Road Trip: Day 4 (Grand Canyon)

The next day, we spent the entire day at Grand Canyon...

When I got my first glimpse of the canyon, I was speechless.  And, if you know me, you know that doesn't happen much.  I was just in awe over how huge it was.  Much bigger than I ever imagined it would be...

Isn't it beautiful?

Here's the kiddos at the main lookout by the Visitors Center...

And, of course, we had to take lots of family pictures...

Every time we would find a new lookout point, Poppy would say, "Let's get a family picture of you guys here."  So you'll see lots of photos like this throughout the post...

Connor on the edge of the rim...

I love this picture of Cohen and Aiden just taking in the view...

And being silly with Poppy...

We walked along a portion of the rim trail that takes you to all the good lookout points...

It was an easy, paved, mainly-flat trail which was great for the kids...

Nana and Poppy at one of the lookouts along the trail...

Viv kept stopping along the trail every time she would find a "princess seat."  What is a princess seat, you ask?  Well, anything really.  Rocks that lined the trail were favorites...

Along with this really cool tree...

Until the brothers took it over...

We found this funny little chipmunk along the trail.  He came right up to us begging for food.  He seriously stood like this forever.  It was so cute...

Poppy thought it would be a great idea to walk out on this ledge for a picture...

And then Connor followed...

And then all of them ran out there.  Holy heart attack for this mama while they were out there...

Every time we got to a different lookout, we'd take another picture.  We have lots of pictures like this...

And this...

We also decided to hike down into the canyon a little way on the Bright Angel trailhead...

Along the trial, there were a couple tunnels where they had blown out part of the rock...

The view from inside the canyon walls...

It was a pretty warm day while we were there, so Aiden decided to do the trail shirtless.  Seriously, boys have it so easy...

My three fellas taking a breather.  Walking down was fun.  Walking back up--not as fun.  We took several water breaks along the way...

As we were hiking, Mike pointed out this bat along the side of the trail.  I swore it was dead, but it was just sleeping.  So gross...

After our hike, we headed back into Tusayan for lunch and then went back to the hotel for a little swimming to cool down...

After a couple of hours of swimming, we all got dressed and headed back to Grand Canyon to watch the sunset at one of the outlooks we hadn't been to yet.  As if this place weren't pretty enough, it seemed to get prettier at sunset...

There are only a couple of outlooks where you can see the Colorado River...

It's amazing that little river created this huge, amazing canyon...

Cohen had a great time throwing rocks down into the canyon below.  Yes, it's against the rules.  Yes, we told him not to do it.  No, he didn't listen.  Oh, that Cohen, always living on the edge...

Another family picture, this time at sunset.  I love how the cliffs behind us have so much color...

Once it got dark, we headed back into town for dinner at a Mexican restaurant that was right next to our hotel.  Connor attempted a selfie of everyone...

We had been snacking all day, so no one was really starving.  Cohen said he was totally full and didn't want any food.  Except for some dessert.  There's always room for dessert!  So, this is what he ate for dinner--a big bowl of fried ice cream...

Yep, we're parents of the year...

After that, we all crashed.  I think everyone was asleep in about 3.3 seconds.  It was an awesome day, but all that walking and hiking sure did wear us out!  --Lindsay

Road Trip: Day 3 (Monument Valley to Grand Canyon)

As I planned our trip back in the spring, I tried to spread the stops out so that we only had a three to four hour drive in between destinations.  But, there was one place that was going to require a long drive--getting to the south rim of Grand Canyon.  There was no getting around it.  Day 3 of our road trip was that day.  But, we decided to split the drive up by taking a small detour to Monument Valley.  We got up early that morning and ate some breakfast.  As you can see, Viv found herself the perfect little spot for her to eat...

After that, we hit the road.  We stopped for lunch in Monticello, and decided to swing by the temple there.  It's one of the smallest temples in the world--not much bigger than a Stake Center...

After that, we made our way to Monument Valley.  The drive to Monument Valley takes you through what's called "The Valley of the Gods."  It was incredibly beautiful!  The dirt was some of the reddest I've ever seen in my life.  I wish the camera had captured the colors a little better, but what can you expect when you're taking pictures through the window of a car...

At one point in the drive, we had to stop and get out of our cars to take a picture of this cool zig-zag pattern in this mountain.  Isn't that cool?

Then it was on to Monument Valley.  My parents were behind us and they snapped this picture of our car on the road made famous in the movie "Forrest Gump."  This was the road he was running on when he decided his "runnin' days was over" and went home...

Right before getting to Monument Valley, we pulled off at a Native American Trading Post to do a little shopping and take a few pictures of the view.  Isn't it gorgeous?

It also gave the kids a chance to stretch their legs and throw some rocks.  Always a favorite activity of theirs...

Love this picture of my cute little family...

Then we jumped back in the cars and finally made our way into Monument Valley...

It was awesome!  And, totally worth the extra hour it added on to the drive...

Then, we jumped back in the car and drove the last few hours to Grand Canyon.  Once we got to Tusayan, the small town next to the south rim, we checked into our hotel and went to eat some dinner.  We decided on a barbecue place, so we could get some good ol' steak and ribs...

Then it was back to the hotel.  We were all pretty tired from the long day of driving, and needed to rest up for our next day--exploring the Grand Canyon!  --Lindsay