Family Outing: A Big Well and Snow!

Making the Decision: What a spur of a moment trip this was! The car was in the shop, we were not prepared at all to take off for the weekend, and had zero snow clothes to speak of. Nonetheless, we decided this weekend was a perfect time to take the kids up to Flagstaff to experience snow, which they have never experienced before. Call us sporadic-best memories come that way!

The Prep Work: No snow clothes? No problem. I took a brief trip to the local Goodwill and spent 30 bucks getting waterproof everything for our entire family. Can't get any better than that! We even booked a cheap hotel room in less than 10 minutes-I don't think that has ever happened to us before, and a suite on top of it! I managed to get us completely packed and loaded up in the car in 1 hour. That's gotta be a record somewhere. The only thing we forgot was Karianna's froggie snow boots that I bought for 2 bucks. Darnit.

The Big Well: We stopped off at Montezuma's Well on the way up to Flag. Last time Jared and I were there I was pregnant with Karianna-this visit sure was different with two walkers and a baby strapped in a snugli! I always get so nervous that one of the kids will fall off a cliff; this trip was no exception! Notice how I am unwilling to relinquish my grip on JD even though he is sitting for a picture?

Regardless, we had a blast hiking the trails, especially the irrigation canals, and seeing all the Indian ruins and cave homes-lots of new vocab for Karianna to learn! I don't think we were supposed to actually walk in the ruins, but oops, we did. I excuse it by telling myself I'm just giving the kids a real-life experience. ;) The kids LOVE hiking, and I think that is so cute! Jordan just loved being in a snugli (don't know how I made it through 3 kids without having one of these things). As we were hiking back to the parking lot, Jordan realized I was behind him and kept twisting around to give me these big goofy smiles. Silly guy! We had a great time, definitely would head back for another visit!

The Snow: I have to admit I was a little nervous taking the kids in the snow. I knew they would be plenty warm and dry, thanks to Goodwill. I knew they would be just fine sledding, I knew we were completely prepared. I just didn't know if they would adapt to the snow. JD tends to throw a fit when I put a jacket on him. Period. Jordan refuses to eat or drink anything cold. What to do if they got that stingy about being in snow? Thankfully most of my worries were overthought (as usual). The kids LOVED the snow! We spent about 2 hours at the Snowbowl play area throwing snowballs, making a mini snowman, and riding the sled. We let JD and Karianna take the maiden voyage on the sled and they did great until they got to the end of the hill, where they both tumbled off and burst into tears. The reason? They had snow on their faces and they didn't like it! ;) We switched over to a smaller hill and sledding became popular again, especially when Karianna figured out how cool it is to sled backwards on your stomach. Our snowman is kind of wimpy. You know the song "Once There Was a Snowman"? Our snowman is a visual representation of the latter half of that song where the primary kids melt to the ground. Both Jared and I learned that we really don't know how to make a decent snowman, however we blame it on the fact that we are Mesa bred for the most part. The snowman-woman's name is Bella, though I don't know why Karianna picked that name. After looking closely, I realized it does resemble my mom's poodle....My favorite part was piling all 3 kids on the sled with me and taking the plunge! I could have done that all day! Karianna said her favorite part was making snow angels. Thanks to our new camera which has high speed burst, I took several consecutive pics of her making an angel and can literally watch her in action. Love that feature! JD's favorite part hands down was throwing snowballs at Jared-it was hilarious to watch! Only bad part is JD kept confusing the snowballs with rocks-not literally, just in his explanations. If you ask him what he did in the snow, he will tell you, "I throw rocks at Dad!" Better correct that quick since our backyard is full of rocks... Jordan did great in the snugli, though his face got pretty red. He kept giggling when we went on the sled and when the kids got pretty crazy with the snowball throwing. He wouldn't quite touch the snow, but thought it was intriguing to watch me flick flakes off of it.

I had such a blast playing with the kids, and I really hope we get a chance to head up to the snow again before it all melts!

The Conclusion: Porta Potties stink. Karianna had to use the restroom really bad, thus I resorted to the porta potty even though I am morally opposed to them. Just solidified my distaste for them. Otherwise, conclusion is-great trip! The kids did so well with everything we did. JD and Karianna slept in the same bed at the hotel for the first time ever; after some talking and giggling, they did great sleeping through the night. The best part is just making these memories with our family. I know I have said that a lot recently, but it is so true-that has been the focus of our family outings, and it is amazing to me how joyous it is to spend time together. No frustration or dicipline problems, just having fun together and experiencing new things. I love it and I love my family!

The Reward: No reward really, but if you made it through this entire post, you are very cool and my respect for you is through the roof! Hey, lets try an experiment, if you are reading this, submit a comment so everyone knows how cool you are! Go ahead, give yourself a pat on the back! As Jared would say, do a toyota jump for yourself! Woohoo! I really have no idea what a toyota jump is come to think of it. Maybe I'll see if he'd like to demonstrate...