Call Me Crazy!

Brian is a flight commander for the advanced soaring team at the Academy. Which basically means he's in charge of the glider team that does acrobatics and cross country competitions.  We knew that the odds of him traveling for an acro camp during spring break was pretty high. A few weeks prior to that we found out he'd be going to Arizona for said camp. It just so happened that Brady was on spring break for preschool, we had zero plans during this time, and it was not far from Brian's grandparents. "Would it be crazy if we came with?" I asked Brian one night. I got on Google, saw that it was 12 hours (!) away but hey, we've drive further than that before. So call me crazy but we made plans to go with on the trip too. Brian left on a Thursday and we had planned to leave on Sunday. Thursday morning I say goodbye to Brian and see Brady lying on the couch. "Mommy, my tummy hurts!" And then started throwing up. No. No. No!! It's like Murphy's law stuff has to happen when your significant other leaves!  I put some essential oils on him after he threw up again and after that he was as good as new! Luckily we all stayed healthy (thank goodness for my oils!) and we were able to leave Sunday morning bright and early.

Got our waffles, our sunglasses, and thumbs up! That's all you need for a long road trip!

I'd never driven through southern Colorado and it was just absolutely beautiful. We have a dvd player in the car and my rule is we need to drive at least 1-2 hours before we put a movie on. The drive just seems to go smoother if we follow that rule. Not even 30 minutes into our drive we had  a severe case of  the whines and "are we there yets" and the "she's looking at me's" started.  Which was not a good sign. We've driven and traveled a ton with these kids and normally they do really great. Yeah not so much this trip. So DVD player got fired up real quick.

Not long into our drive we crossed the border into New Mexico! It was our first time there so that was pretty exciting!

New Mexico wasn't super exciting but had some pretty views and was a lot more exciting than Kansas, Nebraska, or Iowa! 

We made it to our stop that night: Albuquerque. (Dang that is a hard city to spell. I think I used about 5 different spellings when texting friends and family that we made it there!). We drove about 5 and a half hours that day and man was I ready to jump ship. The kids have had better travels, that's for sure. No naps, lots of fighting, and lots of tears. Thank goodness the dog was being good at least! 

After a good night of sleep we jumped back in the car for Arizona! We had another beautiful day for traveling and I just prayed we would travel a little smoother.

We made it to Arizona! We drove through Flagstaff because I wanted to stay on big highways and went down south through Phoenix. Which added on an extra 30 minutes. Which was an extra 30 minutes of more tears, whining, and fun. And with stops it equaled about 9 hours of traveling. None of which was spent napping.

But we made it to Casa Grande! Our hotel was super nice and the first thing I did was hand those kiddos over to their daddy to take them swimming and take a few minutes for myself to re-group and regain some sanity. That mustache, though, it's out of control! 

After a good night of sleep I was feeling refreshed and we drove out to where they were flying. That's Brian in the front seat.

Brian's grandparents drove up and we watched them fly. Thank goodness Grandma brought bubbles. Those things provided hours of entertainment! That and the ground. They got themselves extra dirty playing with the desert.

That's their little trailer set-up which provided us some nice shade from the Arizona sun. That's Brian holding Rascal too. Rascal enjoyed sunbathing and getting attention from cadets.

After watching flying we headed to In-N-Out Burger. Yum, yum, yum! I wish I had some now!

After that it was more pool time. Brady decided it was finally cool to jump in and go under the water. He must have jumped 100 times!

Layla enjoyed swimming as well

They have so many awkward sibling pictures together. I could make an album.

Just choking her brother out. Don't mess with the Bean.

Next day we drove to the Phoenix area and hit up a park that had a train. That for some reason wasn't operating. So we enjoyed playing in the playground and walking around the lake. My sweet girl gets SO red in the heat. That's not sunburn, that's just how her (and I) get when we're in hot weather!

We also hit up a really nice outlet mall where it was deemed necessary that we get some ice cream. I didn't think the whole "giving up ice cream for Lent" thing through when we decided on this trip!

Rascal enjoyed the mall as well. He got lots of attention.

That night we went out for Mexican food and Layla took about 50 pictures identical to this.

And the next day, more pool time of course.

Brian flew about 12 hours every day (starting at 5 am) so we didn't get to see a ton of him but we appreciated the time we did get to spend together!

In front of our hotel, ha!

Swimming every day= good sleep every night. Thank goodness.

Layla got to try her first Krispy Kreme donut. Which she was not happy about me documenting.

And she spent a good majority of the time in the pool with just the right amount of time out of the pool "snacking".

The weather was just absolutely gorgeous the entire time we were there. 80's and 90's, no humidity, and sunny.

Thursday night we drove down to Tucson to see Brian's grandparents. First thing they did when we arrived? Get in the pool of course!

Grandma's roses are just beautiful!

We had a wonderful, delicious dinner and we are so, so glad we were able to spend time with them!

Brady and Layla just absolutely adores her great grandparents and I'm so glad they have great grandparents that they're able to spend time with!

The boys! 

We spent the rest of our trip relaxing, enjoying the sunshine, and being sassy.

Rascal watching Layla practice her sassy walks.

Such a wonderful trip!

Oh, but it's not over yet! Chocolate covered raisin faces and I decided to take the "scenic" drive home. Call me crazy part 2 tomorrow! :)