Death Valley

Today we went to Death Valley in California for free fee weekend.  After a 2.5 hour drive we arrived at Furnace Creek Visitor Center, grabbed a park map, picked a trail and headed out.  This was the first time using the backpack carrier for Ty – he did great.  He put up a little fuss getting put in it, but then really enjoyed our three mile hike up the canyon.

This was stop on a scenic drive – at the top of this little hill people had stacked all kinds of different sized rocks and Ty had to add a small rock to each stack.

Here are my boys at the beginning of the Golden Canyon trail.  It was a one mile hike to the end of the canyon.

We took some side trails too – well at least as far as we could before the openings got to small or high to climb safely with Ty in the backpack.

Ty fell asleep on the hike back down the canyon. It was so cute we just had to take a picture.

There are so many things to see in Death Valley.  After our hike our feet were tired so we did a little off roading. It was awesome!  It was late in the day and Ty was getting grumpy as it was way past naptime.  We were on the super bumpy road for about 5 minutes when we looked back and he was snoring while bumping around.  He slept like that for 45 minutes and only woke up when we decided to stop and head back.

This was a cool rock formation we saw on the way back to the main road.

 

We hope to go back again soon and explore more parts of the valley.

The Greatest Show on Earth!

Today we went to the circus! We went an hour early and got to walk down on the floor and see camels and ponies and even got to ride an elephant!  I was sure that Tyler would get scared and chicken out, but he walked right up the stairs and even sat on it by himself for a couple minutes.  It was the first time riding an elephant for both of us and we loved it.

Watching the elephants with our best friend Van.

Before the show got started we settled into our seats with a blue raspberry snow cone. It was delicious as you can see.

This was probably the coolest part of the circus – this is Bo the elephant. Sorry about the picture quality, this is the best we could get of the cool elephant part of the show.

December catch up!

The last month of the year just flew by! After returning from Missouri for Thanksgiving we stayed busy decorating for Christmas, finding Christmas presents and of course playing with Tyler's new Thomas train toys Grandma and Grandpa Gaither got him for Thanksgiving. Four days before Christmas we left for our Tahoe ski vacation...except there wasn't enough snow so we couldn't ski. But we still had fun hanging out in our hotel and exploring Lake Tahoe.

The first full day in Tahoe we did get to sled on some man made snow and Ty had a blast.

He loved the snow!

On our way back from a morning of sledding, we were starving and found cute hole in the wall called Freshies. For once I ordered the best entree on the minute - they had amazing fish tacos! I gave Jeremy a bite and he ended up eating the whole taco!

Later in the afternoon we rode the Heavenly Gondola. It was a 2.5 mile trip and took 12 minutes to get up the mountain. On the way up we got to ride in our own car and Ty had a ball looking out all the windows at the rocks, trees and snow. It was really cold on top of the mountain.

View from the top.

In searching for indoor activities on day two we found a really cool museum called Kidzone. We didn't think it would be much as we pulled into the parking lot - it looked really small. I think we were both expecting something more like the City Museum in St. Louis. It was small, but Ty had a blast and it wasn't busy so no fighting over toys. We spent at least 2 hours here before finding a cute little local Italian place.

They had a huge Thomas city built up – he could’ve spent the entire time there.

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at Emerald Bay and climbed around on the rocks overlooking Fannett Island (the only island on Lake Tahoe). 

The trees up there are just huge!

They make this castle look like a child’s toy.

After his bath he ran to the couch, picked up the phone (which we unplugged the second we got to our room the first day) and said bee boop bee boop bee boop. I said who are you calling. He said “Daddin!” in a of course mom, who else would I be calling voice.

We drove back home on Christmas Eve, did 5 loads of laundry and prepared for my family's arrival Christmas Day at 9am! Christmas morning we opened gifts from Jeremy's parents while skyping with them so they could watch Ty open his presents. Each present was Thomas themed. He loves Thomas the train!

He’s really got the hang of it now!

Thanks Aunt Nancy for Thomas, the pillow pet!

After my parents arrived we spent the afternoon at the park!

The day after Christmas my sister and husband arrived just in time for dinner. The next day we visited the lion exhibit at the MGM and tropical fish aquarium at Bass Pro.

Left: Karissa and Morgan teaching Ty how to splash water out of the fountain. Right: Tropical aquarium at Bass Pro.

The 27th we got going early and headed to Mount Charleston to go sledding. They have received record snow this year and the sledding was amazing. After eating our picnic lunch and breaking a sled, we headed back to our apartment - Ty was conked out before we even got out of the parking lot and slept the entire way home.

Ha – Karissa and I are behind that puff of snow! We ran off the path and hit a snow bank showering ourselves with snow. Karissa said she could steer….I think not.

Jeremy dominating the big hill!

We wish everyone a wonderful and happy new year!

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Chalk

Drawing some shoes on our chalk figure.