Flaherty Family Trip

Last Wednesday afternoon, we packed up half the house again and headed to Flagstaff for a nice little getaway with the whole Flaherty crew. Mindi, Kiley and I squished are six kids into Mindi's suburban and made the crazy drive up. Bob and Terri followed behind in Bob's truck pulling a trailer full of bikes, strollers, luggage and anything else you can imagine. It looked like we were moving, but what's a vacation without everything you own? All of the spouses had work or school, so they didn't come up until Thursday evening. It's a little scary to be so outnumbered by kids, but we had a fun time. The best was our little pit stop to the Chevron in Black Canyon City. That had to be the dirtiest, scariest gas station I have ever been to and of course, my son just had to touch the inside of the toilet in the bathroom and stick his hands in the floor drain...disgusting!! Luckily, we made it safe and sound and were lucky to enjoy Flagstaff's gorgeous weather. I guess we got super lucky because the week before it was freezing cold....hallelujah.

Mindi got some great pics while we were up there. Thanks to camera tripods and the timer button we actually got one of the whole fam.



While we were in Flagstaff, Little Miss Raylee turned 3 months old. I can't believe how fast the time has flown. Raylee is such a good baby and loves when you talk to her. She has the cutest smile and laugh, especially when Grandpa Flaherty takes her hands across his scruffy face...she thinks it's hilarious.

Mr.B turned 18 months old while we were there too...yeah Nursery time!! My timid little boy has disappeared and this daring, crazy little boy has come out. He loves to play outside and climb on and over anything. Within the last couple of weeks, his little vocabulary has gotten bigger. Some of his favorite things to say are: mom, sista, car, more, chicken, hi, yum, keys, vroom vroom (he says that when he sees or hears a motorcycle) and make animal noises. He loves books, coloring (especially on my walls, which I will have to re-paint now), sliding down slides, swinging, giving Raylee hugs and kisses, and especially hanging out with dad (he cries histerically when Brett leaves every morning for school...so sad).

Grandpa Flaherty is famous for loading as many kids as he can and taking them all for a bike ride. I think the most I have seem him carry is 5 and that's with only 2 kids in the trailer. You really don't want to know how he does it...let's just say it's completely unsafe, but the kids love it.

Bradock was starting to fall asleep on the bike ride and Avery was just petting his little head to sleep. It was the funniest thing.

My little daredevil riding a big boy scooter down the driveway.

Here is some of the gang about to go on a bike ride. The cabin we stayed at was amazing and was located in an area where the roads were all up and down hills. That was one of the hardest bike rides we all had been on.

Here's Raylee and I at Sunset Crater Volcano. It was so cool to walk around and see where this once active volcano once erupted.

We also saw some amazing indian ruins and pueblos at Wupatki National Monument. I had no idea Flagstaff had all this cool stuff to see. The kids loved playing in the ruins.




These were my favorite pics. I loved Bradock poking his cute little face out the window.






This pic is a little decieving. We look like we are having a nice, relaxing ski lift ride up SnowBowl, but I was a nervous wreck. I am a little afraid of heights and to make matters worse, Bradock decided he was sick of sitting still and decided to become Evil Kinevil, trying to jump out of the chair lift anyway he could.


After what seemed like the longest ride of my life, we finally made it to the top. It was freezing cold, with the wind blowing, but the view was unbelievable. I think Raylee was the warmest of us all because I had her bundled nice and warm...love the baby bjorn.

It was a fun trip and I am glad we got to spend some time with all the Flaherty gang. It's so fun for the little cousins to play together. Thanks Bob and Terri for making it such an enjoyable trip and memory.