A beautiful Fall morning took us to the Knoxville Botanical Gardens for a playdate. It was perfect. The kids had fun exploring and running around with each other. It is tough to get great photos of moving kids, but I got a few. We are looking forward to the next fun Fall playdate.

Hey, look we got all seven kids to look the same direction at the same time . . . kinda.

As a reward we asked them to make silly faces. It seemed to be a hit for the over-two crowd.

A great and hard-to-photograph genuine Emily smile.

Sweet Elena

Grins from the sun-kissed Julia.

An almost smile from McKenzie.

A pixie smile from the pixie Maeve.

This was the first trip to the Great Sand Dunes for Mama and the girls and Daddy’s second visit. The visitor center was fantastic and had kid friendly exhibits about sand dunes, magnetic sands, lightning, and frogs. They had a video that explained why the huge sand dunes exist in the middle of Colorado. The dunes are deceptively large as you hike out to them; they just grow bigger before your eyes.

We hiked out to the first dune and played on the back steep side for an hour. We would have liked to hike further, but the girls had all the fun they needed on that one dune. The girls practiced their rolling downhill technique. Mama ran down and rolled down too. We could only talk Daddy into running down the dune once. When we left we had sand everywhere. The girls loved seeing all the sand we poured out of their shoes.

I love food. This is a fact. In the years of travel with my family as I grew up, we would enjoy food from all over America. There is a problem that comes with travel cuisine. When you go home you can’t get the different foods you find that you love. Therefore, when we travel we have to include food as an activity. This is never more true than with a trip to the Southwest where we get our favorite Mexican food. When we travel to New Mexico and Colorado we hunt down sopapillas.

The trick to finding good sopapillas is to ask locals for the best locations. This trip we found out that restaurants are now stuffing them with taco toppings, but the best way to eat them is to fill them with honey. We found two places that served great sopapillas in the areas we were visiting. Restaurants used to serve them in baskets before meals like some do with tortilla chips. The best we could find were that some restaurants served them as dessert and you could buy more individual sopapillas. The ones we ate made our fingers sticky, cut the spicy kick from our mouths, and made our stomachs full. The biggest disappointment was that Julia didn’t fall in love with them. She tried one bite both times, but passed on the sweet dessert. Emily could manage one each time.

Robby’s family traveled to northern New Mexico when he was a child and their family discovered a favorite restaurant in Taos. We had to stop and try it out. After hearing the stories repeated over and over we were sure that it would struggle to measure up to the hype. We are pleased to say that both their Mexican food was fantastic but so were their sopapillas. The girls tried the Mexican French Toast which was Uncle Doug’s favorite thing to eat there at age three.

Emily eating her Mexican French Toast, which was cinnamon nut bread made into French Toast. Sounded pretty good.

The drive into Mesa Verde was beautiful. The skies were clear and we could see long distances from the overlooks. One of the places we stopped on the drive was at the fire tower. We took the short hike and enjoyed the views while the girls loved the flag pole. We love how exciting “ordinary” things are to the girls.

The swearing in ceremony. Emily talked about the things the Ranger had told her at her ceremony for days.

At the visitor center, Emily got her first Jr. Ranger booklet to complete. She enjoyed doing the activities with us and absolutely loved being sworn in as a Jr. Ranger later. She was so proud of her badge. We tried to avoid this program on this trip, because it was a little too involved for Julia. She was a bit disappointed to get left out. It won’t be long until she can keep up with the questions and activities.

Julia doing all the climbing hard work all by herself.

Our Jr. Ranger checking out the area for things her Bingo card was missing.

Happy Hikers!

After watching a short video about the people of Mesa Verde we took the Spruce Tree House self guided tour. We only took the kid backpack for the half mile hike into a canyon to the ancient dwellings. Emily played a Bingo game out of her Jr. Ranger guide as we did the hike. At the ruins we were able to climb into a kiva on a ladder and explore. I was so proud of the girls. They didn’t need any help on the ladder and were brave to climb into a dark hole without seeing the bottom. Amazingly, Emily did the whole hike by herself. At the bottom we wondered if we shouldn’t have brought the stroller, but we didn’t need it. She hiked out faster than the rest of us. What a big girl!

After the hike we enjoyed a sunny picnic and then drove other area roads while the girls napped. We have mastered the overlook-kid swap so that we can go on with sightseeing despite naps. The number of dwellings at the park are pretty unbelievable. I appreciate not having to live on the side of a cliff and having to use hand holds to climb down for basic needs like food and water.

How can one person be in four different places at the same time? You go to the only place in the United States that has four states touch in one spot. And we did!

We are not sure if the girls really got the significant of the location, but the loved running around the huge concrete pad. There were ramps, flags, vendor booths, and fun lines and words to trace. They were sad to have to move on to the next thing.

Mama had been trying to explain how Native American women hand weave rugs. We found out that a local trading post had someone weaving in the store. Emily and Mama spent 20 minutes sitting on the floor beside a nice lady who was weaving. She was very kind to explain how she picked her designs and colors, how she does the weaving, and how each rug is commissioned. Emily was very shy and wouldn’t talk, but was very curious. This will be a sweet memory.  

We visited the south rim for four days, so we had plenty of time to wander around and see the views. We were fortunate enough that we didn’t have to change rooms and could keep our nap schedules on each of the days. This trip was different because while the girls were more mobile they were less willing to cover as many hiking trails as we wanted. Also, Julia in the backpack is getting heavy and harder for us big people to cover as many miles. We did some hiking everyday while we were there, just not all 11 miles of the rim trail.

The girls enjoyed visiting the visitor center closest to our room. There were some interactive displays and books to read in the store. We seemed to make it there everyday at some point. We also rode the buses on the whole bus route to the delight of the girls. They enjoyed finding cool rocks and tried to have a rock collection at every location we stopped. We saw a lot of wildlife, some without having to go very far from our room. The girls played in quite a bit of dirt and climbed on rocks. Mama’s favorite thing that occurred was the girls missing views of the Grand Canyon and when regaining the view, they would exclaim with a lot of excitement, Julia especially, that they saw the Grand Canyon.

Julia learning the process for turning wool into yarn. Every time she had an opportunity to card the wool she would be over giving it a try.

Wildlife viewing is expected at the Grand Canyon. There isn’t much lush vegetation around the Grand Canyon, but they faithfully keep the grass around the hotels watered making for excellent grazing locations. We saw elk almost every night, deer one night, and one mountain goat. The only night we didn’t see any large game was the night Pat was with us. It was disappointing because we had told him all about the animals. Other animals we saw were the pests of the park: squirrels, chipmunks, and ravens. They told us that on the trails the squirrels have been known to chew holes in backpacks to get to food. The animal we went out for nightly hunts for were bats. The canyon walls are home to millions of holes perfect for bats. We walked along the rim looking for the bats and found them every night. The first time we saw them it was Julia who saw them first and kept repeating “bat, bat, bat” until we looked.

Maybe not the best photo of Julia, but the best photo of Julia signing her version of “I love you” in front of the Grand Canyon. This stroller got a lot of mileage on this trip offering relief to tired little girls.

Getting photos of the girls together is pretty hard. I thought this one was awesome, it captured a face we saw quite often from Julia when not happy with us. She is definitely a two year old.

A much sweeter face on Julia.

Catching Robby doing what he loves to do most at the Grand Canyon.

The girls were running around the two levels to the studio. They played in the dirt, inspected the rocks, and jumped off anytime a parent wasn’t looking.

It was such a treat for us to share part of our trip with our friend, Pat. It was a joy to see the excitement the girls had for him too. They have continued to talk and pray for Mr. Pat even once we got home. We feel fortunate to have been a part of his experiences of the canyon and enjoyed hearing his stories. We are thankful for his hiking experience and friendship with Robby especially on this hike. We had wanted to be cheering for him at the trailhead when he completed his hike out, but he was too fast and we didn’t make it in time.

Watching the sunset with Mr. Pat

We don’t think we will be back to the Grand Canyon for a while. We have visited three times in 10 years and want to explore and introduce other places to our girls. It is an amazing place to visit and marvel at. While we know the girls will not maintain long term memories from these trips, we hope the experiences of both the travel and destinations help inspire them to seek new experiences and to learn about the world, who is in it, and how beautiful it is.