AZ 2014: Roadtrippin'

The second part of our Amazooma Spring Break was the ROAD TRIP edition. There's just something about jumping in the car, hitting the road, cranking the music and singing your way across an unfamiliar landscape with my family that just makes my heart soar. Arizona is just so so beautiful. We had the perfect balance of following our plans and being spontaneous as we made the way from Phoenix, through Sedona, and up toward the Grand Canyon. Here are a few photos of the big highlights of our road trip - which included a beautiful lunch in Sedona, a detour down to a little creek in the shadow of golden rock formations, hours worth of scenic drive and really awesomely-fun time at Bearizona drive-through animal park and an evening on Route 66.

[Very Early Easter In] Chicago

Before we move onto sharing pics from the big trip to Arizona that we just took, we had to share some pics from the big trip to Chicago we took last month. The early Chicago trip replaced the annual Easter trip to Chicago, since we were going to be in Arizona for Easter this year (more on that later). It worked out GREAT because Josie had two days off of school for conferences during the same week of Lyla & Jack's spring break. A Chicago adventure was born!  

The trip started off right with road cones. (Confession: Lou said he & the girls had perfected the art of ice cream cones in the car. He was *mostly* right.)

We marked the usual landmarks with texted updates to cousins waiting for us.

We let Bea sleep (with bestie Kristoff) then paid *dearly* for the mistake when she wouldn't sleep (at all) later that night.

We hit the city at a not so great time. (You think we'd have this figured out by now.)

Then we made it! And YAY! We love Four Austins Time!

Um...this is Spider Bea!

We took an adventure on the train!

Josie was PUMPED that she was tall enough to reach the handles!

We played at the Conservatory!

And let the kids slide down the slide 10 gazillion times!

And climbed the SEED.

We did a lot of hanging out.

The girls made "Banana Soufflé" (that the little ones ate right up)!

Then we headed home. Hearts, and tummies, full to the rim.

And remembered all the good fun we had!