Grand Canyon

Today we got up and headed to the Grand Canyon!  I forgot how amazing the Grand Canyon is!  The boys were blown away.  Tanner said he had seen pictures of the Canyon but had no idea it was so huge and impressive.  They all absolutely loved it.  It really does remind you of how amazing God is.  He loves us so much that he created a place like the Grand Canyon for us to enjoy.  He doesn't do anything half way!  The first thing we did was pull up in front of the visitors center (I love visitor centers!) and we took a peek over the edge.  The first look is the most incredible because you forget how spectacular it is.  Not to mention, if you have never seen it before like our boys.  Did you know the Grand Canyon is 18 miles wide, 5,000 ft deep and 227 miles long! (Had to throw those facts in because they are so impressive).  After our peek, and my panicking because a lot of the canyon edges do not have rails and Peyton doesn't seem to have any fear of heights (we did learn that there have been around 600 accidental deaths at the canyon, most due to careless photographers who think the best picture is taken while hanging over the edge).  We headed to the visitor center to get info and join the Jr. Rangers Program.  If you didn't know, almost all the National Parks have a Jr. Rangers Program where kids do lessons in a workbook and attend a ranger class in exchange for a certificate, a badge, a patch and then officially sworn in as a Ranger.  Then we headed out on the tram to the first look-out point.  We truly enjoyed the view, but the kids were more impressed by the squirrels.  The boys had a goldfish snack and the squirrels decided to share it with them (first Jr. Ranger rule...don't feed the animals).  I have more pics I will post with a squirrel sitting on Peytons shoulder.  We then went back on the bus and saw the canyon from many different angles (I think the Hopi point view was the best).  We had a great ice cream lunch and then went to a ranger talk on Condors.  Did you know that there are only 300 condors in the world and only 147 of them are living in the wild?!  All of them are tagged and protected.  The California Condor is the largest flying land bird in the Western Hemisphere.  It's wing span is 9 ft!!!  I got some great pictures of the condors flying overhead and perched on a rock.  Oh, I forgot to mention that one of my friends from Get Motivated (Darren and family) were at the canyon at the same time.  We met up with them to see the sunset over the canyon.  What a great ending to the perfect day!

Sedona

Yesterday (Thursday)  we got up, swam, ate at Johnny Rockets in an Indian Casino and then drove to Sedona.  Wow, what a sight!  Red rocks shooting out of the ground everywhere you look.  It is quite impressive.  We wanted to make a few stops in Sedona, but there was a lot of construction and a 40 ft RV has a hard time parking.  So we stopped at one scenic view spot and took some pics and then tried to stop at the Church built into the rock, but had no luck parking.  We did put our heads out the window and snapped some more photos. We then headed up Oak Creek Canyon to Flagstaff.  That was an adventurous drive.  First, it was gorgeous (was named one of the top 10 scenic drives in the US) there was a river on one side with a backdrop of Red Rock formations on the other.  There was also many beautiful green trees and plants which you do not see much of in Arizona.  The second reason the drive was adventurous was all the turns  and steep cliffs. We were in a huge RV with little RV experience (luckily Dave was driving or we would have for sure been dead).  I have to say it was a little scary!  (Pop, Scott and Bob you would have hated it).  We ended up in Flagstaff and decided to call it a night at...where else?  Walmart.