Adventure Week

Since this is the last week before school starts for the three oldest boys, we decided to have a week full of adventure days. Every day has been something a bit different and every day a surprise to the boys. It has really been a lot of fun and I think it is something we will continue each year.

Monday we kicked off the week with Gary taking half a day off and the six of us heading in to Flagstaff. The boys kept guessing what we were doing right up until we pulled into the movie theater parking lot. We saw Despicable Me and loved it. It had a great message and was pretty funny. All the boys loved the movie and loved their popcorn and drink just as much I think. Since we live so far away from a theater, this is a special treat for them.

After the movie, Gary and I stopped by the hospital to see a dear friend who is battling cancer and the boys didn't even complain once about hanging out in the car to watch a movie for a few minutes while we went in.

From there it was off to dinner. We really wanted to have a family favorite, Chinese, but still hadn't found a great place so we just started driving down Route 66 in hopes of seeing one we had missed before. Sure enough, the Golden Dragon had cars in the parking lot - a sure sign - and we enjoyed one of the best Chinese dinners we'd had in a long, long time. We'll go back for sure.

Tuesday it was just the boys and me and we headed off for the Tusayan Museum and Ruins and the Desert View Tower on the East side of the Grand Canyon National Park. Even though we drive by it every time we go to Utah or come home, we've never stopped. It was very interesting. The ruins were the homes of people living in this area in the 1100s and told about how they survived in this harsh climate using everything around them. Dylan wasn't thrilled but the older boys and I loved it. The tower was a bit more nerve racking for me. We climbed the stairs and the boys insisted on looking over the edge in the middle of the tower to see how far they had climbed. The tower was filled with drawings on the walls and ended with an awesome view of the canyon. A stop at the Desert View market for some rootbeer and lemonade capped off a great morning.

Wednesday I decided to visit another place we often drive by but have yet to stop and see. Yabba Dabba Doo is a Flintstone village in Valle, 30 minutes south of our house. It has all the homes you would see on the Flintstone cartoon and all are made of rock. It was.....interesting. If it hadn't been so hot and if there had been more than my kids there, we may have stayed more than the hour we did. It was a great place to use their imagination and they pretended to be all the characters in the cartoons. Not sure if the season pass we bought earlier in the spring was worth it though.

Thursday we decided to do an adventure evening instead of day so Gary could join us again. We headed to the Best Western where the local bowling alley is located. It was a blast! Gary helped Dylan push the ball down the lane and they were the only ones to break 100. The rest of us just did our best and almost broke 80. Yeah, we aren't entering the professional bowling circuit any time soon but it was a lot of fun. Gary and I asked each other why we hadn't taken advantage of that place sooner. I think we'll be back for sure, if only for date night.

Today we are off to Williams to the swimming pool. Tom's fourth grade teacher hosts a farewell party to all her outgoing fourth graders each year the week before school starts. We'll swim, eat pizza, swim some more, and just have a fun afternoon. Gary is even going to take half a day and join us. I'm not sure if it's because he wants to or he's afraid I won't be able to keep all four boys alive at a pool but either way we are excited he's coming.

Now that I see how much fun it is to have a week long adventure right before school, I'm already looking forward to adventure week next year. Now the challenge will be to find five more fun events that we haven't done yet or don't get a chance to do very often. Half the fun is discovering something together and listening to the boys try to guess what it is we are going to do!