Mid-June we had the opportunity to head down to Phoenix for a week and a half to spend a few days with the Murphy's and then head to Flagstaff for the very first official Willman family reunion (four of the five siblings are currently living out of state-and all but one may not be coming back). We haven't been down to Phoenix since last summer (since we decided to stay in Provo fr Christmas last year), which makes the longest amount of time we have gone without a road trip since we moved to Utah! While we do miss our families, I am still super okay with that in a lot of ways.
We planned a stop in Kanab at a little park that has a splash pad as our halfway lunch break.
The day before our trip Waits came down with a very mysterious and very high temperature. As soon as we got in the car the next day to start our 12 hour trip, the mystery was solved when he started coughing like a seal. Our poor boy had croup and was so, so miserable. We got to my parents house at around 6 pm and after no more than a 10 minute nap in the car, little Waits couldn't even fall asleep because his fever was so high (even after giving him medicine) and he could barely breathe. When it got to the point that we realized 1) he wasn't going to sleep and 2) even if he did fall asleep, we would be far too afraid to leave him, we decided to head into the ER (some ibuprofen and steroids did the trick to bring down his fever and help him breathe better. Though, they didn't tell us that our sleep-deprived baby would only crash for a few hours before being up all night as a result of the steroids, making the next day even rougher than the night before for both mama and the little guy). This poor sweet boy of ours was feeling so lousy, every nurse or hospital worker could see it in his eyes as soon as they walked in.
And of course there is no such thing as a quick in-and-out trip to the emergency room. We spent about the next hour and a half sitting in a triage room with a very sick, extremely exhausted one year old that doesn't want to be put down, but because he is just so uncomfortable, really doesn't want to be held, either. What you see in this video became the only way to sooth him, just walking around and letting him touch the walls. I didn't start recording until about 5 minutes into it- he wanted Kyle to keep doing this for a loooong time!
And in case you were wondering, he stayed sick with a fever for the entire 10 day trip. While feeling so bad for him and how miserable he definitely felt, it was also quite challenging to have a baby/toddler that won't let you set him down. ever. And you are constantly afraid of him getting all 15 cousins sick and your siblings and siblings-in-law hating you for it. It definitely added an interesting dynamic to our little vacay, you could say. One I would be thrilled to never repeat again!
Unfortunately, we don't have very many pictures of our time spent with the Murphy family over the next 5 days. There was a lot of hang-outs and play dates and dinners, but nothing that you would normally think to pull out your camera and document. So, that's that.Though we did have the opportunity to get family pictures taken again this year, but that will be in a different post (coming next!). Here is a little preview (taken from our phone):
About five days into our trip, we switched gears and began our trip up to Flagstaff to spend a few days at a cabin with the Willman side of the family. Since we weren't able to to check in to the cabin until 4 pm, Kyle's dad thought it would be neat to for the family to make a detour to Payson to have one last look at their Grandpa Willman's cabin (that he built himself! A few pictures of which can be seen here), and make a stop at the Payson Fish Hatchery, which was totally free (other than buying fish food) and the kids had a lot of fun seeing all of the fish and being able to feed them.
[This was also the day that Jovi started getting a fever and runny nose, too. She ended up missing the entire time spent at Grandpa Willman's cabin, and I sat in the car with her while she slept.]
Checking out a pond of fish at the hatchery:
Feeding and watching the fish:
We spent a week in Flagstaff with more of Kyle's extended family for a reunion two summers ago, and one of the activities we did that everyone really enjoyed, and we decided to repeat this summer was the Grand Canyon Deer Farm.
Here are the cousins, hanging out and posing on some of the fun props and equipment they have sitting out front while we wait to get in:
Since Kyle had the camera, and I spent most of my time helping Minnette, Aurelle and Jovi once we got into the deer petting/feeding area, most (or ALL) of the pictures we have are of Waits. Considering Minnette, Aurelle and Jovi were all pretty scared of the deer, especially the idea of feeding them, as they often are weary of most animals (cats and dogs included), it was so surprising to us that Waits wasn't afraid of them at all!
The deer will usually leave you alone until they see that you have food for them, at which point they will surround you, start pushing each other out of they way, and even start pushing you to give them food, which is what scares the girls the most. Not Waits.
This is basically exactly how he reacted the entire time he was feeding the deer. When other deer would approach the stroller and try to get at the food, too, he would literally grab their noses and push them away! It was so funny.
He is still not feeling very well, so though he wasn't scared and crying about the deer, he wasn't acting very excited about them either!
Minnette did eventually warm up to the idea of feeding the deer (No pictures or videos of that, though. Sad. I love to see our children overcome their fears!), though 'kissing a camel' (feeding it a carrot out of your mouth) was definitely still not happening, no matter how much I tried to encourage it! I just wish I would have done it. Lead by example, right?
Here's a little video of Waits feeding the deer in action. Can you believe it?:
Besides being able to feed and pet the deer, there is also a small zoo of other small animals to walk around and look at, and before you leave there is a talking cockatoo. Aliyah and Minnette had fun trying to get it to talk to them. In this video you can hear it saying, "Polly want a cracker?" back to them a couple times.
One of the afternoons we headed to a local park to kill some time before dinner and let the kids burn off some energy. You can see just how great both Jovi and Waits were feeling at this point of our trip:
They both sat in these swings the entire time we were at the park. Mommy did a lot of swing-pushing.
I am almost positive that this was one of the maybe three smiles seen from Waits during the entire vacation:
I am almost positive that this was one of the maybe three smiles seen from Waits during the entire vacation:
The last day of our reunion we headed to the The Lowell Observatory, which during the day isn't all that fun and exciting, at least for young kids. There ended up being a lot of this happening:
But luckily your admission fee covers you for the entire day and we were able to head back later that night, after dark, with the older kids (Waits and Jovi were sleeping) and see Mars, Saturn, a star cluster (that appeared to be a very faint cloud that was actually more than 150,000 stars all gravitationally bound to each other!), and a binary star system (two starts that rotate around each other), and the closest star to earth, I believe, though I can not remember what it was called. It was really neat, and Minnette and Aurelle really enjoyed it.
Since we were already two hours north of Phoenix, we decided to start our road trip back to Provo straight from the cabin. The next morning we headed back home. Having done five to six week long summer trips in the past, I told Kyle that we could do no longer than 1 1/2 to 2 weeks this time around, and our little ten day trip, though busy and super-packed with activities, turned out to be the perfect amount of time for me (mentally) and our little family (sleep and diet wise). We were sad to leave our families behind, yet again, but oh-so glad to be home again and get back to our own food, sleep, play, and everything-else-routines!
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