Trip Havasu

A real doozy of a post!  A kajillion pictures.  A kajillion thoughts and memories. 

So take a breath in, and....

Let's begin.

Cruzie's position of choice

 

The ride down was OK.  It was a 2 day process, and for the most part the kids did pretty good.  Jude and I rode down with this bunch.  The only real issue was putting Jude right next to Cruz--rear facing in the car seat.  This meant they stared right at each other the whole trip.  Towards the end, each time Jude would go to fall asleep, Cruz would reach out and yank his hand--crying and screaming would result.  Then things would calm down, and Cruzie would yell, "OUTTTTTTTT."  This cycle had Rach and me both asking, "Are we there yet??"  This is the technique I came up to control the situation.

It's simply called red licorice.   And it's pretty fail-proof.  We got it dialed in for the rest of the trip and put Jude in the other car or in a different row than Cruz. 

Once there, we basically did these thing: lounging, pooling, ghost-towning, London bridging & laking.  

Us LOUNGING.

 

 Jude took his meals on-the-go and on-the-floor.  It wasn't til the end of the trip that I realized I coulda brought the stroller up from the car and used that as a high-chair...I don't claim to be the world's best mom, only Jude's best mom--and it's a learning process.  Happy to report that he made it out disease free!

Mr. Fraggley Fraggler

My mom bought paper and markers so that Ava (and the rest of us) could draw pictures to remember our trip and make a book out of it.  This is Ava & Jude rocking some serious eye-liner and mascara.  Best of friends.  She really is so sweet with him and he giggles at the sight of her.  Really cute.

Us POOLING

 Jude loved the pool and the first afternoon basically didn't stop shrieking and kicking.  Towards the end of the trip, he more or less just chilaxed in his floaty--taking in all the sites in typical Jude fashion.

Never too old for a floatie...

The tanners working on their tans.

Rachel marveled at Jude, because while mobile, he still preferred to do mostly this:  sit and watch and eat crackers.

Can't forget about those frozen Caprisuns!

 These floaties are the best things!  So easy to blow-up and look--they double as shade tents!

Us GHOST-TOWNING

A Nice Burro

Jude was smiling until the shoot-out began

 

Sadly, these are the only pics I have from the ghost town.  I think I was still a bit traumatized...due to the "Bad Burro."  We did end up watching the town shoot-out, getting sasparilla, and dressing up in old-timey outfits to get our picture taken--maybe one day I'll scan it in. 

This is Ava's interpretation of the "incident" we witnessed when we hit up the ghost town.  It's pretty spot-on if you ask me.  Notice the wolf-like teeth.

We had been in the ghost town 5 minutes, when 2 male (of course!) burros got in a fight.  I thought the whole burro crew would freak and go into a stampede.  I booked it with Jude to safer territory and watched as this one particular donkey knocked this old lady--she flew through the air--and then proceded to trample and bite her until her husband could shew him away.  It was intense and freaking SCARY!   These burros are wild, so after this all happened, they just continued on roaming the town.  We heard that "bad burro" he-hawing the whole afternoon.  Thank goodness Chris was there to force us girls to walk up and down Main Street, cause we ain't no sissies (but OK, we kinda are). 

Us LONDON-BRIDGING

You better believe we sang "London Bridge is Falling Down" every time we drove across this randomly placed bridge.  I forget the facts on how much it took to transport and then rebuild, but I'll always remember that it still has no business in the desert of Arizona.  Random for sure. 

 

Us LAKING

Spent one day at the beach:

Paybacks a bitch, Chris.

So happy we rented a plontoon boat and went out cruising!  We all forgot how fun it is to jump into a lake off a boat.  Jude would get up and dance when he heard the music blasting .  Cruzie didn't sit still for a bit, and neither did Slade.  And, of course, Chris did the driving (can't tell you how many family pics we have of him behing the boat-drivin' wheel). 

 

Now I see where Cruz gets his fraggleness. ;)

 

I'm sure I need to add more stories, and details--just for memories sake.  But, this is where I'll leave this monstrous Lake Havasu post:  it was fun just hanging out and being a family again...waking up with Rach and the kids next door, Chris making me the best eggs, Redbox movies at night, finding out Chris' fave candy is Gummi Bears (umm, what?!?), finding out that Torrey is a serious giggler and can't sleep without an airplane in her room (aka giant-ace fan), watching Chris play super heros with Slade, etc, etc.  Twas fun!

PS--for documenting purposes, some phone pics I sent Dave who had to stay home and work.  We all missed him mucho, and Juju couldn't stop smiling at him when we got back home. 

PPS--Because I have no shame, this is what I get for falling asleep in the car when my brother is around.  Nice.