About two years ago Aaron got nominated for an award called an Incentive Flight. It's where you get a chance to fly in the back seat of an F-16 jet. It is an amazing experience that happens very rarely so Aaron felt honored to have been nominated. They happen so rarely that Aaron is only 5 in 500 out of his work group to have been selected in years. Less than 1% of Department of Defense civilians ever get the opportunity. As you know things in the Government don't really move very fast so we didn't think any more about it until a few months ago when we heard it was going to take place. Wahoo!! Aaron was so excited. It was even more exciting when we heard it was going to take place over the kids Fall Break from school. They only do these incentive flights down in Tuscon Arizona so we decided to make a family vacation out of it. All the kids did miss the first three days of school that week, but we felt it was worth it. We left early in the morning Saturday, October 10. It helps that I am a hopeless insomniac so we got a really early morning start. I actually slept until 5 am so we didn't leave as early as we have in past vacations, but it was still early. Josh and Daniel are used to leaving super early in the morning so Josh woke Daniel up at 3 am that morning so they could get dressed for the day because they knew we would be leaving early--crazy kids!! We drove all day. We did stop by the Four Corners Monument. The kids didn't seem to be very impressed to be able to stand in four states all at the same time so we didn't spend too much time there.
Josh is in an Honors History class where the teacher requires the students to visit a museum and a monument every term and take a picture of themselves to show proof they were there. Here's Josh being the funny kid he is decided to make the most of his proof picture:
We drove the rest of the day and ended up in Flagstaff, Arizona that night. Our hotel was on the edge of a harder part of town, but we still weren't in too scary of a place. However, anytime you pulled out of the hotel parking lot to go anywhere you had to face this establishment:
Oh my goodness, I have never heard so many giggles and snickers from my kids. All we heard every time we went anywhere was, "Hahaha....Bunn Huggers Lounge....Hahahaha!!" I must say that is an interesting name for such an establishment....I am just glad it provided us with hours of entertainment. In addition to such entertainment Daniel brought along his Mad Libs book to keep him busy during our drive. Mad Libs a book full of stories where you add in your own nouns, verbs, adjectives to a story to make it sound funny. Wow, I definitely have a family of boys because I have never heard so many poop, fart and boogers added as nouns, verbs and adjectives in my life!! That provided hours of entertainment as well. Let me just add it was a very long car ride!! We got to Flagstaff late Saturday night. The next morning as we were waking up we heard some police sirens and ambulance sirens go by our hotel. Noah rolled over and sleepily chastised Aaron by saying, "Daaaaaad! We are missing the parade!!" He heard the sirens and thought a parade was happening instead of an actual emergency. What a funny boy! After breakfast we headed out early to see and hike the Grand Canyon. It was really beautiful!!
It was fun and the perfect temperature for hiking. Wow I have never seen so many foreign tourists. They were everywhere!! And with our kids, especially Matthew who is not shy EVER, tried to ask every foreigner he encountered, "What language is that?" If he heard them speak anything other than English. We got quite a few interesting looks. Oh well what can you do?!
When I packed I tried to pack bright colors for Noah because he occasionally wanders away sometimes. Thus the bright orange shirt that happens to say Mets on it from when he played T-ball this past summer. Aaron wore a bright orange Mets shirt from when he coached, too, so the kids and I could spot him more easily if we got separated. Let me just say we aren't very big baseball fans so it was very surprising how many high fives and questions Aaron got about the professional Mets baseball team this year. He felt stupid because he had no idea about the team or about how they have been doing. Every time anyone asked him anything about the team, which happened A LOT, he just had to smile and nod and agree with whatever that person said. Little did they know the real reason why he and Noah were wearing bright orange Mets shirts--haha!
This is why I had Aaron and Noah wear the bright orange shirts. See how easy it was to spot the bright orange shirt?! Too bad it was a Mets shirt, though.
The squirrels around the trail were not afraid of humans at all. This squirrel thought Josh had some food and came right up to his leg. By the time I got to the camera he had moved away a little bit, but was still close.
Noah was not a fan of the squirrels. Every time he saw one he would scream and grab on to my leg. On the way back up the trail he was not liking the hiking. At one point he laid down on the trail and said he needed a long rest. Aaron told him that if he stopped the Bubba eating squirrel was going to get him. He didn't quite believe him, but when some Australian tourists that we had previously met came up behind us they kiddingly enforced what Aaron had said. When Noah heard about the Bubba eating squirrels from Aaron and the Australian tourists he jumped right back up and kept going. Aren't we such mean parents?! However, he didn't stop the rest of the way up the trail which was awesome. On one of the trails we got to pass through an archway which was pretty nice.
It really was beautiful there:
They had a hollow tube telescope with notches around the base so you hook it inside one of the notches and actually see the things the signs explained.
Josh thought he'd be funny and take a falling picture. Let me just say he was no where near the actual ledge, though.
On one of the trails we saw a baby tarantula run in front of us. To show it's size Josh put his fingers by it, no he is not touching it. Noah wasn't a fan of tarantulas either.
We had a fun picnic dinner that evening at the Grand Canyon.
We had to get a family picture of course :).
We only got to spend one day at the Grand Canyon because Aaron's Incentive Flight required Aaron to be checked out by a physician within 72 hours of his actual flight. The only appointment Aaron could get was early Tuesday morning. That meant we had to leave Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon a day earlier than expected to drive down to Tuscon. To break up the long drive we stopped by the Arizona Science Center Museum in Phoenix on the way down. We have passes to the Clark Planetarium which meant we got to get in this museum for free--wahoo! As soon as we got there everyone had to take a potty break. As Aaron took Noah into the bathroom he asked him if he had to poop or pee in order to take him to the urinal or the stall. Noah looked at him and said, "It's a surprise, Dad." Awesome. I don't think Noah knew quite what he had to do either so it was a surprise to everyone. Aaron just took him to the stall to let him sort it out. What a funny boy! I must say it was a really fun museum!! They had a water center in an outside area of the museum where you could see and work with the movement of water to learn more about it. The kids all had a fun time here. It was hard to pull them away to see the rest of the museum.
It looks like Noah had the most fun judging by how wet he was when we left that area:
They had an all about your body area. One section was all about your brain. They had one game set up that measured your brain waves compared to someone else. Who ever relaxed the most and for the longest got the ball to roll to their side. They measured how relaxed you were by your brain waves. It was fun. I lost every round I played. I think this is because Moms can never relax especially on vacation! Here's Sarah and Daniel competing:
They also had another section that measured your fight or flight response according to your heart beat. You sat in this chair while a very soothing voice talked to you to get you comfortable. Then when you least expect it they set off this crazy loud alarm to see how fast they could get your heart rate up. Here's Aaron trying it out:
This game was one of Matthew's favorites. You tried putting in all the boogers (balls) inside the nose before it would sneeze and shoot them all back out at you. Matthew just thought that was hilarious.
They had another section on the digestive system. This area was another favorite. They had a stomach small intestine slide set up that as you walked through it it had signs that explained everything that it did. Then at the end it had a slide you could go down. As you went down the slide it made digestion noises (aka fart sounds). The kids all thought that was hilarious. It was really hard to pull them away from that section. Sigh...Here's a small clip of the slide:
They also had wheelchairs you could race. The wheelchair was set up on rollers so it didn't actually roll anywhere when you moved the wheels with your hands. On the screen in front of the wheelchair was the racetrack. You competed with the person in the next wheelchair over. It was a long racetrack! Aaron and I competed and I totally lost because I have no arm strength. Then Sarah and Daniel competed. Daniel got pretty far ahead of Sarah so Aaron stepped in to help Sarah out by really moving her wheels. Daniel got pretty upset, but was fine since he won the race anyway. I only did one race, but my arms were shaking afterward because it really is quite the workout for them!
In another exhibit they let you lay on a bed of nails. Here's Josh taking his turn:
Then upstairs they had a motion room. They had a motion sensor camera that would pick up on your moves with your legs or arms and make it look like you were pushing or kicking the little aliens on the screen around. Sarah and Noah had a lot of fun doing that:
Then they had another motion camera that picked up on your movement and moved the virtual ping pong balls around you. Here's Sarah and Josh playing with the virtual ping pong balls. Matthew's just chilling out on the couch in front of the picture:
After leaving the museum we stopped by the Mesa, Arizona temple for a look around. It really is a beautiful temple. This is the temple G&G M got married in 47 years ago.
We got to Tuscon late Monday night. The next morning we were eating breakfast when Josh thought he'd be funny. We stayed in a hotel with a huge breakfast buffet along with made to order hot foods (pancakes, omelets, home fries, etc.). When Daniel got up to get a drink Josh put Tabasco sauce all over Daniel's omelet. Aaron saw what had happened and to pay Josh back Aaron sprinkled Tabasco sauce all over Josh's pancakes and then made him eat them. Needless to say I think that will be the last time Josh tries that--or if he does try it again he will be a little more subtle about it. Aaron went to his appointment while I took the kids swimming in the hotel pool since we only had one car that Aaron needed to use. It was in the 90s temperature wise so a perfect day to swim which is crazy for us in Utah in October!! When Aaron got back from his appointment we headed over to the International Wildlife Museum which happened to be another freebie from are Clark Planetarium passes. They had all kinds of stuffed and mounted animals you could see. Usually I am not a fan of stuffed animals, but these exhibits actually turned out to be really neat and interesting. Here's the kids looking at the butterflies with a magnifying glass to see the different characteristics of their wings.
They had a giraffe you could walk under to see how tall they really are:
As we were leaving we got a picture by the ginormous lion statue in the parking lot:
Being in such close proximity to each other (same car ride and hotel room) for so long wasn't always a good thing. There was lots of arguing amongst the fun having. Usually it wasn't too bad. However, Josh and Daniel were arguing over who got the remote to the TV when Josh let go of the remote all of a sudden forcing it back to Daniel which in the process hit his front tooth and chipped a small inside corner of the right front tooth. DOH! Luckily, it isn't bad enough for me to really worry about so we will just see what the dentist says at his next appointment. Ah fun times.
The next morning, Wednesday, we headed over to the Arizona-Sonoran Dessert Museum. Don't let the name fool you this museum is actually a zoo, aquarium and a botanical garden all mixed in to one museum. We had to actually pay to get into this one, but it was really worth it. The funny thing was since we had so many kids it was cheaper for us to get a family pass for a year than it was for one day of admission for us all. That's a bit messed up, but we got the better end of the deal so we didn't mind. Daniel loves learning about different animals. One of his favorites is the Gila Monster (pronounced Heela Monster). He was really loving hearing the museum guide talk about it and then he got to feel the skull of one. Daniel was in heaven.
In checking out the reptile section Noah kept blowing kisses to the snakes. I guess he is not afraid of them if they are inside glass cages. What a crazy kid!
We got to pet and learn about a live turtle.
We got to go inside a cave to see some bats and learn about them. Here's Sarah trying out a huge set of ears to show her how well the bats can hear with their large ears:
Most of the place was outdoors. It got up to about 100 degrees that day and was really hot. Good thing they had shade areas and we brought lots of water! Also there were cacti everywhere!! This picture doesn't do it justice because they really are everywhere!
Did I mention it was HOT that day?!
The Saguaro Cactus are the ones that Arizona is known for. They get pretty tall, too. This one isn't too tall, but it was fun to see them up close.
Here we are checking out some tortoises. The ones the kids are playing on are not real, though.
They had a humming bird house. When you walked in there were hummingbirds everywhere. I thought it was fun to watch them just flying around, but I could tell Aaron did not like being there. He is not a fan of birds at all so after seeing a few of them up close we didn't stay for too much longer in the hummingbird house. Here's one we just watched while it was perched on the branch:
In a section of the botanical gardens they had a butterfly garden planted with butterflies all over. Most of them were Monarchs, but we were able to see them up close which was neat.
At the Aquarium section they had a hands on tank where you could hold or touch a few creatures such as a Hermit Crab, Snail, Sea Cucumber, Sea Urchin, etc. Here Noah is getting ready to hold a Hermit Crab:
The Museum people taught all the kids about each animal and plant inside the tank. The kids were all fascinated:
What fun! Those museums were awesome! So many hands-on exhibits. It seems like a great trip. :)
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