spring break!

i'm not very good at planning ahead far enough for ryan to get time off yet, so instead of having all of spring break off together, we took advantage of his half day on friday and made a quick trip up north.  we stopped at sunset crater first and walked through the lava flow.

this spot looked like the perfect seat and they insisted on having their pictures taken

as we walked, bonnie liked to hold onto ryan's shirt or elbow from the ergo.

we just had time after sunset crater to drive over to williams for the night.  we had a late-ish, quick dinner at pizza hut and hit the sack at our hotel.  we found a fun little diner for breakfast in the morning.  who doesn't love ginormous pancakes!

just outside of williams is a great little park called bearizona.  we checked it out on saturday morning and were not disappointed.

we drove through to see all the animals, but then rode the bus to get the full tour and information.

we saw big horn sheep, elk, deer, donkeys, wolves,

black bears of all different ages and sizes, 

and regular and white bison.

aside from the tour, they have a zoo-like area inside the park.  first we watched a show about birds of prey.  this owl was deaf - which makes it impossible for him to live in the wild.

inside we saw foxes, porcupines, baby bears, and the usual petting zoo goats.

the whole place was so fun!

we stopped in flagstaff for a quick lunch at wildflower bread company (ryan and i used to go there any time we went to sedona and now its in flagstaff too!) and got some allergy medicine to make the outdoors a bit more bearable for ryan and i.  after lunch we headed out to walnut canyon.  cody's teacher recommended it to us when we picked cody up from school.  it was a cool stop!

the hike is all sidewalk, but there are lots of stairs as you climb down into the canyon where the natives had their dwellings built into the sides of the canyon.

(cody wanted to take a picture)

we weren't quite worn out, so we drove back to sunset crater to get a stamp in our new national parks passport and then out to wapatki to catch all three national parks around flagstaff.

  we got there just barely in time to help the kids become junior rangers before everything closed.

the blow hole of cool air is one of my favorite things at wapatki.

we headed back into flagstaff for dinner at black bart's steakhouse - where i worked for four years of college.  it was so fun to show my kids where i'd worked and to see a few friends who have worked their way up into management.  

as if we hadn't had enough national parks, i braved the petrified forest with the kids while ryan worked on monday.  we started off with a bit of the video about how the wood became petrified and a dinosaur dig.

there was a quick walk by the visitor center we tried

and then we did a few miles out to agate house

it got a little warm by the end of the hike, but we had fun!

we drove through the rest of the park, but could only get in one more short hike before bonnie fell asleep.  we'll have to go another time to really get a good look at some of the other sights there.

we spent the next few days of our vacation down in thatcher doing a bit more relaxing.  i'm not sure how they get in these positions or how they get any sleep, but they did pretty well sharing a bed.

grandma always has a myriad of best helpers while we're down there.  these guys all love helping in her garden!