Family Vacation - Part II

Debbie Sutton has quirk-tagged me, but i have promised my beloved fans (all 5 of you) that i would tell about our vacation; so i'll get to that next time.

We got to go on vacation to see Debbie and Leonard Sutton in Phoenix, AZ. I flew in on Thursday morning, and got the privilege to eat a great western omelet at their favorite breakfast place. Later that evening, Misty, her brother Josh, his wife Nicole, and their son Ethan got in from a long drive through the desert. They live in LA, where Josh is pursuing an acting career, and Nicole works as a nurse at UCLA. Ethan had just started kindergarten, but got to take a "sick day" to see the grand canyon. After me and Leonard grilled the food prepared for us by Debbie (by me and Leonard i mean Leonard, while i drank beer) We sat down around 10 PM to eat a meal i still have pleasant dreams about! Heaven will be a lot like sitting around the dinner table at the Sutton's!

We sat around talking quietly, trying not to let Ethan hear us, in the fear that he would run in, discover us eating ice cream and brownies, and never forgive us for excluding him. This was one of my favorite times of our trip. There are few people i know who invest in Me and Misty's lives as much as Leonard and Debbie...it comes natural to them. Their love for Jesus, and deep personal walk just spills over and inspires faith and increased love...it feels like family and community.

After spending a great morning/afternoon with Debbie, in which she showed us a crazy house that had plates, and trinkets galore stacked in the front yard (check the picture), hooked us up with Mexican food, and showed us the cool sites it Phoenix, we headed towards Sedona. Sedona is one of the most beautiful places i have ever seen. I have made the statement that i like it better than the Grand Canyon, because you feel more "in it". I go back and forth in my feelings towards the validity of that statement. We got there just in time to see the sunset. After we got settled in at the hotel, we went looking for food. The only place we could find was this dive "outer space" hamburger joint. It was honestly one of the weirdest experiences i have had in a while. There were UFOs and aliens everywhere, and you got a feeling from the staff that some, if not all, of them knew they were out there. Sedona is known for it's hot spots, vortexes, and many other weird things. As a matter of fact, for a nominal fee, we could have taken a vortex tour to discover these mysterious places of condensed, universal energy. Instead, we just took a walk to "Cathedral Rocks", and then high tailed it out of there to head to the Grand Canyon. Ethan did not understand why we were leaving our hotel so soon, after driving so far to get to it..."so we are going to another hotel? How long are we going to stay at that one?" This all was somewhat disturbing to him.

This blog is getting longer than i thought...

We got to the canyon to see the sunset, then headed back to the hotel. Many of the cliches people say about the Grand Canyon frustrate me, because like many cliches, they are pretty damn on the money. it does make you feel small, it does make you realize how big the earth is, which makes you think about how big the universe is, which makes you think about God. It does make you wonder what it would be like to jump off, how long you would fall before you hit, and whether you could force yourself to forget your fate, and enjoy the ride...when i was a kid, I bet i would just imagine i could fly...yes, that would be better.

That night we ate at the hotel diner, and celebrated Ethan's birthday. A Cowboy played all our favorite songs from the "Oh Brother where art thou" CD. Ethan knows most of the words to "Big Rock Candy Mountain" - which sends him on a wild imagination tangent everytime he hears it;

"Would the lake be chocolate milk?"

"Yep"

"Would my house be made out of candy canes"

"Yep"...you get the picture.

Anyway, the cowboy sings him happy birthday, and lets him where the cowboy hat...and that, i believe, answered the questions in his mind to why it could be worth traveling all this way to stay at hotels for just one night. Another one of our favorite parts of the trip was getting to experience the ritual of putting a 4-year old to bed; Ethan would get his PJs on, brush his teethe, get a drink of water, and then cuddle into bed next to Nicole. Then he would pray, it went something like:

"Thank you for the rocks; thank you for the cactus; thank you for the mountains"...but every once in a while, he would throw one in that would totally catch you off gaurd..."thank you for the penguins, thank you for cheese crackers", at which time me and Misty would lose it...it's like when you know you shouldn't laugh, and it makes it harder not to...


Anyway, the next morning we headed toward the canyon at 4:40 AM, to hike in and see the sunset from a spot 1 mile down. It was worth the hassle. It definitely made me want to go back when i have time to hike the whole way down...It is on my list of things to do.

The rest of the trip was great, but i am out of time...We had a hard ride back to LA (not so amazing); but then got to see Josh and Nicoles new apartment, see Ethans new School, check out the sites in LA (Chinese Theatre, Santa Montica Peir, etc.), get to attend Ethans official BDay party, where he was given a a present in a pirate treasure box, which was better to him than the present! Our first big family vacation (big because we flew somewhere) has been deemed a success by all involved.