Now, when I say "our trip," what I really mean is the ladies of the family. Peter was finishing up scout camp when we left, so we ended up not seeing daddy for nearly two weeks. The girls were kind of bummed at first, but thankfully the lure of a plane flight and seeing mountains and grandma and grandpa was enough to distract them from missing daddy too much.
Our travel time was quite extensive as we drove down to Wichita to fly out on a cheaper airline. The bonus of flying through Wichita, though was we were able to visit my good friends Ray and Natalie Stone. We've been friends since we were freshmen in college. Ray is a youth pastor at their church and Natalie just finished her masters in bassoon performance and was taking a much needed rest after performing non-stop for about eight months, plus finishing her schooling. The girls had fun playing with their kid-friendly cat Rufus. We attempted naps and then headed to the airport.
Mommy was terribly over prepared for the entire trip. It's been a while since I've flown solo with children, let alone with three, one of which was a baby with an earache. Turns out she was teething, but I wasn't taking my chances and came armed with antibiotics and a collection of essential oils to treat anything that might come our way. Two hours is the max for children (and I think adults as well) on a plane, so we were quite relieved when we arrived in Arizona. That is until we stepped out onto the tarmac! It was 7:00 at night and 118 degrees outside! Ugh, who in their right mind would want to live in the Phoenix metro area? We quickly got loaded up in my parent's vehicle they so kindly drove down to California and headed to a nearby condo to get some much needed rest.
The next day we visited with my Grammy Ecker. It was so fun to see her and for her to see Margie. I always chuckle when she wants to hold the girls because Grammy is so tiny and my girls are tall. She always tries to pick them up when they are little and lets out a big grunt while doing it. We chatted for about an hour and headed out to head up to the mountains. The drive went pretty well. It was actually my birthday, so we had a nice lunch half-way up at a Dairy Queen. Five hours from leaving the valley we were finally at the cabin. It was only 90 degrees there!
The girls were so excited to be with Grandma and Grandpa and explore the new landscape. Grandpa took the girls fishing one day and let's just say they were toast after that! Not many fish plus lots of "hiking" and I thought Piper would never go on a walk in the woods again. I'm sure my dad had many memories of putting up with whiny girls in the wilderness. At least he was experienced and knew what he was getting into! Grandma took the girls shopping and bought them some fun glittery Disney shirts. Later we realized Graci's Tinkerbell shirt said, "It's all about me!" Oh, how accurate!
Our favorite thing to do was go and walk around Woodland Lake. The lake is not too far from my parent's house and has a paved path that's a little over a mile. There are always fun things to see like dogs, fish, birds, and friendly folks--usually from the valley, but some locals as well. However, the snake that crossed the path right in front of Grandma was NOT fun to see. Apparently it was poisonous and we were all on the lookout after that!
The neighborhood my parents' house is in backs up to national forest and just a short hike from their house is a look-out tower. It was late and getting close to dinner time, so we drove the girls up and visited the ranger. During the summer it's typical for storms to roll in in the afternoon and we got an up close and personal view of one while in the tower! We could see the wall of rain headed our way. The tower wasn't what I would call "immovable" and we certainly felt the wind ahead of the storm. But it came quickly and left just as fast and we climbed back down soon after. The girls were pleased with their Smokey the Bear memorabilia the ranger so graciously had doled out.
I will admit the girl's favorite part of our trip was meeting and playing with the next door neighbor's granddaughter, Jordan. She stays with her grandma, Cara, every summer. She's 11 years old and the girls were just completely smitten with her awesomeness. Jordan loves babies, so Margie was in love with her as well. Jordan had to leave the day before we were leaving and Piper cried. It was so sweet! The girls immediately asked when we would be coming back to the cabin to play with Jordan!
We spent another entire day driving and flying to get home and by the time we got to Wichita, we were pooped! Ray and Natalie were happy to have us stay overnight. The girls and I camped out in the living room and actually slept in until 9:30 in the morning! Of course, Mommy stayed up entirely too late watching Natalie's new favorite performance of The Phantom of the Opera on the computer. I have to admit, it really was amazing! I miss Ray and Natalie a bunch. They have good, caring hearts and are just plain fun to be around. We're hoping everyone can visit soon! Grandma, Grandpa, Ray, Natalie! Come on out!!
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