Allen family Road trip 2009: Part 1, Arizona

At the beginning of the summer I was giving my friend Jackie major grief for agreeing to a cross-country road trip with her four young children while she was pregnant with her fifth. I told her that after driving to Austin last summer I would think long and hard before embarking on a similar adventure in the car with my kids. She seemed very brave (even enthusiastic) about the whole thing. She and her family were to drive from Austin to San Diego then backtrack to Arizona to spend time with both sets of the kids grandparents. I wished her luck and told her I hoped she'd survive.

Little did I know that an idea for a trip was brewing in the mind of my father. It all started rather innocently as a discussion about the family condo in St.George, Utah that we have all been grossly neglecting. One thing lead to another and all of a sudden we found ourselves packing the car and making reservations. Our vacation destinations were Phoenix, Las Vegas, and St. George, with many pit stops along the way.

hiding out in the hotel hallway

found ya!

exploring hotel grounds

love these ducks

time with grandpa

now can we get in mom?

her princess obsession began much earlier than Abbie's

lifeguards

the love of Ruby's life

shall we dance?

Happy 4th of July

the story of my life

Bracken retrieving his runaway sister

two cute boys holding hands

power walking

we've finally seen a real cactus, like in cartoons (not like the little ones in Texas)

looking for fish

baking in the sun

mom, we can't see a thing

bathing beauty

last chance to wear this dress before passing it down to My-My (Mylie) for next year

The Arizona portion of our trip was so much fun that I wish I had done a better job of documenting all we did, unfortunately the summer was so crazy that there was just not enough time to blog about our adventures in a timely fashion. This was only the first leg of the trip but it proved to be a very eventful and fun time. I must admit that we spent most of our time just being together and relaxing poolside. The kids got some quality time with grandpa and we all got to enjoy the beautiful resort. With a zillion little kids and a huge pregnant belly it's always great to stay places that you don't have to leave to have fun. The hotel was amazing and the kids had a great time in all of the beautiful pools.

I had only been to Arizona one other time in my life and that was when I was 14 or 15 to visit my fun cousins Megan and Heather. It was great to become more familiar with the area and to get to visit with Megan and her sweet new baby---thanks for coming over to our hotel so we could catch up! It was also so fun to get to see the beautiful new home and baby of our great friends Rachel and J, and of course baby Chloe!!

Looking back at all of these pictures now I realize that the photos I should have taken would have been of us all crammed into the car like sardines. We drove over 3,000 miles on our trip and we were definitely worse for the wear. I will have to leave it up to your imagination to guess what a car filled with 4 children, 4 car seats, 2 adults (one hugely pregnant), 2 double strollers, beach towels, luggage, and snacks looked like...it wasn't pretty. Each time we opened the door things would flow out of the car like a tidal wave. As our car would approach the entrance for check-in at our luxury hotels I would shoot evil looks at the bell men as they came to open the car doors for us, some of them took the hint and backed away while others were oblivious and were showered in Allen family paraphernalia---completely humiliating but truly the stuff family vacations are made of!