Holiday Road Trip Part 2

After a pretty tough couple of travel days, we were sure happy to see our cousins Ellie and Nathan and their parents, Aunt Mindy and Uncle Steve.  They came outside to greet us, and then had tons and tons of toys for us to play with.  While the grown-ups helped unload the car and get ready for dinner, we all played with the toys and got to know our cousins.  Aunt Mindy made a delicious Hanukkah latke dinner and we lit the candles together and all opened some fun presents.  We were so excited it was hard to get to sleep.  Mom and Dad didn't seem to have much trouble falling asleep though.

The next morning, Uncle Steve made us some of his famous waffles for breakfast.  We played outside in their yard for a while.  We also Skyped with Aunt Staci and Uncle Daryl who live in North Carolina.  That's when I told Aunt Staci why we were in Arizona; we were there to celebrate Hanukkah.

Since it was Christmas Day, there wasn't a lot open.  In the afternoon, we went to Reid park and played on a playground. Mom and I walked around a large pond where we saw lots of birds. I told her what kinds of birds they were and Mom took a bunch of pictures of me with them. A nice lady gave me some tortillas to feed the ducks, which really made me laugh.  Mom remembers feeding ducks bread when she was a little girl; apparently, we use tortillas in the southwest.

Meanwhile, Dad played chase with Ellie and Uncle Steve made Nate and Hazel laugh a lot.  For dinner, we went to a Chinese restaurant.  Turns out, although we were on our best behavior, bringing five little kids to a busy restaurant isn't the greatest idea in the world.  Still, it was a fantastic day in Tucson.

Turner and I were a little under the weather on this trip, and this time, it was Ellie's turn to get sick.  Aunt Mindy stayed home with Ellie on Monday, while Uncle Steve, Nate, Mom, Dad, Hazel, Turner, and I all went to the Tucson Zoo.  We saw lots of great animals there - elephants, giraffes, a zebra, a rhino, monkeys, and even some peacocks who weren't officially part of the zoo but have taken up residence there.

Turner wanted to join the monkeys

Thanks to Uncle Steve who served as our unofficial zoo tour guide.  After the zoo, Uncle Steve took Nate home, and we did some driving around Tucson.  We drove to one of Mom's favorite places - Trader Joe's, which we don't have n Austin.  We grabbed a late lunch at In and Out Burger, which we also don't have in Austin and Dad really likes. We drove up a huge mountain at the edge of town and saw some really great cacti.  Mom took lots of pictures and lamented the fact that the one thing she left at home in the interest of lightening our load was her camera lenses.  We also drove around the University of Arizona campus.  It was a decent looking campus, though Dad muttered something about still being bitter regarding the 1997 NCAA basketball championship.  Monday night we had another great dinner, lit the Hanukkah candles, and opened presents.


On Tuesday, Ellie and Nate went to school, Aunt Mindy and Uncle Steve went to work, and we were on our own again.  This time, we went to the Tucson Children's Museum.  It was pretty fun and their staff was really welcoming.  In the first room they had a firetruck and a motorcycle that you could ride on.  The next rooms had a Lego table where I spent a lot of time building things.  They also had a neat room where you could write with light pens on the walls.  Hazel did that for a pretty long time, then she went over to another room to draw on chalkboards.  The last room we went in had fruit and vegetables you could pick from trees, shopping carts, and a kitchen with blenders.  I made Mom and Dad some smoothies.  It was a fun time, and after driving around a bit, we headed back home for a Tamale dinner with our cousins.

All of us kids got along so well during our visit. Hazel followed Ellie around a lot, and loved playing with Nate. I spent a lot of time talking with Ellie too. Mom and Dad thought it was really great watching us all interact.  

We were very sad to leave Tucson, but it was time to go home Wednesday.  Our drive back was not nearly as eventful as our drive there.  We stopped to find out what "The Thing?" is and later, Mom and Dad pulled over at an out-of-the-way gas station, and a bunch of bees got into our car.  After that, we just decided to go home, so we did the whole drive in one day.  We got in before midnight - all of us kids slept for the last four hours of the drive.

Thanks to our cousins for hosting us on such a fun trip!

Click here to see our photos!