Grand Canyon | Thanksgiving Break 2017

Okay, here comes the first installment of posts from our Thanksgiving Break last week! In continuing our quest to make the most of our time stationed at Nellis & living out west, we wanted to make the trip to visit the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. {I'm not as National Park-saavy as Derek is, but the West Rim is only maybe 90min from us, but the South Rim is supposed to be the one you can't miss.} We opted to stay in Williams, AZ at the Grand Canyon Railway Hotel, which is about about 3-3.5hrs from us. Williams is a little old Western town located on historic Route 66, and they have daily train rides that take you into the Grand Canyon for a visit. They also do a fun Polar Express train ride during the holiday season, so we tacked that onto our visit, too!

Still can't believe we got to see the Grand Canyon & have this amazing experience with our kids at such a young age! Derek and I were laughing on this trip trying to list off all of the adventures sweet little Brady has already been on in his short 16 months of life--the Grand Canyon, Death Valley, Zion, Mount Charleston, San Diego, Disney Land, Utah, Georgia, Florida, and I'm sure we're probably missing a couple! ;)

{on the train & ready for the Grand Canyon!!}

We were worried it was going to be super cold on this trip, and I scrambled to get Brady a winter coat, hat, and mittens before we left but we totally lucked out and had the most gorgeous weather for the entire trip!! Now for a plethora of pictures, it was truly a sight to behold! The pictures do NOT do it justice!!!

This next picture below is one of my favorites from the whole trip--we bring our kids to the Grand Canyon--a place people long to see and have on their Bucket Lists--and here are our kids playing in the dirt. ;)

{love this one of the girls looking out over the canyon}

{waiting to board the train back to Williams}

 

 

It was a long and tiring day with 3 kids, but it was so worth it! Such an amazing experience that we will never forget! And I'm just thankful we all lived to tell about it! ;)  I'm not super nervous with heights, but heights with small children are NOT my thing at all. My kids trip and and fall just walking down the sidewalk, then you want to throw in rocky terrain & drop-offs? Good grief! I was already nervous to begin with and we'd only been at the Grand Canyon for about five minutes & hadn't even made it anywhere close to the edge yet, and Hadley was walking along a little ledge near the bathrooms that was maybe 6-12inches off the ground & fell flat on her face. It made me all the more nervous for the rest of the day! Our kids were by far the youngest we saw there that day, but we just kept laughing b/c every single parent {even the parents of teens!} were all saying the exact same things. Hold my hand! Don't go any further! Stop right there! Be careful! ;)

 

On our drive home after our trip, I told Derek I really want to go to the West Rim before our time in Las Vegas is up, and he told me he wasn't sure I could handle it. ;)  Apparently the West Rim is on Navajo land, and they have a glass walkway that goes out over the Canyon so you can see straight down. I'm pretty sure Derek is right--the whole time I would be thinking one of my kids would jump and break the glass and we would plummet to our death somehow. ;)  I told him maybe we'll make a date day out of it sometime and go sans-kids! This military life has granted us some pretty cool experiences, and Derek is slowly but surely getting me on the National Park Bandwagon. ;)