Arizona Trip Post #1: Phoenix

A few weeks ago, when prepping for a new school quarter, I realized that the university planned to cancel classes on the morning of a certain day in April. I realized, happily, that this cancelled class coincided with Sam's spring break, and that we could take a family trip for a few days since I wasn't expected to teach. My spring break has never coincided with Sam's spring break, but this was the closest thing to having that happen. We quickly made plans for a trip to go to Arizona, since we have been talking about visiting the Grand Canyon for a few years.

Just before takeoff! J took this photo to show his mom that we made it onto our plane.

We chose to stay downtown in Phoenix, within walking distance of The Children's Museum of Phoenix and the Arizona Science Center museum. The Super 8 motel we stayed at was pretty dingy (I even scrubbed the bathtub myself, so the kids wouldn't bathe in black foot scum), but we did like that the motel was so close to our destinations within the city.

Outside the Children's Museum

Inside the giant "treehouse" construction in the Children's Museum

Sam gave Lucy several rides through the "car wash" at the Children's Museum

Playing with digital bits of paper in the Science Center: you could "catch" them on the screen as they fell

Sam lying on a bed of nails! 

Motel pool babe! This is one of my favorite photos of Lucy from the trip. 

It was really hot that day (around 99 or 100 degrees) and the pool was freezing, but it was nice to be outside together.

Swimming was one of Sam's favorite things to do on our vacation. We swam here once and also swam once at the indoor pool in Tusayan a few days later.

We had hoped to visit the Museum of Musical Instruments while we were in town, but we didn't end up having time to go out that way since Lucy needed a nap in the afternoon. Next time, Phoenix!