Spring Break

This year, one of our family goals was to go on a family vacation. We had such a great time going to Alaska last year, that we decided we needed to do something yearly, although not always so expensive or so far away. Since my baby is due July 25, we decided that we would be better off going somewhere this spring rather than summer. So we spent spring break (and only $425 total--hotels, food, gas, and entertainment!) and headed south to the Flagstaff, AZ area and the Grand Canyon. It was a fantastic trip, and I would recommend it to any family. Tony and I really loved everything we did, and so did the kids. At the end of each day, we would ask what everybody's favorite thing was, and it was tough to decided because we loved everything we saw and did. Here are a few pics from the trip:

We visited some 800-year-old Native American dwellings that were awesome! This is a village that originally had 100 rooms.

We also visited Sunset Crater, which is a volcano that erupted about 1000 years ago. The whole area is filled with lava rocks, which were neat. The kids favorite thing here was hiking to the top of one of the smaller craters.
Also near Flagstaff, we went to Walnut Canyon, which is home to about 300 rooms of Native cliff dwellings. We were able to hike through one area of them and go inside them. This may have been our favorite place!

South of Flagstaff is Oak Creek Canyon, on the way to Sedona. This is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. Right near Sedona is Slide Creek State Park. The red rock and greenery are sooo beautiful together, and the river there is amazing, too. The rock is smooth, creating a natural waterslide area. If it had been warmer, we would have gone swimming here. The kids would have loved that!
At the Grand Canyon, we went on a hike down Bright Angel Trail, which took us down partway into the canyon on a beautiful switch-back type trail. The hike back up was tough, but so fun! It took about 3 hours round trip, but the kids were great hikers!