This past Sunday, my family and I headed off to our long awaited family road trip. This summer we are traveling through the Southwest and exploring all of the cool things each state has to offer. Our children, who are 8 and 6 years old, absolutely LOVE to go camping in our RV. Although it is not my favorite way to travel, I suck it up for my kids because I know that they are going to remember these times together. After all, the times we have traveled together camping have been the most treasured family memories to date.
Our first stop was The Grand Canyon. Instead of driving into the canyon, we took the Grand Canyon Railway, a vintage steam engine train that made its first journey in 1901.

Before boarding the train, there was a wild west show. These cowboys had such a witty sense of humor and managed to drag Aron out of the crowd to embarrass him among all of the tourists! They had a lot of fun with him...and he took it like a champ!

Once we arrived in The Grand Canyon, we hiked some trails and saw some amazing sights, including some mountain goats.
All Cole wanted to do was throw rocks down the Canyon to watch them disappear. Katie was on a mission to catch any lizard that dared to cross her path. Although she didn't manage to catch one, she did snag a tail off one of them! She beamed with happiness at this accomplishment!

We had a long day hiking along the trail and viewing some amazing sights. Once we settled into our seats on the train and began our journey back to Williams, one of the passengers noticed some cowboys on horses riding right next to our window...they had their bandannas around their faces and they were waving their six-shooters high up in the air...and shooting them!!! Were we getting robbed?
Suddenly, the passengers became nervous and our conductor began to speak..."folks, I'm afraid to say that this here train is being ROBBED!!!"

If you know anything about this train ride, you know that the cowboys that did the wild west show puts on a mock hold-up on the train (did anyone see the Brady Bunch episode when this happened to them?). It was a blast to watch Katie and Cole mesmerized by the cowboys as they entered our area and demanded everyone's money and jewels. Cole threw a few bucks into Lucky's bag and tried to get a rise out of him...Lucky grabbed me and pretended that he was going to take off with me...it was all good ol' fun!!!

Katie and Cole deemed this "the best day everrrr" and I cracked up when they kept saying that because it was only our first stop and we have 4 other places we are traveling to!!!
These are the times when you feel so blessed to have a family and have the opportunity to live life through their eyes for a little bit and be fortunate enough to travel this way...not the most luxurious, but definitely the most memorable in a child's mind.

Stay tuned for stories from our next journey...Taos, New Mexico!