Our Arizona Mini Vacation: The Grand Canyon

For the Labor Day weekend, we decided to get out of Albuquerque and head to Arizona to see the Grand Canyon. Neither Matt nor myself had ever seen the Grand Canyon and while Matt did visit Arizona once in high school, neither of us had ever really explored Arizona. So we packed up Friday and headed out around 5pm to Flagstaff, Arizona where we stayed all three nights. Flagstaff is about 4.5 hours from Albuquerque, but that ended up being about 5.5 hours for us once we added in a few stops for food/gas/restrooms/etc. So Friday merely consisted of driving, checking into our hotel room and sleeping. Much needed sleeping.

Saturday morning we woke up bright and early (literally, bright and early because silly Arizona doesn't observe daylight savings so while our bodies were saying it was 7am, it was actually 6am in Arizona). Then we grabbed a quick breakfast and headed to the Grand Canyon! Yay! Another 1.5 hours in the car and one elk sighting later and we were there and it was amazing. Just amazing. Seriously. The Grand Canyon did not disappoint. It is just so... so... grand! Haha. Sounds silly to say, but it's so true. It's just overwhelming at times. And also hard to really soak in. Unfortunately, though, Ethan wasn't really in a "let's sit and soak it in" mood (let's be real, what 2 year old ever is?), so we didn't get to spend as much time as we would've liked there, but we still probably spent a good two hours wandering around taking pictures and appreciating all the glory of the Grand Canyon. Anyway, here are just a few things I learned while visiting the Grand Canyon:

- There are bugs at the Grand Canyon. Like these really annoying little no-see-ums and then big mosquitos. And they are everywhere and they like to land on you and eat you. Yuck!

- There are squirrels at the Grand Canyon. Really bold, unafraid squirrels. And they come right up to you (especially if you're a two year old in a stroller snacking on something like goldfish or an apple).

- My son is terrified of squirrels. Especially the kind that practically jump into your lap.

Now for some pictures of the Grand Canyon, of course! You knew I couldn't go all that way and not take hundreds of pictures, right?? But don't worry, I edited it down to just my favorites. :)

Somebody is excited and ready to go!

Gorgeous yellow fields - I had no idea how pretty Arizona is!

I'd like to say this is after we wore him out at the Grand Canyon, but nope, this is actually headed to the Grand Canyon. Just a little morning nap!

Oh just an elk. Chilling.

"Excuse me, sir, but may I have some of those delicious goldfish?" Cue Ethan's panic attack.

 

It's like "Where's Waldo?" but instead it's "Where's Matt?" See him? He's there. And yes, he's crazy for climbing down there.

We stopped at the airport to watch some of the Grand Canyon helicopter tours take off - Ethan, of course, loved it. :)

Gorgeous views during our drive home

Seriously, I thought Arizona was a desert, I had no idea it was so lush and green!

So after all that fun at the Grand Canyon on Saturday, we went back to Flagstaff and just relaxed for the evening. We walked around Old Town Flagstaff and had dinner at a local brewery - the first of three we stopped at, of course. :) All-in-all our first full day in Arizona was definitely a success and I think enough for one blog post. I'll be sure to follow-up with "Our Arizona Mini Vacation: Sedona" soon! :)

Ethan's Birthday Party

So this past Saturday we threw a little Mickey-themed birthday party for Ethan. We went to the big park on base and just grilled hot dogs and then had cupcakes. It was a really simple party, but I think everyone had a nice time. Matt and I made Mickey cupcakes and then we had Mickey balloons and all the favors for the kids were Mickey-themed. Ethan loved it - especially the balloons. That kid loves balloons, so balloons with Mickey Mouse on them were just amazing. He didn't tear up his cupcake this year, but that's okay, he had fun running around the playground and playing with his friends and getting to open up his presents. It was so fun to see his reactions to all the gifts and just the party in general - he was just so happy, which in turn always makes me happy. :)

Mickey Mouse cupcakes

Mickey!

Ethan and his friend, Paxton

Love my handsome baby boy (and yes, he picked off the Oreos and didn't eat them)

Blowing out his candle

After the party, we gave Ethan his big gift from us - a Radio Flyer balance bike! Matt brought it in from outside and I took pictures of Ethan's reaction to seeing the bike. Love love love his little eyes glowing in the first one - he was SO excited. Too bad the bike is just a little too big for him right now. :( His toes just barely touch the ground. Oh well, something to grow into! :)

A place to call home

Saturday night we hopped in the car and drove to Clovis. It was my second trip and Matt's first. It was about 2 hours into the 3+ hour trip we both decided we never ever needed to make the trip at night ever again, just for fear of breaking down in the really really REALLY dark desert with no cell service and no other cars in sight. I mean, that's the stuff horror films are made of! Fortunately, though, we did not break down - whew! So Saturday night we stayed on base and then Sunday morning we woke up bright and early to go check out another potential house.

I found the house on Monday after a VERY unfortunate debacle with a Remax house for rent - they said they accepted cats, we paid $100 to apply for the house, they said, oops we don't accept cats, we fought for our $100 back, which they didn't want to give us - fruuuustrating, but as usual, I digress. Oh, and we did eventually get our $100 back. But back to the verbena! So Monday around 2pm I found this cute house in a great neighborhood right in our budget - and best of all?? It was pet friendly! Hooray! Turns out the owner was renting it herself and had listed it at 10am that day! I was the first one to reach out and she was so nice she agreed to hold the house for us until we could come view it over the weekend - awesome! So off we went to Clovis!

Fortunately, the house looked as good in person as it did in the pictures, so we said yes! It has three bedrooms and two bathrooms with a great outdoor space. Nice flat green grass perfect for Ethan to run around barefoot. It has a fireplace, two car garage and pretty granite counter tops. It's nothing luxurious, but it is exactly what we need for the next three years. Oh and the owner isn't moving out until mid-September so our lease doesn't start until October 1st, which is just fantastic because at the rate Matt's training is going we probably won't be out of here until October 1st at the earliest and that means we don't have to pay for an empty house in Clovis that we're not even living in. Yay yay yay! It really did work out great for us and we're excited to have one more box checked off in preparation for our move to Clovis. :)

Where we'll call home for the next three years

Happy birthday, Ethan!

Today is our baby boy's 2nd birthday. Two years. Wow. Sometimes it doesn't seem possible that two years have passed by since we were blessed with our little amazing Ethan John. What an amazing two years they have been, too. Watching him grow from a little infant to the strong, smiley, full-of-personality little boy he is today has been the most amazing experience of my life. Not a day goes by that he doesn't surprise me with a new skill or talent, a new strength, a new word he's learned, a new understanding he's grasped. Have I said amazing too much? Because he is just that - amazing. I feel blessed every day of my life for him and can't wait to see what he will learn next, or better yet, what he will teach me.

My jugglers

As most of you know, Matt juggles. It's a pretty sweet talent and one that I've known of since the first time we hung out (8.5 years ago - yikes!) since he brought juggling balls with him and proceeded to juggle for me in my college apartment. Ahh, memories. Anyway, fast forward to today and as you can imagine, Ethan loooves when his Daddy juggles for him. The word "juggle" was in his vocabulary before the word "banana." Well, technically, he still won't say banana, but that's neither here nor there. The point is, Ethan loves to watch Matt juggle. It took him awhile to figure out Mommy can't juggle, as he used to bring balls to me (when Matt wasn't home) and say, "Mommy juggle!" To which I had to sadly explain, Mommy isn't as cool as Daddy and can't juggle.

So the other day we took Ethan to the playground and Matt decided to take his juggling stuff and juggle for Ethan. Of course, the little guy loved it and was running around picking up balls and clubs and throwing them in the air saying, "Juggle!" trying to be like his Daddy. I'm guessing it's only a matter of time before Matt is actually teaching Ethan to juggle, but for now, the throwing things into the air works just fine for Ethan.

I looove this picture :)

 

Clovis, my Clovis

Well, I made my first trip out to Clovis yesterday, which is about a 3.5 hour drive from Albuquerque. It was a long drive, but in all honesty, not a bad drive. Just a lot of long stretches of nothing.  I passed a billboard at one point advertising a hotel 1.5 hours away, lol. One and a half HOURS! How insane is that?? Other than a lot of nothing that didn't surprise me, I was surprised by how flat New Mexico is once you get east of the Sandia Mountains. For some reason I was under the impression all of New Mexico was mountainy, but that is definitely not the case. It was also cool because for at least an hour of the drive you're going parallel to train tracks so I saw a bunch of different trains, even this cool maintenance train that was laying down rails (I think?).

A bunch of nothin'

The train!

Anyway, the reason I made this one-day impromptu trip to Clovis was to check out a house. We've been house hunting for awhile and I finally came across a great deal that seemed to fit all our needs. So I dropped Ethan off at daycare Wednesday morning and headed east.

Well, sadly, once I was actually in the house (as opposed to just looking at pictures), I was WAY less enthusiastic and generally bummed about the whole thing. I called Matt to tell him my disappointing news and he suggested I wander around (since I had driven 3.5 hours to get there) and see if I could find anything interesting. So off I went a wandering!

The first house I checked out that I wasn't crazy about

I ended up finding a different house, which I reeeeally liked, but it was at the tip-top of our budget and we had to sign the lease to start much earlier than we had hoped. While the second house was better than the first, it still wasn't just right for us, so we decided to hold off.

The second house I looked at that I really liked

While in Clovis, though, I also made a trip to Cannon AFB to check out on base housing. We're currently on the waitlist, but hadn't seen any pictures of what the houses looked like. The housing office personnel were all super nice and took me to view a house that is the same exact floor plan as what we would be offered, just probably not the exact house we would get. It was an older house and would fit all our needs, but unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?) they are renovating/building all new houses on base and I was told about a year to a year and a half after we move in, we'd be forced to move so they could demo the old house. So the good part is we'd get relocated to one of the newly renovated (or newly built) houses, but the annoying part is we'd have to move. Again. I mean, I totally get that military and moving are synonymous, but let's not add fuel to the fire here, ya know??

Base housing...

While the trip didn't have the end result I had hoped (i.e., choosing a house), it was really helpful to get out there and see what our options are. I found a few neighborhoods I really liked and will now focus my house hunt specifically to those areas. It also inspired Matt and I to have a very in depth conversation about our move to Clovis and I feel like we actually have a game plan now, which is awesome. I will say for anyone keeping tabs on when we're moving, that "game plan" of ours doesn't have an official date, so don't even bother asking, lol. Matt's training is still totally up in the air. Our game plan is more along the lines of, "If ABC happens, this is what we will do, but if XYZ happens, then this is what we'll do."

As the weeks pass, we get closer to figuring out what's right for us. And when more time passes, we'll get that much closer to figuring it all out with solid answers. We just don't want to make any rash decisions that end up obligating us or hurting us financially. So for today the game plan is to wait, and waiting is just what I'll do.

What is it about kids and laundry hampers?

I was doing laundry this morning and left Ethan's empty laundry hamper out in the family room.  It took Ethan all of about 5 seconds for him to find it and make it his toy holder/sleeping bag.  Love my smiley boy so much. :)

Water play

My boys playing outside with the hose.  Love that Ethan is wearing Matt's dog tags, too. :)