an arizona thanksgiving

We broke from tradition and spent the entire week of Thanksgiving out of the cold and bluster and in the sun and warmth of Arizona. We stayed with Gramma and Grandpa at their beautiful house and had a terrific time.

The girls are great airplane riders and we had no problems with the 3.5 hour flight. Both girls even used the potty on the airplane like they were old pros. 

They were pretty impressed that "sunny" was out when we arrived in AZ and they very quickly spotted the saguaros. (last year they had much difficulty pronouncing saguaro so we allowed them to say cactus. This time they were very good about trying to say the difficult word.)

The girls had a blast running around Gramma's house and basically taking over the place. They quickly found their room that had their own twin beds. (We pushed them up against the wall and put a dining room chair and pillow on the other side. They slept perfectly!). They also determined which chair they would sit in for meals and they used the big potty the entire week without any complaints (or accidents!). They played in the living room in the cool mornings and then quickly moved out onto the patio after sunny had warmed it up. 

Unfortunately the girls got sick with those icky coughs they seem to get. We had one rough night of sleeplessness, but after that the girls really "powered through" their colds, not wanting to give up playing.

I think the girls' favorite activity at Gramma's was driving around in Grandpa's golf cart. Little Bird was convinced she was actually driving and the girls practiced identifying left and right turns. The "little car" was a huge hit!

Since the girls were sick, we didn't take them out to do too many activities. We did, however, take them to the really fun train park in Scottsdale that we visited last year. This time it was no different; Little Bird was really excited about the train ride and merry-go-round and Little Pie could do without it. Thankfully she did get on the train with us and ended up loving it but we couldn't convince her to get on the merry-go-round. Little Bird offered to go on the merry-go-round a second time because she thought Daddy should have a chance to go.

In addition to the train ride and merry-go-round, the place has a huge playground and the girls had been dying to play at a park for days. Even though they were still sniffling and coughing, they went crazy at the park, showing Daddy how they can climb up anything and slide down anything. We had no complaints being outside on a sunny and warm (80 degrees!) day in November.

We also took the girls to the White Tank Mountains regional park for some hiking and exploring. They have a GREAT trail that anyone (young or old) can hike and at the end of the mile long trail is a beautiful (dried up) waterfall. The girls thought they were so big going out for a hike with us, and they stopped at every sign along the way to "read". We saw petroglyphs and all types of cactus. We looked around for other types of plants and talked about what kind of animals live out in the mountains. The girls were wondering if Frank and Larry (the coyotes in a book Uncle Drew gave them) lived up in these particular "high desert ledges". We decided that they must! We were so proud of the girls for hiking almost the entire 2 miles. They were very good about staying on the trail and maneuvering their way through some of the rocks they had to climb. I can't wait to hike with them some more!

Thanksgiving day was the only day that sunny didn't make an appearance, but that was OK. We spent the day as a family and eating a yummy Thanksgiving meal. Why these girls don't like mashed potatoes is big wonder to us all, but why the devoured the pumpkin pie is of no question. Football was on the (new!) TV and we had fun hanging out. 

It was a wonderful week and we are so proud of the girls for being such good travelers. They adjusted well to everything and we are so glad that it was a breeze to be on vacation with them. We are looking forward to going back to AZ in February. 

And now, it's time for Christmas! I'm so excited to be back home and getting ready for the best time of the year! I think it's going to be so much more fun this year because the girls now seem to "get it". We are going to have so much fun setting up new traditions!