Disney World 2010

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Animals in Grama and Papa's Backyard

There are many animals in my grandparent's Arizona backyard. There are so many you can't avoid seeing them. Most of the time all you see are birds, but even the birds are interesting. I have already seen three blue jays today! And yesterday John and I saw a cool reddish-brown bird on the roof. Another animal you can see is the coyote. Every morning after breakfast, we put out leftover meat for the coyotes. This morning only one coyote came. He was really funny because he would pick up more meat than he could hold in his mouth, drop some of it on the ground, and try to pick it up again. That's why we named him Gus-gus after the food-greedy mouse in Cinderella. You can see Gus-gus in the picture above. Another animal we saw today was a deer. Two deer to be exact. They just came into the backyard and started to eat the greenery. They were really fun to watch because one kept coming closer to the house and the other stayed way back. While everyone else was watching the deer, I saw a little tiny chipmunk scramble up a tree. Lucy only saw it while it was in the shadows and said it was a frog, but I know it was a chipmunk because it had the cool black and white stripy thing down its back. These are just a few of the animals you can see in Arizona, there are a lot more out there. There are many more types of birds and there are definitly rabbits and snakes out there, but if you want to truly enjoy watching the Arizonan nature, you have to come to Arizona for yourself! You won't regret it!

The Prickly Pear Disaster by Lucy and Mom

There once was a girl named Lucy who went hiking in Sedona and saw a prickly pear that looked like a javelina took a bite out of it. She hiked all the way to the top of the mountain and ate oranges. Then she went down a slide made of rocks. When they got close to the bottom Lucy was winding her way through the prickly pear patch and lost her balance and fell in a prickly pear. Later, her mom said she looked like a bug that was stuck on its back – her arms and legs were waving around and her head was right beside a prickly pear. Her sister, Sophie, started crying when she saw Lucy was hurt. Her mom told her to stay still and wait until she got there. Lucy had pokes in her head and on her shoulder and leg. And when the hike was over her mom sat on a chair to take off her hiking shoes and jumped right back up with an “OW!” because she sat on a prickly pear pin.

Maiasaura by Lucy

We went to the Arizona Science Center and we got to go look at the dinosaurs. There were little baby dinosaurs and some eggs were hatching. There were two little dinosaurs out of the eggs – they were bigger than the ones in the eggs. The word Maiasaura means “Good Mother Lizard.” The eggs were in a big, big nest and there were a lot of eggs. Out of the whole exhibit this was my favorite part because it the Mama Maiasaura looked just like my favorite kind of dinosaur.

There were four parts in the exhibit and I liked two other parts – the T-Rex that was by a spike-tailed dinosaur and two long-necks that were by eggs. There was a big Mom one and a little one – but not as small as the eggs.

We're back home!

Due to rumors of bad weather heading straight through our projected travel path, we packed it up early and left Sedona on Wednesday, 12/27. We stayed in Amarillo, TX on Wednesday night and then drove 17 hours straight on Thursday/Friday so we could beat the snow - arriving home at 3 am Friday, December 29th. The trip was smooth - until we tried to get in the house and found the door locked with no key in sight. Apparently one of the contractors working on the bathrooms must have slipped it into his pocket by accident, or so we thought. We ended up leaving a note for a neighbor and sleeping in the van until about 6 am when Linda saw the note, got her key for our house and let us in. What a way to end a wonderful trip. (In reality, the key was only a foot away from where it should have been but we just couldn't seem to find it... oops!)

But this is it for this vacation blog writing - check out our regular blog to find out when there will be more exciting GKids adventures and stories to tell.

Cave Exploring

When we were hiking in Sedona today we went to a Native American's cave where they used to live. There was black ashes on the ceiling from the fires they had to keep themselves warm and for cooking their food. You had to duck down because it was a cave. It was not tall at all. If you were very, very tall you would not fit in unless you ducked really down because it was not all at all. Then me, and Papa and John headed back home but then Lucas and Marie were standing out on their balcony and they said we could come in and have some cider. We went in and sat by the kitchen and they gave us some cider and then we sat down by Papa and got a Haunted House book and I read it to John and Marie. Sophie, Mom and Dad went and hiked farther and we thought we were beating them home because we did not see them anywhere but we saw people we thought they were them but then we thought they were not them because there were only two people. They were already home with their swimsuits on ready to go in the hot tub. So we joined them. Lucy

Hiking out Grama and Papa's Backdoor

Yesterday I went hiking with my dad, Lucy,and John. We were in my grandparent's backyard. They live in Sedona, Arizona in the winter. In the summer they live in Cando, North Dakota. Well, like I was saying we were going hiking. They have red rocks in their backyard. When we went hiking we stopped at a few familiar rocks to take pictures. On our way home we went through a wash. There were lots of rocks in the wash. Lucy and I found this cool cave on the wall of the wash. (Bottom Left) Well, actually I really found it, but we both used it to scare my dad and John. We also found a smaller cave before we found this one. I really want to get to the top of the red rock mountain this year but I probably won't able to. Up in the mountains there are two caves. One is bigger than the other one. The smaller one is higher up than the bigger one. John thinks it's a mountain lion's cave, but it's not. Papa and my dad just think it formed over the years and it's not been lived in or being lived in ever. I don't know what I or Lucy think about it. I like hiking in Sedona, AZ. Sophie