Days 1-4 of our awesome road trip!

We seriously had THE best vacation at the end of summer break - A 2 week road trip to Colorado to see Sandi, but had adventures along the way and way home.

 We started on Sunday, July 28 after church and drove to Huntington Beach to my parents. We started our vacation from their house so Kirk could leave his truck there and would have it for when he flew back in the middle of the trip to work. 

 Always ice cream at Grandma and Grandma Winn's!

And we are off to the 

Grand Canyon!

 About half way there I broke out the scavenger hunt I printed up.  It was a hit!

 The reward for finishing it together and working as a team?  A HUGE jawbreaker!

 After checking into the hotel we took a drive into the Grand Canyon and right near the parking lot of one of the lookouts was this elk.  They are everywhere.

Along one of the paths.

 Beautiful when the sun is going to set soon...

 On Tuesday we headed back (I say back because we passed through it to get to the Grand Canyon) to Williams, AZ to look around and go to Bearizona.  Also, to get some food at the grocery store because that morning at the only McDonald's it was 3x the cost of what it is normally!  Rip off! So, we got sandwiches and breakfast stuff to put in the fridg at the hotel.

And these are the animals we saw at Bearizona (A drive through zoo and really cool!)

And the portion of the park that you get out and go look at the animals...

This cute bear cub is playing with his food dish.

These cubs are taking a nap waaaaay up the tree.

Ended Tuesday with a dip in the pool.

Wednesday was a fun exploration day of driving around and finding different lookouts and hunt to spot animals.  It was pretty hot, so we didn't last more than 4 hours, but it was beautiful and didn't disappoint.

Even did a little "hike" walking down slightly into the canyon.  At first Devin was too scared because the drop offs were pretty close, it appeared, but once I talked him into going a little bit on the trail he felt more comfortable.  

I love this picture of the kids walking to the main lookout.  They had no idea I had the camera out ready to take the picture.  So sweet!

This is what happens when you have total strangers take your picture.  Yes...I wanted a picture of the sky, not our family or The Grand Canyon.  :/

Better

Devin took this of Kirk and me.

Have I mentioned what a nervous Nellie Kirk is at the Grand Canyon?  The drop offs make him a little insane and this picture below about put him over the edge.  Ha!  Too close for comfort for him.

Devin would play his iPod all day and miss out on everything if we'd have let him.  Had to force him to look up at the animals and scenery! Once we spotted the animal, though, he was all about getting the picture.  Stinker.  Made us do all the work.

Cute story on the next two pictures.  We saw this elk in the bushes on the side of the road, so we pulled over to get a picture and got out of the car.  She was making sounds and we could hear answers in the distance and then a few minutes later her babies came running to her.  Poor Avery saw them bolting toward us (the mother elk was on the way to us) and she thought they were charging us and got scared.  It was cute to see and hear!

We had packed our lunch and ate it in the car during our exploring, so after lunch and after being hot, we headed back to the hotel pool for a bit.

After dinner, we wanted to go back one last time to enjoy the sunset and on the way we saw these beautiful elk sitting along side of the road and many people had stopped to take pictures.  These bulls didn't care in the least.

Love this picture of our boys enjoying the sunset.

And on the way out we saw this bull.  He looked much bigger in real life.  

The Grand Canyon is amazing.  We went as a family about 3 or 4 years ago, but the kids didn't remember too much about it and I went as a kid, but it really is majestic and amazing.  So glad we had the opportunity to enjoy it together once again.