Flagstaff

We headed up to Flagstaff at the beginning of Sarah's fall break. Even though it had started to cool down in Phoenix (meaning highs in the 90s), it was nice to get a little cooler weather and to see some fall colors.  We stayed at the Snowbowl Lodge in a two bedroom cabin.

The kids on the porch of our cabin. They liked exploring around it and collected some rocks and sticks.

Main bedroom with fridge and microwave. That was nice since it was easy to make a couple of our own meals. Matthew slept in here along with U and me.

Second room with a futon that Sarah slept on. We enjoyed watching movies in here every evening.

Megan slept in the closet right next to the second bedroom.

Our trip to Flagstaff did not go as expected. For instance, the day we arrived we planned on going to the arboretum. We drove out there only to discover it wasn't open. That was ok, though. We just went to Lowell Observatory instead. We went on the Pluto tour, where we learned about the discovery of Pluto and actually got to see the telescope they used to discover it at Lowell. (Or at least Matthew, Sarah and U did. Megan and I were getting band aids for the knees she skinned up pretty bad when she fell running.) We enjoyed doing the solar system, galaxy and universe walks and enjoying the nice weather.

Hanging out before the Pluto tour.

Cool Matthew! He liked walking along the curb.

Beautiful!

The next day, we headed out to visit Sunset Crater and Wupatki National Monuments only to find this:

Too bad we didn't go there the day before when it was still open. Oh well! We still enjoyed ourselves. We were able to drive through the Monuments and decided we definitely want to come back sometime when they are open.

Happy girl!

The kids sitting on volcanic rock and holding volcanic rock right by the visitors' center. (The parking lot wasn't blocked off so we stopped to eat and run around a bit.)

We found this neat little bug on Megan's bib.

Can you spot it on the tree? Pretty good camouflage!

A few pictures of the lava fields. They are really impressive!

The painted desert in the background. It's very beautiful! The picture doesn't do it justice.

Exploring outside the car at a pull off.

Cheese!

(Megan was sleeping at the time or I'm sure she would have been exploring with us.)

Some Indian ruins.

Beautiful view of the fall foliage on the San Francisco Peaks!

We stopped by the Museum of Northern Arizona. It is a great little museum that has a lot of information about the area. One of the workers sent Sarah on a few scavenger hunts in search of things, which she really enjoyed. They also had a children's area that the kids loved playing in.

Fierce dinosaurs.

Megan playing with fire. Er, volcanoes. The hat on her head is actually a basket, but why limit oneself?

Sarah showing some of the info about dinosaurs.

Wednesday, we did some hiking in Coconino National Forest. I sure do enjoy being in the mountains!

What cute kids!

Family photo. No, we didn't lose a member of the family--Matthew is sleeping on my back.

Hiker Megan! She hiked most of the first hike and some of the second. She loved climbing on rocks and logs.

Sisters! They enjoyed being together.

Tired boy!

Beautiful views.

Who is that way up there!

Oh! It's Megan, Sarah and Daddy.

Sarah started lining up rocks in the parking lot.

Megan joined in the fun.

Sarah took some of the rocks and spelled her name.

Exploring on our second hike.

We were definitely tired by the end of the day and enjoyed a nice dinner at the Pita Jungle. Good food and really good kids' meals.

What U saw when he woke up Thursday morning:

Matthew is naturally an early riser so when Megan started crying when he got up, I went and got her, thinking it was a waking hour. And then discovered it was really too early for any of us to be up. Good news: we all got some more rest:)

Thursday, we packed up and headed home. We had some fun times on the way which I'll tell about in another post.