Ever Petted a Deer?

We visited a deer petting farm while we were in Arizona this past weekend. I had never petted a deer before and thought hey that might be kind of neat for the kids. The kid's did enjoy it. They were able to pet and feed the deer.

Deer are not that soft like they look, there fur is very wirery. They were all very friendly and very hungry!



Cody feeding the deer.

Chase feeding the deer.

Tatum feeding the deer.

Tyler feeding the deer.

On this petting farm there were also pigeon's, buffalo, peacocks, goats, pot belly pigs, camels, and many other animals.

On Tuesday, when Chase and Cody went back to school this is the one thing that stuck in their head and Cody told his teacher that he fed a deer.

Fishing

On last Sunday, while we were visiting Williams, AZ, we went fishing at White Horse Lake. Now White Horse Lake was about 10 miles from where we were camping. We could have taken actual roads to get there, but decided that a forest service road would a better route in the jeeps. This was a red hard packed dirt road that was awesome. The beautiful pine trees and the big and little house's nestled in the pine trees were spectacular.

When we arrived at White Horse Lake, this is what we found:



A beautiful lake with lots of fish, they said. There was a lot of people fishing. We found our good spot and started to put together fishing poles.


This is what Dennis is doing in this picture, of course he always had one (or two) kids around him waiting for their turn to fish.

In the meantime, Tatum had the container full of live worms and decided to open them and dump them out (I didn't get a picture) but it was too cute, she kept walking around saying "Ot-Oh", we figured out what she did after a few minutes. Only a few worms got away in the big escape.

Also Steve cut is middle finger with his knife pretty bad. It probably took us (him) an hour to get the bleeding stopped. It finally stopped bleeding, I really thought we were going to have to find the closest medical center for some stitches, but it has been healing good.


You can see him in this picture with his hand up but also fishing.

Cody has Tatum's fishing pole here and trying to catch a shark (that's what he told me!).

Here are some other pictures of us fishing:

Chase

Steve and Cody trying to catch the big one.

Cody fishing.

Every time we would get the fishing line casted for the boys, they would start reeling in and somehow get the fishing line so tangled up that it would take another 15 minutes to get it untangled.

About 2 hours after we got there, we looked over to our left and realized that a lot of the other people fishing had left because in the sky there was a huge thunder cloud as dark as night, over head. You should have seen us grab the kids and our fishing poles and we got out of there. It had taken us 2 hours to set everything up and probably 2 minutes to get out of there and to the car. It was probably a sight to see from a distance!

Needless to say, we never did catch any fish, but what an experience.

Visting the Grand Canyon

Over the weekend, we went camping in Williams, AZ, which is about 1 hour from the Grand Canyon. We went to the Grand Canyon on Saturday, the weather when we left our campground was starting to clear up from the morning rain. As we arrived at the Grand Canyon beautiful sky and white fluffy clouds, weather was good. The park was very crowded, which I suspect is the normal.

I had never been to the Grand Canyon before, what an amzing sight. Here are some of the pictures I took.

Chase, Tatum, and Cody

Steve and Chase

Everyone

As we were leaving, it started to get very cold, and this huge thunderstorm cloud, moved in on top of us. It poured rain and hail for about 20 minutes as we wre driving. It was really loud in the jeep and as it was letting up and stopping Chase says "Do it again Daddy!" He thought it was pretty cool!

Sunday's Travels

Yes, if you haven't guessed it yet, we are going to the Grand Canyon today. I am so excited to be able to see the big hole in the earth.

We will be driving there ourselves and spending some time looking around and taking pictures. I am hoping to see some of the beautiful animals that can seen there, like the bald eagle or the falcon.

The length of the grand canyon is 277 miles, the width is on average 15 miles wide.

I will not have Internet service, which I totally bummed about, and I will miss all of you.

Saturday's Fun

*We will be fishing today in White Horse Lake.

*Chase and Cody can't wait to use there new fishing poles.

*We will be going into town and seeing the railroad that runs to the edge of the "a large natural formation that can be seen from space".

Friday's Travel's

*We are going to be driving another 4 hours today.

*We will arrive in our KOA campground.

*We will be at a elevation of about 7000 feet.

*The town where we are staying is the last town in America on Route 66 to be bypassed by Interstate 40.

Where are we going?

This afternoon, we are leaving for a family vacation on the long weekend.

I thought I would make a little game out of it and have people guess where we are going. I will give you a few hints throughout the weekend.

*Tonight, we are driving about 4 hours, just to get "out of town".

*We live in Southern California.

*We are taking the motorhome and going camping in a campground.

The Last Days of Vacation

On Thursday we arrived in Nawillwill, Kauai at about 8am. Very pretty island called the "Garden Isle".

We went to the beach today. The beach that we went to was Kalapaki Beach about a 10 minute walk from the ships terminal. What a beautiful place. The water was warm and very clear again.

Chase and Cody played in the sand and a little bit of the water. They did go in the water with dad after getting used to it and they even went for a little dunk under water. It was a warm day but perfect for playing a digging in the sand!!

Thursday night we went to a official Luau. The entertainment was very good. The fire throwers and all the dancers were very good.

Chase and Cody slept through the majority of the Luau. They music and dancing woke them up, but this is what they looked like sleeping through dinner (which was not so good).

On Friday, Shannon and I took the boys back by the beach. We had a really good hamburger and fries from a little local restruant. Chase and Cody shared a vanilla shake. As we walked back we bought some souvieners and looked around in some shops. It was a perfectly relaxing day.

We left Kauai at 2pm. Going away from the island this is what you see. It is called something but I can't remember, but it is pretty.

We debarked the ship on Saturday and spent another day hanging out at the hotel before our plane left on Sunday morning for home. We sure all had a good time. It was great spending time with family.

Vacation Day 6

We were in Kona, Hawai'i today, Wednesday. We arrived here at 7am. The weather was very hot and humid today. To get off the ship we had to take a tender boat, which is actually one of the life boats that they use to transfer the people from the boat to shore. They had to do this because the water was very shallow and the ship couldn't make it all the way in to shore. The best thing about this is that we were able to see up close how pretty the water was. We could see to the bottom of the ocean.

The pictures don't capture it as well as thought it would, but it was very pretty.

Since it was so hot we didn't spend much time outside on this island. We walked around a little bit - a lot of this island is uphill. We went back to the ship early enough for Chase and Cody to be able to swim in the little kids pool. They had fun doing that and wish we had done it earlier in the trip. The pool was only 8" deep and had this little slide in it. They played int his pool for about 2 hours. They wer eboth very hungry and tired after this.

Tonight we went for dinner at East meets West. It was very simular to Benihana. The food was good. I had steak and chicken and both were good. We went to the Magic of Chris Mitchell show and it wasn't complety good. It lacked the actual magic but the guys was a little funny. We also had a few drinks before picking up the boys from Kids Club.

Tonight the boys were having a circus. They dressed up like clowns, played games, had a circus tent and got prizes. They brought back beach balls and buckets and shovels. Here is the Chase the Clown (without his hair on):

Cody and Chase as clowns

Vacation Day 4 & 5

Monday we are still in Kahului, Maui. Today we visited one of Maui's most beautiful and popular attractions. At the Maui Tropical Plantation, we enjoyed a fully narrated 40-minute tram tour of the plantation's agricultural villages, macadamia nut orchards, sugar cane fields and flower gardens, and even see demonstrations of coconut husking and a fruit tasting. They grew coffee, avocados, and lots of flowers. The plantation was very interesting and we learned a lot of things. Like pineapple doesn't grow on a tree it grows in the ground with just the crown showing. The plantation also had two monkey and Chase liked watching the monkeys swinging and jumping around. Chase and Cody had a lot of land to run around in.

Cody Running Around

Very Cool Monkey

Tonight back on the ship, was formal night. I had decided that the boys needed to go to the Kids club again while we ate dinner and then I would go and get them dressed in their suits for family pictures. We were dressed up in suits and long dresses. We went to dinner at the main dining room called "Skyline". Food was delicious and even the waiter was a good server. Dinner was the best so far in my opinion. We got the boys dressed and we took pictures and took the boys back to Kids Club.

Chase and Cody after a long evening of playing.

Tonight's theme at Kids Club was Prince and Princess. And they were dressed just like a prince in their suits. They made crowns out of paper with beads and glitter. They even had a parade through the ship to show off everyone crowns.

We went to The Not-So-Newlywed Game. They took 4 couples that had volunteered out of the audience and hide one half -the guys first- and asked the women questions about their relationships to how they met. The guys then came out to try to come up with the same answers. Then the men were asked questions and the women had to match their husbands answers. It was very cute on how the answers were different and some were the same!! Good time at that show.

Monday night we set sail at 6pm for Hilo, Hawaii.

Tuesday when we woke up we were in a totally different place. Hilo, Hawaii (The Big Island) is more industrial then Maui.

This was the second largest city in Hawaii with about 38,000 people living here. Hilo is America's wettest city, over 120" annually. So today, we decided to check out a beach one the bartenders had said was very pretty. It was called "The Black Sand Beach". The sand is black because it is made up of crushed volcano rock, Lava. The sand is very course, the water cold but pretty scenery. We played in the sand and some of us got into the water. I guess once you got into the water, it was warmer but I couldn't get past the cold part.

We also went into the town of Hilo and did some shopping. We were craving some Mexican food and margaritas. Found a local Mexican food restaurant and had a good lunch there and some even better margaritas. We all bought souvenirs, clothes, and candy walking along the street in downtown Hilo.

Tonight's dinner was at Little Italy. The food was good there. After dinner we sat at the Aft party bar and had some cocktails and listened to the water. We were already on our way to the next stop Kona, Hawaii.

The boys were in Kids Club again having a great time dressing up like Pirates. They also were having cookies and pictures with the captain of the ship. They said that they might be able to drive the ship also. I don't think they trusted them enough to do that. I bet you that Cody would be able to drive it better than the Captain himself!! Chase and Cody brought home there treasures from the treasure hunt also. They brought back beads, balls and shoelaces. They also had there faces painted like a real pirate!!

Cody