Random Vacation Thoughts

I'll get to the pictures and the day-to-day events from our trip to Arizona in another post. Before I start though, I have a few thoughts to share about the trip.

* The kids traveled the best yet. They were awesome. No problems on flights, no problems with them carrying their bags and keeping track of their stuff. They were enthusiastic and eager. They were polite and friendly. They tried new things and were just good sports all-around. Yea!

* This is the first trip ever for us as a family (even before kids) where we spent more than 3 days in one place. We like to see the highlights and move on. But, I think hanging out in one place for awhile allowed for some down time which contributed to the kids being so good. That being said, we still put on 850 miles on the rental car and 400 miles on our own car. We stayed at 2 different family/friend's homes and 3 different hotels. So, we were still on the move!

* Eli got sick on the flight home. Actually, he was sick before the flight, so I don't think it was the flight that caused the vomiting. But, we boarded the plane (we were in the third row), I looked over and Eli was puking. He tried to catch it, bless his heart, but it was on the seat, the floor, his clothes. A mess and everyone boarding the plane had to walk by us. They held up the plane and the maintenence people came and changed out his seat, the seatbelt and cleaned up the floor. I had a clean shirt for him, but no pants, which were drenched. I cleaned him up the best I could and wrapped my sweatshirt around him to keep him warm. He was a trooper, the poor guy.

* I love AZ and the high desert with all of my heart. I hadn't been back since we moved and everytime I saw pictures of AZ and mountains or lava rocks or cactus or Indian ruins, I had such a feeling of longing, a feeling of wanting to go home. I was sort of hoping that that feeling wouldn't be there when I got there. I was hoping that I'd think it was too brown, too hot, too cactusy, too something that would make me wonder why I ever loved lived there and make me feel good about our decision to move to Minnesota. But, that didn't happen. I hated Phoenix (and I always have) but the rest of AZ was awesome. I love it just as I did. It was as good as I remembered. And Dennis feels the same way. And the kids thought it was awesome too. I'm not sure what that means for us.

Stay tuned, there is more to come....