Fun in the Sun

Last week Caiden and I took a trip down to sunny AZ to visit my sister Tara and her family. As always, the week went by WAY too fast, but we still had so much fun!!! I always enjoy my visits with them and wish we lived closer to each other.

Both flights were great! I have appreciated flying Southwest lately for two reasons:

1. Generous baggage allowance - comes in particularly handy when flying solo with the boy.
2. Recent experiences have been great w/r/t take off and landing.

It's always nice when I have fellow passengers tell me what a well behaved baby Caiden is. I am trying so hard to not be "that parent" or to have "that kid" on these flights! I know I hated being stuck by kids when flying especially when the kids misbehaved and the parents did nothing about it. But I digress.

We flew in on St. Patrick's day and arrived in the afternoon. Tara and the kids picked us up and we enjoyed a nice afternoon/evening hanging out and getting settled in. Wednesday was a nice relaxing day and we got to enjoy some time hanging out at a local park. On Thursday we drove down to Phoenix and checked out the butterfly exhibit at the Desert Botanical Gardens at Papago Park. The Botanical Gardens were made especially cool by exhibiting work from visiting glass artist Dale Chihuly (a prominent NW glass artist). His collection is called The Nature of Glass and it was amazing! The butterflies were really cool to see too and my nephew Christian managed to get 4 to land on him! I took lots of pictures and enjoyed watching Caiden looking at the butterflies fluttering about.

Friday was our big trip up to the Grand Canyon. I've been to AZ 6 or 7 times now, and believe it or not I had yet to see the Grand Canyon! We really lucked out and had some gorgeous weather. It was 70 degrees with bright blue skies. We went to the south rim entrance and wow. Just wow. I could not get over how breathtakingly beautiful it was! The vivid colors of the canyon walls combined with the sheer size and depth of the canyon itself was just amazing. My pictures simply do not do it justice. I wish we could have seen more of it, but we had to leave after about 3-4 hours to make sure we could get Caiden home and in bed at a reasonable hour so that he wouldn't be a handful on the plane ride home.

This was definitely a fantastic trip! Some favorite moments include:

• Sitting out on the back porch swing with Caiden in my lap. We were looking out thru the view fence and swinging back and forth. Caiden was so content to just be in my lap and snuggling with me while we just chilled for awhile. It was so sweet and peaceful!
• Watching Caiden and Christian play together. Christian (who is 9) was SO good with him, and I could tell Caiden really liked being around him.
• Spending some good quality time with my sister, whom I miss dearly.

Here is the link to all the photos.

Caiden and me at the Grand Canyon

The Beckers at the Grand Canyon

Caiden and me

Me at the Botanical Gardens

Tara and me at the Botanical Gardens

Christina & Christian catching butterflies

Buckeye Butterfly

Playing at the park

Me and the boy

Christian & Caiden playing (& Lexi too)