Our trip out west!

Last week I went ahead and posted our first official day of vacation, in hopes that I could just break it up one day at a time. Well, that didn't happen. So I figured that if I didn't go ahead and knock it out in one post, it might be Christmas time before y'all saw all the pics from Thanksgiving.

So beware...there are lots of pictures on here, but there was a lot to talk about!


So day 1 & 2 were spent driving...for those of y'all that don't know, we drove alllll the way to Arizona from Tennessee!!


Nothing exciting happened at all on the first day of driving, but we did stop in Santa Fe, NM on the second day...Loved. It.

That night we arrived in Flagstaff, which is a couple hours north of Phoenix. I don't really have any pictures from there because we didnt really have the opportunity to do much. Sunday we were supposed to head to the Grand Canyon, but it started raining and snowing and we didn't want to get up there and not be able to see anything. So we decided to go to Sedona first.

Sedona is known for the beautiful red rocks, and when the sun is shining on them, they are amazing! Unforunately the rain and snow kept us from getting the full picture, but it was still beautiful!

It rained the ENTIRE time we were there, so we all got pretty wet walking around the town and visiting all the shops.

My two favorite people!

When we left Sedona, the roads had gotten pretty bad. It had been snowing around Flagstaff the whole time we were gone. It was beautiful, but not the most exciting thing to be driving on when your going up the side of a mountain!

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Sunday night we headed to Williams to catch the Polar Express! The Grand Canyon Railway does a trip to the "North Pole" every year, via the Polar Express, so of course we had to do it! Before we boarded on the train, Presley had her picture taken with Santa. She was so excited! I was really worried she would be scared, but she wasn't. She had no problem hoppin' on his lap and asking her knew bike hah!

Presley trying to catch another peak of Santa after she left!

Here's a picture of the train car that we were on.

Presley was in awe for about the first 15 minutes! I couldn't even get her to smile at the camera! On the ride they had two men dressed up as they passed out hot chocolate and cookies, then they read the story of the Polar Express.

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Shortly after, we arrived at the North Pole! None of my pictures came out very good, but here is Santa on his sleigh waving to us as we passed by!

It was the cutest little set-up. I wish we could've gotten out to see everything and taken better pics. After that, we headed back to the train station. We sang tons of Christmas carols as we waited patiently for Santa to make his appearance on the train. Here is Presley watching for him hah...

Here he is! I love this picture...Presley was so happy to see Santa!

And then when Santa bent down to give her a silver bell, she got scared ha!

We arrived back at the depot to a winter wonderland!!! It was so beautiful! But it took us over an hour to get back to our hotel because the roads were so bad...not fun!

Monday morning we packed up our stuff and headed to the Grand Canyon! Breathtaking!

Inside the watch tower at one of the lookout points.

My sister and dad!

After the Grand Canyon, we headed to my sister's house in Phoenix, where we would spend the rest of our Thanksgiving week. On Tuesday, she took us to the historic part of Scottsdale, AZ.

Notice the purple glitter on this horse's hooves ha.

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We stopped from some ice cream at a cute little diner called the Sugar Bowl...all decked out in pink! How cute!

Pres and I split a strawberry sundae :)

That night we went to my BIL's parents house for dinner. His step-mom was so thoughtful and got Presley a little dress-up bag. She has no idea how this saved us over the next few days!

Clinton played dress-up, too. What a good daddy!

Then there was Thanksgiving...our last official day of vacation :(

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Clinton, dad, Geoff, and his dad

Trying to get some pictures of my sweet little P...not the easiest task at 2 yrs old.

Me, mom, and my sister

And no...we did not plan to both wear green, cow neck sweaters hah!

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One big happy family!

So there's a wrap up of my family vacation/Thanksgiving! We had the best time ever, and for the first time in my life I was not ready to come home from a trip! If you ever get the chance to make your way to AZ, you should definitely take it!