It is Christmas Eve and while we wait for Santa to arrive in Prescott at Grandma Alice's house, I thought I would catch up on all the fun we have been having... First off an actual picture of the "Camper Van" as we have been calling it. Maybe an actual name will come about on this trip, but so far Camper Van is it.

We spent several days at a few different campgrounds near Tucson, the picture above is at Patagonia Lake. The kids have been having fun playing in the dirt, throwing rocks in the water, and hiking around the desert. One spot allowed fires, so we toasted up some marshmallows one night...of course Piper was a big fan of that! She would have eaten the whole bag if we let her.

Nice simple times, perfect for cherishable family memories. I am so happy that all three kids seem to really enjoy being outside. Piper can hike like a champ when she chooses, sometimes we have to lure her along with "Once upon a time" stories. But she does love being outside. And the boys love getting dirty! I might be putting my foot in my mouth when I say I look forward to them walking, but I can't help but cringe with all the hands and knees crawling through all the dirty places. Especially since everything is still going into their mouth.

After a few days on our own we headed back to Tucson to hang with Judah, Kristen and their son Preston. Such a nice family, we received a warm welcome from their four year old Preston with a sweet kiss for Piper and holding her hand as he lead her inside to show off his room. It was a fun filled couple of days with watching the kids play, going to the zoo and even made it to the evening Christmas lights parade downtown.

Before squeezing in one more night camping near some beautiful saguaro cactus, we met up with David's 98 year old Grandfather for lunch. He is always fun to visit with because he is full of stories and twinkly eyed smiles. Grandfather seemed so smitten with his great grand kids, it was cute to watch their interactions.

Next we were off to Camp Verde to spend a couple days with Grandpa Richard and Grammy Lynn. They live on the river amongst several pecan trees and we were just in time to harvest a big box of nuts!

Piper loved riding the tractor, such a great grandpa/grand kid activity.

And boy, did we eat well here. Rich and Lynn are quite the chefs in the kitchen, so we spent our time eating and playing with the kids and eating some more.

Now we are back in Prescott for Christmas spending time with lots of family, even Uncle Topher made it home for the Holiday. It was fun getting the cousins together and for the great aunts and uncles & great grandparents to be surrounded by all the energetic young blood.

Here are several fun pictures of Xmas eve and Christmas morning. Santa brought Piper balloons, just like she asked for and the boys were given talking Elmo and Cookie Monster! Christmas on the road was a sucess and a special time to be with family. Thanks again to Grandma Alice and all the AZ family for hosting a wonderful Christmas. We all had a great time participating in the family traditions and just spending time with everyone.

The RV adventure is ON!!!

We have been in Arizona for a week now; busy visiting with family and friends, but tonight our first night actually camping in a campground. We are at Kartchener Caverns which is SE of Tucson. There are amazingly preserved caves in the area which we visited a few years ago…wow, actually 12 years ago, the first year Dave and I were dating. We would have never guessed then that we would be back with an old RV and three kids in tow. But here we are, ready to explore in a different way!

On the way here today we stopped in Tombstone, Arizona. Founded in 1881, it was the real deal and a true old Wild West town in its day. We walked the old boardwalk sidewalks, played in a park next to the OK Corral which was the site of an actual gunshot showdown, and of course found an ice cream shop to enjoy a yummy treat.

We are super excited about our RV life and all the adventures we have in store for the future. I didn’t really know what to expect as far as the details of how the car seats would fit, where the kids would sleep, whether or not the RV would actually run and be in working order. But, other than a near disaster the first time Dave went to dump the black water. Basically he accidentally flooded the back end of the RV with water (clean water, thankfully). We got it all cleaned up and moved past that setback and I am pleasantly surprised how smoothly we have gotten used to the close quarters. We got it all cleaned up and are having fun playing house, getting organized, stocking up with supplies and food and getting a new stereo installed…priorities! A big thanks to Aunt Kathryn and Uncle Dave, seasoned RV’ers who loaded us up with must have items to get us started. And to a few of Alice’s friends in Prescott who were a wealth of knowledge in RV know how.

Seems like we keep making more plans of other details we might want to do to fix up and make this a fun little home away from home. Like we would love to put in cork floors, and switch out the sea foam green colored blinds, but we will see, for now we just love all the creature comforts the RV life grants. For example: the bathroom, the cozy bed, all the storage to keep ALL the food and baby equipment, clothes in cupboards, refrigerator, heat, and hot water. It has rained at night a few times; we love it and are thankful for the actual roof over our heads instead of soggy tents. I never would have expected to be such an RV lover, but in reality I see that it means the difference between doing a trip like this and not.

One of the key purchases are these little tent peapods for the boys to be contained in while they sleep. One less thing to worry about with a couple of almost one year olds sleeping up high in the bed above the cab. There is a story about my sister falling out of this same type of bed when my parents took their month long RV trip when I was just one month old. She landed on my sweet little head sleeping peacefully in a bassinet below her.

One of the highlights of our trip so far…Out of Africa, a super cool “zoo” featuring lions and tigers and giraffes to name a few. We got to feed carrots to the giraffes and watch tigers play with their human care takers and the kids even pet a tortoise. Hearing the lions roar was super cool, but watching the black leopard stalk the kids through the chain link fence was kind of creepy. The way the cages were set up, we got to walk amazingly close to these beautiful animals…such a treat, thank you Grandma Alice for taking us to this fun attraction.

The timing of our trip allowed us to meet up with Mike and Dan Shaw at another friend, Sven and Kelly’s house in Tucson. We were all there to watch Dan attempt to win the Tucson marathon, but unfortunately the victory was foiled by a bum Achilles tendon that stopped Dan (who was in the lead) at around mile 14. That was too bad, but we all had a great night before hanging out on Sven and Kelly’s roof overlooking the city lights and telling stories and catching up. We are excited to be on our own for a few days, but we have thoroughly enjoyed Grandma Alice’s extra hands and help and ability to allow us to sleep in while we have been with her. With all the excitement of being on vacation, our kids like to wake up extra early, so extra shut eye is so nice! Thanks Grandma! We still have more friends and family to see before Christmas, but for the next few days we will be seeing some sights and enjoying the RV life. Over and out…

Snowy Days

We have much to be thankful for this year. Just yesterday we had a beautiful sunny day to enjoy perfect snow conditions for x country skiing. We got all five of us out to enjoy a favorite wintertime activity. The kiddos all enjoyed the crisp fresh air and we loved the good family time fun. We ran into a few friends up at the snow park and even squeezed in a few sled runs before heading home for lunch.

This year we decided to have a non traditional Thanksgiving...instead of turkey, we had an all out sushi feast. It was a fun event to spread out the day and eat all day long. We added in a few traditional Thanksgiving must haves like canned cranberry sauce, whole olives to put on our fingers and our famous spinach dip...Super gourmet! =-)Uncle Topher continued the tradition of joining us for the 4th year in a row. It was fun to watch him enjoy playing with our kids and they of course loved all the attention.

We are all beyond excited for our next upcoming adventure...flying to Arizona to pick up our CAMPER VAN!!! A few months ago we got a great deal and bought an old class "C" RV off the Phoenix craigslist. This sweet new acquisition is a 1996 Winnebago Mini and has only 45k miles. It has been parked in Alice's care waiting for us to retrieve it. So we decided to make a big trip to spend a few weeks in AZ visiting family and friends before heading up the California coast back home the first week of January.

Wish us luck! I hope to add photos and stories to our blog as we go, so check back later.

Fun in the leaves