From Denver to Phoenix

This is the last picture I took in Denver. It's from our hotel window where we stayed the night before we left. Guess what temperature it was in the morning. 7 degrees. 7. 7!!!!! Too bad I had already packed away all of our coats. At least I left out a sweatshirt for everyone. I figured that since it was April we would be fine. You live, you learn.

 As we started to drive the windows started to freeze......on the inside of the glass. James thought it was hilarious to scrape the ice off with this pinwheel. I used a CD case and it was a little more efficient.

I figured it would be a little warmer when we got to New Mexico. I was right, it was warmer, but only 20 degrees warmer. Here's James clutching one of his 'prizes'. I wrapped up a whole bunch of stuff from the dollar store and they would get to open one up ever 40 minutes or so.

When we got to Gallup, New Mexico we finally warmed up a little, but not enough to take the sweatshirts off. My mom sure is a champ at traveling with kids! They had so much fun with her and she kept us all going. She is a wonderful woman!

This was the view from our hotel in Gallup. There was a very busy train track right outside our window and the kids thought it was fantastic to see a train racing by every couple of minutes. 

We drove down Route 66 for quite a while. I saw so many things that looked  like they were straight out of the movie Cars. I highly suggest reading this to find out more about places and people they had in mind when they created the movie. It's pretty interesting.

Arizona! I was so happy to see this sign, even though we still had a ways to go.

Shortly after flagstaff, we started seeing giant saguaro cacti (I had to look up the plural form and the internet says cactuses, cacti, and cactus are all acceptable, although spell-check apparently doesn't like cactuses). I have only seen them in pictures before an they are truly spectacular! 

We pulled up to our new apartment about 3 in the afternoon. I was so happy to finally be home! Christan and the movers had already unloaded everything and the kids room was already all set up. That was a really nice surprise. Oh, and let me just say one more time, I AM SO THANKFUL FOR ALL MY MOM'S HELP GETTING HERE! She really is the best.

Well, that's how we got to Arizona. Stay tuned for what we've discovered in our neck of the woods (or should I say our neck of the desert) in the last two weeks.