I'll never forget my first glimpse of the Grand Canyon: I could not believe how immense, how vast, how utterly grand it was. We were all amazed and the Grand Canyon definitely made all of our "top 5 sights" lists.
Our first look!
We started the day by going to a few overlooks and walking a very small portion of the rim trail.
First attempt at a family picture (yes, we caught Josh as he pulled an enormous booger out of his nose, I kid you not)
Decent family picture after the booger was disposed of....
One of my friends here in Monterrey grew up in Utah and her family are experts on the Grand Canyon. Her biggest piece of advice for me was to get INTO the canyon (don't just view it from above). So, per her advice, we did around a three mile round trip hike down into the canyon. I wish we would have made it a bit further, but there's something difficult about doing the down portion first, knowing that the whole time you'll have to go back up.
Trail head for Bright Angel
Starting to get down into the canyon
I wasn't expecting tunnels through the rock...super cool!
Getting further down
On the trail
The boys and I
As our morning went on, the clouds started to roll in and the canyon got even more beautiful.
It was super cool to see the different layers of the canyon up close.
So, I may or may not have had a vivid dream a few nights before we visited the Grand Canyon of our whole family going off the edge of a cliff in our car. I'm not a person afraid of heights, so I have no idea what prompted this horrible nightmare. However, that dream, combined with the fact that numerous people have died at the Grand Canyon this year (one lady only a few days before we visited), caused some true anxiety for me as we hiked together. The poor kids couldn't even step close to the edge without me snapping at them them to get back. And I made Ben be on Josh patrol 100% of the time.
The view from our stopping point, about 1.5 miles down into the canyon. Some day we'd all like to hike to the bottom together...maybe even do an over night hike/camping experience. But the boys (and me) all have some growing to do before that point.
After our hike, we drove to a different part of the canyon and had a picnic lunch with an awesome view.
A rain shower rolled while we were eating and we had to run for cover.
Didn't the day just get beautiful?
The twins and I (Josh got tired of getting in and out of the car)
I like this one because you can see the river at the bottom.
You can see the river in this one too.
Ben LOVED the Grand Canyon and lingered long at every viewpoint.
I love all the different types of rock and material throughout the canyon.
And the award for best picture of the trip! (True confession: I didn't take it. I was getting an ice coffee to tide me over for the afternoon and Ben asked a random lady to take it.)
So, the Grand Canyon was obviously awesome. We also really loved Flagstaff, AZ, which was the town that we used as our base for three nights to explore the region. We stayed in this sweet cottage home on the outside of town. The kids had so much fun playing on the property and we had slow starts each morning so that they could play independently outside. They had sword fights and explorations galore and totally loved it.
Warriors.
The house was very family friendly and we enjoyed some Jenga in the evening.
The house did possess this slight problem; luckily the whole house didn't have ceilings this low.
(Only a few more days left of our trip to document! Next up Sedona and then our final travel day!)
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