Pinetop

We went for about a week long trip up to Pinetop at the beginning of July with my mom and dad Dave. Me, Nic, Natalie, and Tom were up there the whole time (with all our kiddos), and then Abe and Scott joined us for the last couple days. We had LOTS of fun with all the kids, and enjoyed staying up late (later than our kids, at least) playing games, too.

Here we are all loaded up and ready for the trip!

Nichole and I rode together and let the kids watch some movies. For some reason, none of the kids really slept that much, so it was kind of a longer drive than we hoped....but we made it there!

One of the days we took the kids to the local firestation. They loved looking at the trucks, and even got to try on some of the fireman gear. Hudson absolutely would not try anything on. In fact, he even refused to stand by Brecken and Karsten when they had the gear on... oh well.

Hudson and Karsten had a fun time playing with their firefigher hats!

We also took a day and went down to the creek to do some fishing... there wasn't really a whole lot of fishing going on, though. The kids had fun getting wet and throwing rocks into the water. And yes, Hudson is holding some sort of moth or bug that he caught.

Hudson and Karsten were pretty good buddies at the creek.

We also went on a few nature walks around the cabin where we stayed. The first night we took them all and had them hold onto a 'rope' to stay together (we couldn't find any rope, so we used an extension cord...lol). Then another day we made some fun binoculars out of TP rolls and string. The kids had a fun time using them and looking for animals.

Another day we took them on an actual little hike. Uncle Tom served as our tour guide and helped teach the kids about some of the plants and things we were seeing. We even got to smell the trees that smell like vanilla... yummy. (the pictures on the top right crack me up because they are really typical of what you get when you try to have 4 kids 5& under pose for a pic)

And after all that fun in the outdoors, there's nothing like a good bath!!! (yay, clean children... at least until they wake up). My mom got these cute towels for the kids a while back... I think the bottom right one is funny because it looks like the dinosaur is eating the ladybug...)

They also have a fun go-kart place in pinetop. We went there a couple times and everyone loved it. The adults even got to go on the "fast track" without the kids once!

Hudson and his daddy

And a trip the cabin would not be complete without doing a little lizard catching. Abe caught this one, and then gave it to Hudson to hold (I was actually kind of surprised he held it because until then he had been pretty leary of actually touching them). The other kids thought it was cool, but didn't want to get near it... especially Karsten. He got kind of freaked out. The picture on the left cracks me up-- look at Karsten... he has to keep at least one eye on the lizard.

We had a super fun trip and I know the kids loved being able to get outside where it wasn't 115!! It was a nice escape and good time spent with family (not to mention all the yummy FOOD we ate...mmm...mmm)