Sometimes it's funny how things come about. I was having a rotton day a few weeks ago. It turned into a giant pitty party for me and I ended up crying. This is not something I do often. It's about once a year or less, but once I get going it's very hard for me to stop. I tried to tell my husband that he should feel lucky because there are women out there who cry all the time and about anything, so he rarely has to deal with this, but he went into "fix it" mode and just kept asking what's wrong? How do you explain to a man that you have no idea what's wrong and really don't know why you are crying? That sounds just plain crazy! But that is pretty much where I ended up at. Feeling crazy. As most of you know he has been off work for several months due to the latest round of broken foot. So I decided I'd had enough of it and just needed a vacation by myself, just to get away for a few days. A few hours after I finally calmed down the phone rings. It is my dear, wonderful, almost saintly (I hope she gets a kick out of this) friend Alena. She said to me "I want to go to the Grand Canyon, wanna come?" Without thinking I blurted out "YES!" A few hours later and a little convincing to Mike, the plans were layed and set into action. We had less then two weeks to prepare, but everything turned out wonderfully. We took along two more friends, Diana and David. It was seriously the best hole in the ground I have ever seen. There were quite a few times that I was extremely grateful that I didn't have my kids with me because I would have been a nervous wreck. This way I was able to relax and enjoy the beauty of it all. And except for losing David for a little while and those crazy monsoons that blow through once a day, the trip went great! We drove there on Friday, set up camp and went to bed, spent Saturday and Sunday hiking/exploring and drove home Monday. Below I will post a few pictures, I took a lot, but there are only so many angles you can look at the thing from, and a picture will never show the full beauty or the enormous size of the place. Hope you enjoy!
My first view of the canyon.
Down the trail a ways.
No trees blocking this view
The Colorado river. We wanted to hike down there, but the shortest trail was 7.5 miles one way. We were confidant that we would make it down, it was the getting back up that worried us.
And, finally, a beautiful sunset under those monsoon clouds.
I know this was a few weeks ago, school started on August 18th here, but here are a few pictures of the kids on day one! (I was probably way more excited then them)
And Emily is starting fourth grade. She's not so happy about the level of work expected of them this year, but I'm sure she'll survive. I was a little surprised when I walked into her classroom to see that her teacher is the younger sister of one of my friends, so I've run into her a lot over the years at birthday parties, baby showers, etc. It's a small world sometimes. I brought Alexis along in a stroller so I didn't have to keep too close of an eye on her, but I didn't take a picture of her. She spends her days now asking me "where Dustin at?" "He's at school" "oh, yeah, school" Every day we have the same conversation. I wonder when it's going to sink in?