Thanksgiving 2017

 Here it is, almost Christmas, and I'm just now posting about Thanksgiving!  Where has the time gone?!

As per tradition we made our way south to Sedona for the holiday, and we were welcomed with temperatures in the upper 70's/80's!!  It was amazing!

Some highlights include:

Hot tubbing at Grandparents' house.

Lots of mountain biking!

This marked the first time I had mountain biked since the last Thanksgiving!

Surprisingly, I felt pretty darn good!

Piper and Morgan joined us a few times too!

Hit up Talaquepaque.

The girls coloring on a quiet morning.

We enjoyed an outing to the V Bar V Heritage Site.

This included the largest and best preserved petroglyph site in the Verde Valley!

Absolutely fascinating!

Explored around the nearby creek.

The kids with Grandma and Grandpa.

Our last evening we sat around the fire pit and roasted s'mores!

And somewhere in there we had a feast...which I seemed to have neglected to take photos of.

Such a lovely visit!

Until next year!

Thanksgiving Break Part II

Well, I kinda dropped the ball with blogging about the second half of our Thanksgiving break.

Yes, I know Thanksgiving was over a month ago.

But, I've said it before and I'll say it again...better late than never.

A trip to Sedona is never complete without some mountain biking!

This year, all the girls got a chance to give it a go at least once...except for Rory, but we'll get her out there next year!

For Thanksgiving the girls made little ornaments for everyone's place setting...a nice touch.

Always after we feast we take a walk around the neighborhood and then feast again on dessert.

Haley held my hand.  I know these days are limited that she'll hold her mom's hand, so I'm glad it was documented!

We ended the week at Talaqapaque to feed the ducks.

We were lucky the weather was so nice for the entire visit!

And luckily, no snow on the drive home!

Win!

Thanksgiving Break Part I

I know we're inching up to Christmas already (how is that possible?!) but I need to post about our Thanksgiving break!

As always, we set out for Sedona!

 Road trip!

 It was raining when we left, and it wasn't long before we hit snow.

For the entire drive it was either raining or white knuckle driving in the snow.  Two different occasions cars slid out coming the opposite direction nearly hitting us.  White knuckle indeed!

Luckily, we made it safely.

One of the biggest hits of the week was going to "Out of Africa", a wildlife preserve only about 30 minutes away from Sedona.  Here they have an assortment of African animals as well as some Northern American animals (wolves and bears and such).  One of the attractions is taking a bus ride to feed the giraffes...the girls loved it!

 We walked all over the park seeing all different kinda of animals.

Another hit were the tigers...and we each got to feed them!

So yeah, the trip started off with a bang for sure!

More to come on the rest of the week!

Thanksgiving 2015

I know I'm late with this post, but hey, better late than never!

So as usual we loaded up the 'Burban and headed south to Sedona...except this time we we made an overnight stop in Kanab.  The girls were thrilled to pieces to stay in a hotel. And then we surprised the girls with a visit to the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary (which is right outside of Kanab) the next morning.  

 This is a no kill shelter that houses around 1500 animals: dogs, cats, horses, pigs, birds, rabbits and so on.  We took the tour they offer and saw where everything is housed and got to pet and visit the cats and dogs.  The girls were in animal heaven!  We were lucky to get out of there without an animal to take home.  I told everyone we were filled to the brim already!!  Four kids, two dogs, a cat and three goldfish...I'd say we're doing our part!

Then it was off to Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Some highlights of the week.

We hiked up West Fork and took a photo of the girls on the exact same log from two years prior...

 ...so of course we had to create a side by side comparison.

My babies aren't babies anymore!!!

 We also did a bit of mountain biking.

The trails are literally right down the street...how can we not take advantage of that?!

There is a loop that I have become obsessed with...it's pretty much the only trail that I do.  I am determined to do that entire loop without putting a foot down!  One day, my friends, I will succeed!!  Too bad I can only practice it one week out of the year.  

 Ryan and I would go out on our own for a lap (yes, of my favorite loop) and then get the girls to join us on another lap (you guessed it, of my favorite loop).

I was super proud of them!

They did great!

 We also played a game or two of Sorry...and let me tell ya, it can get pretty fierce!

 And a trip to Sedona wouldn't be complete until we feed the ducks at Talaqapaque.  

The weather was quite crisp this year!

 With Grandma and Grandpa.

And of course, smooshed in there with everything else we ate ourselves silly with a wonderful Thanksgiving feast!!

We headed home Saturday and ran into this along the way:

Yep, winter has hit.

And I'm loving it!