt and flip flops on. No, I don't normally go to state parks dressed like this but I knew Princess I'm Too Tired to Walk would curtail any heavy duty hiking so I figured I was safe to do so today. And I'm so grateful to her that for once I look semi-feminine in my pictures!At some point it started to rain, so I headed back to the truck and princess and Uncle Nathan hiked even further until she ran out of her powers and could no longer be a lion. And everyone knows that lions can walk faster and further than little girls so they were doomed from that point on. Everyone also knows that lions love big trees.I have way too many pictures to share of this fabulous place so when I upload them all, I'll add the link in case someone wants to see more.
Living the life in gorgeous Arizona.