Field Trip to Old Tucson

 

Yesterday I helped chaperone Logan’s 6th grade field trip. We spent the morning at Old Tucson! Many famous old western movies were filmed there. It was the site for over 300 film and television projects since 1939. It definitely felt like walking onto a western movie set…so cool! Our school was invited to participate in Ted Walker Youth Day, where 3,000 4th-6th graders were invited to spend the day (for FREE) touring the the park. They even included a FREE hot dog lunch for all of the kids and chaperones. It was there way of giving back to the community and giving children an opportunity they may not have otherwise. I was in charge of 10 kids and we had a blast. They were good sports and let me take a few pictures. We rode the train through the park, toured Iron Door Haunted Mine, watched an old fashioned gun fight complete with explosions, enjoyed ice cream from Golden Gate Creamery, and finished off with a ride on the old fashioned carousel. It was just fun walking around the park and feeling like you were part of an old western!

 

Sledding

Winter break was almost over and Flagstaff had finally gotten a good snowfall, soooo we decided fairly last minute to make a very long day trip up there to go sledding! It takes about 4.5 hours to get to the sledding park, so you can imagine our disappointment when we finally arrived, only to find that the park was FULL and they weren’t letting any more cars in! Ack! Are you serious?? They said we (along with dozens of other cars) could pull over on the side of the road in hopes that we could get in as other cars left the park. Well at this point we were committed so we decided to wait it out. Luckily, we only had to wait 15 minutes before they let another big group of cars in. Phew! Crisis averted! We managed to get a good 2.5 hours of sledding in before the park was closing and we had to pack up. Unfortunately with Wing Mountain being so incredibly busy, our 20 minute drive back to Flagstaff turned into over 2 hours! It was CRAZY how much traffic there was. Carson and London passed out in the backseat, and Greyson was pretty content watching his Baby Einstein videos, since he had already napped on the way up there. We were all hungry and tired, but the kids did really great. It could have been a lot worse. We finally made it back to Flagstaff, grabbed a quick dinner, and finished the last 4 hours of our drive. We pulled into our driveway at midnight. It was definitely a sledding trip we won’t soon forget. Oh the lengths we have to go to in southern AZ  in order to find some good sledding hills!

Christmas Day

Christmas day was a wonderful, relaxing time with just our little family. We opened presents, enjoyed our breakfast, and then Weston, Greyson, and I napped while the big boys played with their new presents. I was a little under the weather so Weston took the lead and made a delicious dinner of beef tenderloin, fresh green beans, mashed potatoes w/bacon, and salad. All of which we enjoyed in our jammies of course. It was a perfect day!

Christmas Eve

This year we were invited to our friends house for a huge feast. We enjoyed tons of yummy food and great friends. I didn’t get any pictures at the party since I was too busy eating and chatting. When we got home we did our traditional Christmas Eve activities. The boys search the tree to find the hidden pickle ornament to see who gets to open the first present. This year London found it! Then the boys put out reindeer food and cookies for Santa, and take one last peek at the Norad Santa tracker. Lastly we like to read the Christmas story before bed. Then it was a LONG night of wrapping presents while watching the movie “Elf” for Weston and I.