Thanksgiving Adventure: The Grand Canyon

On Monday Cory and I set out on our next adventure. We drove to the Grand Canyon, which takes a little over 3 hours from where we live (unless you have a baby, then it takes about 4 hours). Cory's brother Kyle and his cousin Will met us there.

I am now realizing how easy traveling was before having children. Don't get me wrong, I love traveling with Joseph, but it takes a lot more planning when you have a child. Not only do we have to bring twice as much stuff, but we also have to stop more often. Here are some pictures of our trip. You might get an idea as to what I am talking about after you look at these photos :).

Here is Joey before we left for the Grand Canyon. In case you didn't know, the Grand Canyon is much colder than Phoenix. So we had to make sure Joseph was dressed properly. As you can see he is sporting his awesome hat our friends Adam and Megan bought him. I also have him dressed in a long sleeve shirt (We don't own many of these because it is so warm here). I even packed one extra one, just in case. Go mom right?....we will see about that :).


About 45 minutes into our drive, we had to pull over because it was time to feed the little man. So we pulled into a gas station, and when we pulled him out of the car seat, we found a lovely surprise...Blowout #1! He had poop (sorry if you don't like that word) all over his cute outfit I had dressed him in, not to mention his first of two long sleeve shirts we own :). So we cleaned him up and we put him in the second long sleeve shirt I brought. I was praying this one would not get pooped on. After we fed him and changed him again, we put him back in the car seat and got back on the road. About 1.5 hours later, Cory announced that he smelled pooh...so we decided we would be pro-active and get that diaper changed before it spread everywhere (sounds like a disease huh...haha). Well, when Cory pulled him out of the car seat, we were very surprised to see we were too late. It had spread up to his armpit!!!! There went the last long sleeve shirt I packed. Luckily I had two more t-shirts packed for him, but I was getting a little worried, because at this rate, he would be out of clothes in another two hours :). Below are pictures of daddy changing Joey and Joseph's back before being wiped down.

Most rubbed onto his shirt :)

We finally got back on the road and made it to the BEAUTIFUL Grand Canyon! Isn't God just AMAZING! Wow, it is so breath-taking. Cory had never been, so he was pretty excited. Like I said before, it was very cold. We had to wrap Joseph up in fleece blankets. He looked pretty cute.

Here is a picture of our little family. We have better ones on Kyle's camera (when I get them I will post them). Joey was sleeping during this picture, so we kept him in the stroller. Cory insisted that we have the stroller in the picture because he wanted him in it. When I told him no one would be able to see him, he said "They will know what is inside the stroller." haha....

Originally, we planned to have dinner with Kyle and Will and then we were going to drive home. This was before we realized that with a baby it takes about 4 hours. As we were driving to the Grand Canyon, we talked about how driving to the G.C. and back in one day was almost like driving all the way to Spokane and back in one day, which we would never do. After we made that realization we decided to get a cheap hotel room and stay the night. Kyle and Will went in with us and we got a room with two beds for $40.00! Pretty good deal. I had to post a picture of the walls in the hotel room. I guess you get what you pay for...haha

We went to a pizza place for dinner and then came back to the hotel and talked for a little bit and then watched a movie. It was fun to catch up with Kyle and Cousin Will :). Here is a pic of Cory and Kyle....

And here is a pic of Cousin Will and myself.

Joey was exhausted when we got to the hotel and pretty much slept from 9:30pm-9:00am with a feeding at 11pm and 6am. He was a trooper. He was so happy when he woke up this morning, so I couldn't help but snap a picture of his cute face :)

Overall, we had a super time. We can't wait for our next adventure...which will be making our first Thanksgiving Dinner!