arizona trip, part 3.

so like i said before, we didn’t go out much while on vacation in arizona. no need to when the house kept us plenty entertained.

except for one little outing. some might call it a field trip. others would have it on their bucket list. we figured we might as well since we were in the state and all…

it involved a train.

and it was headed to the…

and we tsais were on it!

daddy bought us seats in the part of the train that included complimentary refreshments for the two-hour ride. the kids thought these were chocolate muffins. they were bran. they ate half of ’em anyway. and were very regular that day, as i recall.

looking out the window was entertaining.

as was this accordion-playing grandma. after she finished the last verse of “she’ll be coming around the mountain” (which was, “and we’ll have to sleep with grandma when she comes, aw man! and we’ll have to sleep with grandma, we’ll have to sleep with grandma, we’ll have to sleep with grandma when she comes. she snores!”) allie matter-of-factly informed her loudly enough for the whole car to hear, that her mommy snores when she sleeps, too. everyone had a good laugh at that. thanks, allie.

and finally, the iphone came out to keep ’em entertained and quiet, much to my shredded dignity’s relief.

ahhh, enjoying the moment of peace with a cozily sleeping baby and a cup of complimentary fruit.

and finally, we reached our destination.

where i vainly attempted to get a family photo.

and where phil contemplated God’s creation whilst sitting on the very edge of it. juuust kidding, there was another large ledge just below him. but still, this definitely made my fingers and spine tingle.

especially when mikey wanted to go contemplate with him.

father and son. contemplating.

har har har, hardy har har. father of my children, you so funny, ha ha ha.

we took her all the way to see the grand canyon and what did she want to do? play in the dirt and collect dusty rocks. of course.

jonah, too, was in a contemplative mood that day.

second vain attempt at a family photo.

knowing when to throw in the towel?

golden.

mikey wished to see the grand canyon through a telescope. i wished for a picture of him seeing the grand canyon through a telescope. both wishes were granted that day.

i also wished for a picture of my monkeys in their sibling shirts. that wish didn’t quite work out.

and on the train ride back, what should we see but a renegade cowboy comin’ to rob us!

our car’s hostess informed us that we were going to be robbed shortly and it would be the most orderly robbing we’d ever be part of. she instructed us to look out the window and ignore the cowboys if we didn’t want to take part. they would leave us alone. but if we were interested in being robbed, then we should put a dollar somewhere visible on our person. these would be the friendliest robber cowboys we were about to meet and it was going to take a while since they had to get through the whole long train before they got to us.

it took a long while. long enough to build lots of anticipation…

and dread.

we was a-quakin’ in our boots! if we was a-wearin’ boots, that is.

lauren (having missed her nap) wasn’t in the best mood for this and wanted to hide in the little space behind our seats so she wouldn’t even have to look at the bad cowboys. allie came with her to protect her. and hide too, just in case the cowboys were really scary.

the cowboy that came to our car was really scary! so scary he even paused for a photo op for me! (that’s what a dollar’ll get ya in these here parts).

ok so we adults and possibly mikey and allie were entertained by this, but it turns out lauren is decidedly NOT a fan of cowboys (based on this experience and a similar one on the knotts berry farm train). so now we get to add cowboys to her list of not-favorite things, which also include drive-thru carwashes and mascots with big heads.

i was pretty bummed we didn’t get to stay at the grand canyon for sunset (we had to be on the train at 3:30pm). but we did get treated to a beautiful sunset on the drive back to the vacation house.