Allen

My favorite time of day. Even when he sings A Boy Named Sue. :) He still can't sing that without laughing. No idea how Johnny Cash did it!
But I love his music in the background. Jack curls up and goes to sleep too. :)

Family fun

We were sad to miss the FOTR rally in Florida this year, but very happy to get to spend time with 6 families in our campground in Arizona. And when a few families sadly pulled out, more pulled in! So we've had lots of time to chat, play, eat, fix things, compare notes and just enjoy each other. We also learned that when Kimberly Travaglino says "Hey, you wanna have a pizza & game night?" she has something up her sleeve! We had one heckuva game night with 4 families and both kids and adults had a ball! Balloons, bananas, toilet paper, pretzels, candy, straws, popsicle sticks, cups, dice, prizes - she had it all - and it all had a purpose - and it all was hilarious!
It's so fun to have all these families around us! Whether it's a loaf of bread, curtains, a screen door, dog walking, or a fuel filter, there's someone to help, watch, advise, or laugh at. And the kids have so many options! When they walk outside, they have a hard time choosing what to play first, where, and with whom.
We're hoping to catch some of the RVing families now in Florida when we head east, but for now, we're very grateful for the families here in the west. We're blessed to know so many fulltime families on the road!
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Breakfast with 5 RVing families

We had a small RVing families gathering for breakfast at the campground lodge. If you consider 5 families and 22 kids small anyway. :) The Northams and my brother Ryan were leaving, and the Garrisons and Ticknors just arrived, so it was a great time to say hi, bye, and eat up! The Travaglinos and Lundys seem to not feel like moving lately. :) We took electric griddles and the kids made pancakes, eggs, and bacon for us!
My brother got to experience a week in the life of a traveling Lundy and commented a few times on the camaraderie of RVing families. We tend to take it for granted, but it's been so great having other families close by. Borrowing eggs, extra playmates, communal meals, maintenance helpers, manual labor, adult conversation... it really is nice having neighbors!

Sedona hike, Cathedral Rock again

Because we're insane stupid adventurous, we took Ryan to climb back up Cathedral Rock in Sedona. We really wanted him to experience a great hike and view, and I have a feeling Allen wanted to kill him just a little. Some of the Ticknor men came with us this time and again it was excruciating fun! We're always representing. Go Bucks!
We, fine, okay, they spent some time searching for a geocache, which we're pretty sure is gone, or invisible. I'm not sure about that, but I am pretty sure Dana wouldn't have enjoyed watching her boys searching for it on this mountain!
Rocking my camera fanny pack. Yeah, you can't really rock one of these things, they're ugly! But I sure love it for hiking. Especially when we climb and I need both hands. Avoiding death by falling trumps pretty camera bag in this case.
Cactus eating survival lesson. We also had a honeycomb lesson.
At one point, we were resting, and well, maybe feeling a little proud of our private spot, off the beaten path where few dare to climb, when we noticed a climber, above us. Way above us! Then we felt like mere hikers again. :)
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Allen's black eye

While chopping firewood for our New Years Eve fire, poor Allen took a chunk of wood to the eye! Very fortunately, he always wears eye protection, or this could have been worse. It swelled shut for a few days, but healed very nicely. He just wasn't very pretty for a while!! Almost back to normal, which, well, you know... :)

Grand Canyon National Park, in the winter

After Sunset and Wupatki, we hit the Grand Canyon, this time coming in from the east side instead of the south. We had lovely views coming in of the Little Colorado River and its smaller (but huge) canyons. Since it's off-season now, the park was much less crowded and we could drive many (not all) of the roads instead of taking the shuttles.It's an interesting national park because you're "just" looking at one thing, and the view doesn't change much for miles. Granted, that one thing is completely amazing of course, it's just so big, wide, deep, and well, grand. The kids really prefer parks where they have to explore to get to the treasures. So after a short while they get bored, which is frustrating, but understandable. It was also freezing.
We stayed for the sunset and it's neat to see the colors change over the whole canyon.
We're still anxious for when we can take a few days and hike to the bottom! That's more our style.
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Video of the sunset. It starts pretty dark in the west, but lightens up!

Grand Canyon

Cute family pic right?
Until you see where they climbed to take it.
This is what my people do. And taking pics of that is what I do. :)

Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument

On our way to the Grand Canyon, we saw a sign for Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument. We had no idea it was there, so we stopped to check it out. We wanted to show Uncle Ryan the diversity of Arizona and here we had no idea there was a volcano with great lava flows to hike in nearby!Then we learned there was another stop, Wupatki National Monument, with many Indian ruins after a beautiful drive, just a little out of our way. Yes, please!
So before our day even began, we'd already had a great one!

Jerome snow & sledding, our private winter wonderland

My brother Ryan came to visit us for a week! The kids wanted to sled and we wanted Ryan to experience the fun of wearing shorts, then driving up the mountain to play in snow an hour later, so we headed up to Jerome. We had to drive quite a bit higher this time to find enough snow, then we hit the jackpot! We saw a sign for Mingus Recreation Area and checked it out. Turns out there is a (closed) campground (soooo not for RVs!) and a lake, on top of the mountain! We found a great place to sled and had a ball. Then we walked to the lake and found it completely frozen over, so we had another ball!
Uncle Ryan and Matt tried some fancy moves. They didn't end well.
After we'd frozen to death our fun, we walked around Jerome a bit. It's a very cool town literally built into the side of the mountain (needed years ago for the copper mines). The houses are feet from the road in front and appear to be one story, but then you see the backs around a corner and they're 3-5 stories high built into the mountain. And lots of interesting little shops.
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Some videos of the sledding. Allen:


Josh missing Matt, but not Lizzy:


Josh & Matt together:

Sedona hike, Cathedral Rock

Our Ohio kayaker friend Kathy stopped by for a few days on her way to California, so we got to show her around. (The kids were especially happy as she's one of the Dayton OAC members who spoiled them rotten, plus she has awesome dogs.) We visited Montezuma Castle and Montezuma Well the first day. Then we went to Sedona for some crazy hiking/climbing up Cathedral Rock and then some crazy dirt road driving to more climbing. Maybe not the best thing for Kathy's fear of heights, but I know she enjoyed the views! Its funny, the heights don't bother me, but I wouldn't go near some of the whitewater she kayaks! :) The Northam girls went with us too and we all had a great time!
Here are a few favorites:
Panoramic with 6 pics. You just can't capture the breadth of it!
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