Grand Canyon

We left home at 3 am, and by morning, we were at the Grand Canyon, eating breakfast in Cameron.  Scott and I marvel each time we go exploring that things are so close.  I had been to the North Rim, but neither of us had been to the real deal, the South Rim.  We actually hadn't planned on this route until we were on the way.  Scott didn't want to do down I-15 through Vegas.  Boring!  So we turned off and took the Grand Canyon Route.  Had we planned better, we would have left a couple hours earlier.  We had a deadline: Jeremy and Jenny's Flashlight Easter Egg Hunt in Phoenix at 7.  We budgeted in about 4 hours for the Grand Canyon, as much time as we could possibly spare, and went for it!

Look!  My Aunt Da's bracelets in a store in Cameron.  DeBry Company has merchandise in all these Southwest stores.  It's fun to see them and makes me proud.  Da is a good business woman and works so hard.

With Xanthe's 4th grade parks pass, we saved thirty dollars!

Words can't describe the vast beauty.  It gives me an overwhelming sense of gratitude for living on this planet.

In the tower

A French woman offered to take our family photo "for the Christmas card."  I didn't have the heart to explain that, absent our two older gingers, we had a spot open for a redhead, and Jake fit the bill.  It's a family...just not our usual configuration!  We said over and over how glad we were that Jake was with us.  I wish Golda and Ruby could have been, too, but it was a delight to follow Ruby's adventures in the Netherlands while we were having our own.  Golda's adventures in her last month of school, not quite as thrilling.

Yes, he was hanging out over the precipice.  National parks are nerve-wracking.

They literally could have fallen in the Grand Canyon, and I'm taking pictures.

We made it in the nick of time to help the cousins spread Easter eggs over the park.

Jenny and Jeremy organized a great event, and the kids had a good time.

Lilah, Kate, Kayla and Izzy

Wow!  These faces are our lives.

Me and the Jennies

Talking about various routes from Salt Lake to Phoenix.  Any way you slice it, the Navajo Nation and the Grand Canyon are right in the way, and it's an unnecessarily long drive!  As we found out both on the way down and on the way back, there is way too much to see and do along the way to ever cover.  We'll have to do it again!