October Vacation Day 1

Okay, I promised myself that I would write about our vacation on here and I'm going to start now!  We left a mere 50 hrs. later than originally planned, I think, it could have been 26 hrs, I may be missing a day.  Anyway, my parents, who treated us to the vacation, were sick and needed an extra day to recover.  This ended up being great with me because I had a job to finish before I could leave and some newborn baby pictures to take!  LOVE photographing newborns!  Anyway, we were off to a good start.  We drove most of the day only stopping what seemed like about every 1/2 hr. or so for our child with the smallest bladder.  Seriously, I couldn't believe how often she needed to go.  Good thing there were towns to stop in on that road!

Around sunset time we were passing through territory that my husband is very familiar with.  He grew up in Tuba City on the Navajo Reservation, he isn't Native American, his parents were missionaries there.  Anyway, we were between Flagstaff and Tuba City around sunset, my husband's favorite time to drive.  My parents had told us to be sure and tell them if we wanted to stop for any pictures along the road.  The only thing Kim wanted a picture of was plastic bags caught on the barbed wire cattle fences.  He drove that road countless times growing up and was always fascinated by these grocery bags that would blow around and end up getting caught on the barbed wire, destined to be there until they were so wind battered and beaten that they just disintegrated (for lack of a better word).  I will admit they are quite beautiful.  For some reason we hadn't seen any that day, until we caught a glimpse of these!

I couldn't resist taking some photos with a slow shutter speed.  Even though I really like these pictures, I think the best thing about these bags was the flapping sound they made.

These fabulous grain stalks were just at the top of the rise that we had to climb to get back to the van.

 Okay, here is something you wouldn't have caught me doing in the film days, taking pictures out the window of a moving vehicle.  Since it was digital and gorgeous outside I risked it.  I actually did this several times throughout the trip.  We stopped often to take pictures but everything was so beautiful I couldn't help myself!

Hope passing time in the car w/ felt pictures.  I couldn't photograph the other girls from my seat.

After a brief tour of Tuba City and several of the houses that Kim had lived in, we had dinner there.  We were all tired but glad to be on vacation.  Some of us may not have been thrilled with the prospect of being photographed right then, but what can I say, Mommy had a new camera.

We thought we'd let Grace try out the crayon and see how long it took for her to try and eat it.

"Eye!"

This is my Dad.

Yes, you guessed it, this is my Mom.

Here is Gracie eating a corn dog, it was hilarious watching her trying to negotiate getting that thing in her tiny mouth.

And this is when we took the crayons away.

Whew!  One day down!  It was by far the shortest day but at least I've started the journey.