Fall Vacation (last month)

(Yes, the twins turned 3, I will get to the party pictures...I have some catching up to do!)

We love year round school for the simple fact that it allows an optional Fall Break Vacation which I'm always happy to take advantage of while most of the rest of the nation remains in school. 

This year we went to Pinetop. We call it "one of our favorite spots", but haven't been there in quite some time.



Picture from the drive

I won't admit the number of years because then you will just mock me :). There are so many other things you can mock me for, why waste your time with this little tid bit!

We were only there for a few nights, but while we were there - we had a nice little visitor.

Do you see the owl? Hanging out in the tree? Such a rare sight no matter where you are! That little fella never moved a muscle the entire time we were there. Certainly we are not quiet people. It could have been that he didn't move because he was plastic, but there are certain peeps who traveled with us who never got tired of yelling "the owl is still here!". Bless his fake little heart for sticking out with us!

There were other friends...

These hungry ducks bothered every single fisherman the day we went out with the kids. Including us, there were 2 others (which I think had something to do with the intensity in which they pursued us). It was very windy and certainly not a day to fish.

But it was the pressure that forced me to take them fishing. If you live in AZ, you may have seen the billboard or commercial about "Fish Arizona". (Now I'm wondering if they do this in other states....) It pressures you into thinking that your child needs to be taken fishing to have a memorable day with you. That is probably the short version (go ahead, be amazed I even used the words "short version"...but that amazement will dwindle as I continue on here...) but the billboard is huge and has a picture of a really happy kid that got to go fishing.

I am all about building memories for my kids....so, why not right? Who doesn't want happy kids?

I'm not convinced that fishing is the answer. In fact, I'm pretty positive.

Of course we are not easily dissuaded by a wind gust or a generally windy day that was strong enough to blow a kid (or two) off the dock. This didn't actually happen, but it could have.

That would have made it VERY memorable, but not really in a good way I suppose...but in the way where when you re-tell the story it includes you yelling to your spouse that they need to jump in and fetch a kid or two. And then to somehow remove the fish hook that the wind wrapped around a couple of them and stuck in the third. These are all things that raced thru my mind as the winds whipped the tackle box off the table, blowing our worms all over the dock.



This little Princess was so thrilled that she "caught a worm"!!!!! 



But here they all are :) Safe and dry :)

I wish I had photos of the true fun that we had, where smiles could be seen for miles. We got to swim. It was 50s during the day (and did I mention it was windy?) and 30s at night - and yes, we swam. The kids' pool -that was about 2 feet deep- was as warm as a nice warm bath and very big. It was even warm enough for Monkey and me - which means it was nearly hot for everyone else. By everyone else, I mean my family. There was not one single person who joined us.

Weird.

OH, I almost forgot, we did do this:

I realize that it might not count if S'mores are made over a grill, but the Fire Marshall said "no fires tonight"...so we improvised!

Pretty sure the kids didn't care - they ate them anyway!

And the best part? They were happy :). I think it was the chocolate. Moral of the story? When all else fails, chocolate fixes it all!