we woke up sorta bright and only a little bit early.
we decided that NO ONE drives 40miles from the grand canyon entrance and doesn't go in. the laws of logic required we go.
we were sharing a room with gracie & heidi and gracie is a notorious 5am riser, so that was something to look forward to. but the magic of hotel curtains bought us an extra 1h45m!!
logan and kenady were beside themselves about the hotel pool, and pretty much let it be known on the 5-hour drive the day before that we were NOT going to leave arizona without swimming in the hotel pool.
while the forrests were swimming, heidi & i took that time to lecture, and i do mean lecture, gracie and levi about staying RIGHT NEXT to us the entire time. no running, no pushing, no climbing trees. we walked that fine line of scaring-your-kid-so-bad-they-don't-wander-off-and-fall-in-the-grand-canyon-but-still-make-it-seem-like-a-super-fun-experience.
somewhere in the 3-hours of lecture-questions-lecture-questions, we got to calling the canyon the "big hole", and had successfully acheived the perfect balance of fear & excitement. and then that all fell apart.
because our kids are 3. and so we tread lightly. but robyn and courtney's kids are 8-13. so they're allowed to pull out the big guns. words like "die" and "kill".
as we pulled up to the visitor center, courtney turned around in the van and let her kids have the "lecture"....older kid style. and as we were getting out of the van and getting bundled up for our freezing day outside at the "big hole", robyn let her kids have the "lecture"...older kid style.
so as we started to walk, levi was holding my hand and said,
"mommy, if i fall in the big hole will we never see eachother again?"
again, with the "tell the truth" dilemna...
"umm.....no. no, we wouldn't. that's why i want you to always hold my hand, ok?"
and 2 minutes later my poor little man had, what i can only assume was, a panic-attack. he started dry-heaving, couldn't walk, shaking, and begging for water. i sat down with him on a bench and he clung to me. i tried to talk him off the wall. told him i would never take him somewhere that was too dangerous. that if he would just keep going, he would have a lot of fun.
in the end, he only agreed to move if heidi piggybacked him. and she did. what a nice aunt.
i went to the grand canyon about 10 years ago, and remember it being really overwhelming. it was this time too. you can't describe the grand canyon to someone. it's just literally impossible to adequately articulate the actual "grand-ness" of the canyon.
to add to the adventure, they had a "junior ranger" program the kids could complete. we picked up the books with the requirements, based on age, to be sworn in as a junior ranger. they ranged everywhere from nature bingo, to writing essays, drawing pictures, hiking, and answering historical & geographical questions.
despite it being bitter, bitter, cold, we had A LOT of fun. we only spent a total of 4-5 hours there, but we really knocked it out:
1.all the kids got ranger-ized.
2.levi learned to love the big hole.
3. 2 unexpected bonuses from robyn:
a) she honked the horn of our huge, red, 15-passenger van @ about....30 men who were standing in a parking spot that she wanted. what made it even more priceless is that there were about...100 other parking spots nearby, but....apparently that one was calling her name.
b) after leaving the canyon, we decided to get some pizza before getting on the road. we had pulled in the parking lot and had just put the car in park when a HUGE tour bus pulled in next to us. robyn's eyes got huge, she yelled OH! and jumped out of the van, and began running, sweater flying behind her, 5 of our boys trying to catch up her, across the parking lot. you gotta see it someday.
that's always a good sign of a day well spent...right?
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