A few weekends back marked our first trip to Sedona with the little ones, and we had a great time in the desert with my mom.  It’s been crazy around here (between work and babies) so I haven’t had much time to sit down and write up a recap, but I’ve got a couple of minutes so here goes.

Wednesday:
It always sounds like a great idea to start our long drives after I get off work. Driving while the babies are asleep is nice, but finishing up a seven-hour drive at 3a.m. is not a lot of fun. Traffic was light, but Shae and I were both completely exhausted by the time we got to Sedona and checked in. The babies, of course, were well rested at 3a.m. and were ready to play as soon as we put them in their Pack-N-Plays.  Fun times.

Thursday:
Just like our last trip (up to the parents’ for the 4th of July), we spent most of our first day trying to get some sleep and recover from the drive.  It finally occurred to me that by the time we’re done resting up from our late night drives we’re ready to go about the same time we would be rolling into town if we just left in the morning.  Anyway, after some rest we still managed to get in some fun on our first day.

We headed on over to Safeway to pick up some food for the weekend.  About three minutes after we walked in, a woman came running into the store yelling “Security! SECURITY!!! I Need Security! There’s a fight in the parking lot!” After I got over the shock of someone running into a Safeway expecting to find a security guard (the closest she got was the guy who picks up the carts from the parking lot), I did the only logical thing: I ran out into the parking lot to see what was going on.  I didn’t get to see the real excitement, but apparently two women in their 60’s had gotten into a tussle. One of the women was standing in the parking lot telling anyone who would listen how horrible the other lady was. I don’t know what actually happened, but I like to think one lady yelled at the other for driving too fast in the parking lot and chaos ensued.  As we were leaving the store with our goodies, lady #1 was retelling her side of the story to a local cop.  Quite the exciting trip to the Sedona Safeway.  Our trip was off to a good start.

Friday:
Somehow, we actually managed to get up and out of our room early enough to go on a hike Friday morning. After consulting the book of hikes, my mom and Shae decided on a nice, easy morning stroll. We drove a few miles to the trail head, threw the babies into their hiking backpacks, and started off on our adventure.  The hike was supposed to be a short little 0.6 mile walk (0.3 each way), but of course we somehow turned it into a 1.5 mile trip. Apparently, we were just supposed to go to a random fork in the trail and turn around but we didn’t get the memo so we kept on going for a while. Our hike was much better. The extra mile or so turned what might have been a boring little stroll into a great trek down to a creek. Definitely worth the extra walking. The kids didn’t seem to mind, especially since they both fell asleep about 10 steps into the trip back to the car.  They live a tough life.

After we got back to the room, we took a short break and then headed over to the pool.  There are two pools at the resort: the adults pool and the kids pool. Obviously, we had never spent any time at the kiddie pool (they seem to think I’m old enough to hang out with the adults) so this was our first experience there.  Jack had a great time in the water (again). He was happy to splash and squeal and generally just have fun. Ella, on the other hand, just kind of floated around and relaxed. She wasn’t unhappy, but she didn’t seem to be having a lot of fun either. That is, until she found a boy. A 4-year-old (or so) boy who was at the pool swam up to Ella and she got SUPER excited.  She started bouncing in her floaty and squealing and having a great time. He kind of pulled her around the pool for a while and she had the biggest smile on her face. I’ve said it before, but my daughter is already boy crazy. I am terrified of what she’s going to be like as a teenager. That is going to be awesome. I can’t wait.

Once we got the babies home, fed, and asleep, Shae and I took advantage of our babysitter and went out to dinner.  As always, it was great to be able to get out for a few hours alone. After dinner, we got in a nice nap and then decided to hit up the Sedona movie scene. I can’t do the whole experience justice, so here are the highlights:

• Just after we parked, a couple parked next to us in a little, tiny Scion. Nothing unusual about that, except this couple was very…ummm…huge.  The guy had a shirt on that said, “I’m Not Big, You’re Small”. I would have to disagree with his shirt.
• The Scion couple got out of their car carrying an empty popcorn bucket and two huge soda cups. This seemed odd to us, but then we noticed almost everyone was carrying buckets and cups.  Apparently the theater in Sedona has a program that allows you to bring in your bucket and cup and get cheap(er) refills. Nice.
• We saw a woman actually wearing a Bumpit. If you don’t know what a Bumpit is, you should watch the commercial. Hers was so awesome you could actually see the Bumpit in her hair.
• The 13-year-old kid across the aisle from us was wearing sunglasses. In a movie theater. At 10:30 at night. I guess he was trying to look cool. It didn’t work.  It takes a lot more than sunglasses to look cool when you’re watching Harry Potter with your mom.

Saturday:
Since we were on vacation, we ended up eating out with the babies a lot more often than we normally do.  On Saturday we finally had our first experience with a restaurant that did not welcome the kiddos. We had eaten at the Cowboy Club before, and it’s a pretty loud place where the babies should have fit right in. We walked in and said we need a table for three with two high chairs, and immediately the hostess ran over to the manager who came right over and said it would be 30-45 minutes in such a way that it was clear he would rather we didn’t wait. Very weird, but oh well.  The place across the street had no problem finding a table for us so I guess we have a new place to eat. I know it can be annoying to have babies in a restaurant, but Jack and Ella are still young enough that they don’t cause much trouble. I guess I have one less place in Sedona to pick from when figuring out where to eat. Should make our decisions easier.

When we were all stuffed, we headed back towards our resort but at the last second decided to take a trip up Schnebly Hill Road. Schnebly Hill road is a beautiful drive that ends up with a gorgeous view of the Sedona area.  The road is sort-of off road (very bumpy, but doesn’t require 4WD), so my mom had never made the drive before. It was definitely worth it, and I’m sure we’ll make the drive a few times in the years to come.

Sunday:
Well, now I know why we drive at night.  I’ll drive until 5a.m. next time, just as long as I don’t have a repeat of our drive home from Sedona.  The babies spent almost all of the drive screaming their heads off.  Shae sat in the back with them and fed them, played with them, talked to them, whatever she could think of.  Nothing worked. They just kept screaming. We changed Jack’s poopy diaper twice. Nope, more screaming. Not even a giant mango limeade from Sonic could salvage the drive (On a side note, why the hell wouldn’t Sonic have mango limeade on their menu? It’s awesome, why hide it? I want one right now. I’ll be back). It sucked, but eventually we made it home with a little bit of our sanity in tact.