On the Road Again!

We had a GREAT night last night!! We all slept through the night until around 8! :) YAY!!!

CJ woke up in a good mood, which for him means very active and rambunctious! In the picture below, he had just gotten done crawling out from inside the bedside table, which is why he looks so mischievous!

We left Flagstaff after breakfast, and the landscape transformed from grass and trees...

To sand and shrubs in a desert.

We are seriously gluttons for punishment, because even after our less than stellar Cracker Barrel experience yesterday, we decided to stop at one today. (What can we say, they have sweet tea and the prices are cheap!) But, we did wise up and brought our own fruit that we bought at the grocery store yesterday, and are keeping in our cooler!

Even though JT hasn't let me drive AT ALL the entire drive, he decided to let CJ earn his keep and drive a little! ;)

As we drove into Nevada, there was nowhere for us to pull over to take the picture with the sign, but proof that we are here:

We stopped at the Lake Mead Visitor's Center. The main thing we noticed as we got out of the car was how HOT HOT HOT it was!!! CJ had a great time terrorizing yet another National Park Visitor Center... (I love his mouth in this picture, it looks like his face is saying "aww man, is this the only thing I can get into right now?")

And then he took the basket of stuffed animals and dumped them all over the floor of the visitor's center. Thank goodness we were the only people in there right then!!
Then we arrived in Las Vegas!! We are staying at the Venetian Hotel and it is very nice! CJ and I scoped it out a bit while JT checked in for us. With the statue in the main lobby. (Note one shoe off and one shoe on as always!)
And doing his darndest to get that other shoe off!! "ooooo, I've almost got it!!"
I don't know who was more amazed by everything going on around us...CJ or me!! This is the first time in Vegas for all three of us.
Our room is nice and spacious! The only non-babyproof-able thing is that there are two steps leading down from the "Bedroom" into the "Living room".
This was our makeshift staircase blocker for daytime. (We tried two other barriers that were quickly conquered by the escape artist! I think the score was JT & Lacy-0, CJ-3)
At dinner, CJ ate a really good dinner, and he seems to really be wanting to feed himself now!! At what point do kids start to assert right vs left handed dominance? Just curious, because it seems that CJ always does a good bit of stuff with the left!

Look at our big boy eating spaghetti!!

We walked around our hotel and the attached shops a little bit. CJ enjoyed watching the gondolas go down the river.

Time to head to bed!!

Fingers crossed for another good night. We're looking forward to celebrating our Fourth of July here in Vegas tomorrow!!

Flagstaff Regroup

This might be the most "boring" of our road trip updates, but was a much needed "regroup" day for our family!!

We had another rough night last night. :( CJ woke up around 1? I honestly can't remember the time, but I do know that I hadn't been asleep for long. JT and I took turns having him sleep with each of us (we are in a room with two queens, and what's an old married couple to do but try to enjoy a bed to them-self for once?!). Our rough night was worth it though, because we had a totally new boy by morning!! He was happy, no more whining, and was acting like our CJ! :) He ate a decent breakfast at the hotel of sausage "saw-saw" (said with a really cute little southern accent-he must have gotten that from his Dada!), fruit and milk. And he showed NO signs of not wanting to drink! So whatever his problem was with that seemed to have resolved itself thankfully!!

One shoe on and one shoe off after breakfast. What a mess he is!!! This is the view from our hotel room.

After breakfast, we came back and chilled in our room and CJ played with toys and watched Disney. I went downstairs to the laundry and started a load of clothes. By the time I came back JT told me that CJ was tired and ready for a nap...which was only like 10am MST, but considering our long night and the recent time changes, we weren't going to fight a tired baby!! He ended up napping for over 3 hours, so he was definitely tired!!! During that time, JT got a quick nap, I finished the laundry, and then I got a nap too! :)

Okay, this is super random, but I had to share...this is the toilet in our room, one of those special water efficient ones, which is great. But, I got a kick out of the "Do not drink" written on the back. Ummm, thanks for clearing that one up because I always like to drink from the toilet!!?

After CJ got up from his nap he drank some more milk, cuddled with Dada while watching Handy Manny.

Funny story, but kinda gross...I changed CJ's post nap diaper while JT was in the shower getting ready for us to go. The "contents" were rather red, and at first I was kinda worried, like "is this blood?!" I started racking my brain about what did he have to eat yesterday that could have made his diaper look like this?! The only thing I could think of was grapes, but they'd never looked like this before...so I ran in to the bathroom and interrupted JT's shower. "Honey, do you wanna look at this poop?" Thankfully JT recalled that CJ ate like a pint and a half of watermelon yesterday. Oh...that would do it!!! Ha ha!

We ate lunch at Cracker Barrel which is ordinarily one of our faves, but JT and I got really mad when the manager refused to give CJ any fruit because they "didn't have a way of determining what to charge for it?!" Are you freaking kidding me?! Two other CB's on this trip have done it...and we didn't care what they charged...charge it as a side, charge it as a dessert, charge it as a fruit parfait...just give our kid the fruit! Grrrr.....Flagstaff Cracker Barrel you are not our friend, but otherwise we still love you.

We went to Walnut Canyon National Monument this afternoon. It was only a few miles from our hotel!

I'm not sure if this is funny or embarrassing, but definitely share worthy! The main activity at this park is a one mile hike down to the pueblo ruins, and they encouraged you to use a backpack with babies/toddlers. After seeing our son, CJ, run around the displays and the store at the visitor's center, the ranger pictured below told us that "he's pretty active", "not sure the hike would be the best thing for you." Not sure how to feel about that, but it is true. Yes, CJ is very active, but we wouldn't want him any other way!! We weren't planning to do the hike anyhow (it was pretty steep and also entailed like 200-something stairs) since CJ weighs 25 lbs and neither JT or I are in prime hiking shape right now.

Mr. Busy Body stopping momentarily for a drink of water!

Here is Walnut Canyon!!
There is the pueblo ruins in the cliff side. JT asked me "How did those people get up there?" And I said "Where? I don't see any people?!" JT said "I was referring to the people back in the day that used to live there!" Me: "Oh, duh! I don't know." Ha ha ha!!!
CJ running around exploring the park, far far away from the steep canyon cliff!! He discovered a stick!!
So, he did what any good boy would do: used the stick to dig in the dirt!! :)
Since I don't have much else to blog about today, thought I would briefly introduce two other important "family members" who we couldn't be making this trip without!! Here is our navigator Berta. Don't ask me how we decided on that name (pretty similar process to baby naming...couldn't be anyone we knew, etc). She is our faithful GPS who has only led us astray twice on this trip which isn't bad considering we've covered over 2,100 miles!!

And we can't forget Barney, the iPad. The main function that we are so grateful for is his ability to keep our son entertained and content by playing "Cars" over and over while we are driving down the road!

Tonight we are staying at Drury Inn & Suites. One of the things that is great about this hotel is the drinks and food they serve during happy hour. Tonight's food included macaroni & cheese. Would our son eat their mac?! No, he wanted Velveeta. He's not high maintenance at all! The manager was nice enough to unlock the milk just for us since they usually only have it available in the morning!! (In the evenings they just serve alcohol and soda, neither of which are CJ appropriate!)
In this hotel, I made the night side stand a "toy chest". (I'm planning on doing a blog about traveling with a toddler that includes how to baby-proof hotel rooms after the trip is done). Tonight while playing with his various toys, CJ decided to climb in the table with the toys!! He is too much sometimes, but we are so glad to see him feeling better!
Praying for better sleep tonight. Headed to Las Vegas tomorrow for the next two nights. We have a larger suite room there, so hopefully that will help the sleeping situation too?! (Right now CJ is like 3 feet away from one of the beds so when he stirs, he has a tendency to see us and want us!)

Arizona, Such a Fine Sight to See

CJ slept through the night last night, and JT and I got about 8.5 hours of much needed rest! We all woke up in good moods...amazing what a little sleep will do!! CJ only had a mild temperature (like 99?) and ate a good breakfast at the hotel of a whole muffin, some bacon, grapes, and milk. We departed Gallup, NM, and before we knew it we were entering Arizona!!

Fun fact: we are now officially in Pacific Time Zone (sort of). Arizona doesn't observe Daylight Savings Time so right now, despite being Mountain Standard Time, they are the same time as Pacific. Bottom Line, we are now 3 hours earlier than most of our friends and family.

This sign was at the rest area! Yikes!! Needless to say, we did NOT let CJ run around here despite his "dow" (with hand motion up & down) "peeaasss" begging!!

We decided to take it easy on CJ again today from the get go, because he started being a little whinny, and we could tell he still probably wasn't feeling all the way better. Our first stop was Petrified Forest National Park.

We went to the Visitor's Center, where we got to see several beautiful samples of petrified wood.

CJ got to play with some items on the touch table!

Then we did the first part of the scenic drive through the park. The "painted desert" was absolutely stunning!!

CJ was content in the AC'ed car watching his movie on the iPad, so JT and I jumped out (for a minute, and we were right next to the car!) to take a picture of ourselves.
We loved all the different colors!! Amazing!! (The whole time we kept talking about how crazy it was that it was so remarkably similar looking to The Badlands in South Dakota that we got to see on our last cross-country trip in 2008!!)
Even though this sign is spelled "wrong"...I HAD to stop and pose by the sign for my point! Ha ha! I already contacted the National Park service to let them know there is no "e"! ;)
Petrified Forest was on the original Route 66, so they had markers indicating where the Old Mother Road once was.
This was a neat display, with the Route 66 map and an old car still sitting where the road used to be.
As we left the park, I made JT stop so I could take this picture! I thought the flowers on this cactus were really pretty!! Neat to see the juxtaposition between something so delicate, growing from something so sharp!!
So this next portion of the road trip is where things got a little worrisome for JT and me. It was a warm day, and CJ was REALLY refusing to drink...he didn't want his sippy cup, he didn't want to drink from a straw, he didn't want to drink from a bottle. We tried pedialyte, water, gatorade...the only thing he would even take a couple of sips of was milk. He hadn't had a wet diaper since the morning, so we were trying to do everything we could to make sure he stayed hydrated. (At one point we were holding his mouth open and using the medicine eye dropper thingy to squirt water in his mouth, basically forcing him to drink!) He fell asleep for a nap, and as he was sleeping we passed the famous "Here It Is" sign
as well as the town of Winona (made famous from the Route 66 song line "and don't forget Winona"). Both of these are things we probably would have stopped at had CJ #1) not been sleeping & #2) been feeling better!! One other sign that I failed to get a picture of was a "rough road" sign. JT and I got a good laugh out of that one, and joked that the people that felt that sign was necessary, had OBVIOUSLY never been on Michigan roads!! (It didn't have potholes every 2 feet...it actually wasn't even that rough at all!!) Ha ha!
After CJ woke up from his shorter than normal nap, still without a wet diaper and VERY cranky with a a few dry coughs, I started looking up Urgent Care places in Flagstaff, AZ. We just wanted to make sure that it really was "just teething" and not something more that we were unable to see (ear ache, sore throat, etc) that was making him not feel well. The first place I called didn't accept Tricare. The military's wonderful insurance always makes things so easy (insert sarcasm)! Thankfully the place I found that took our insurance was only a couple of miles away from the hotel we are staying at, and the lady on the phone was super nice! We didn't even have to wait that long considering it was a walk-in clinic!! Here JT is keeping CJ entertained with the iPad.

Continuing to chew away on those hands!!
Poor boy getting a hug from his Momma (not a great picture of me, but this is real life and Moms don't always look good!) I think CJ has watched the movie "Cars" at least once a day on this trip. It is getting to the point where I am reciting the lines from the front seat as it is playing, he LOVES it, and requests "vroom vroom". JT jokes that "we will once again be showing our only feature presentation".
The Dr. was very kind and good with CJ. His ears looked normal. But his throat looked pretty red and a little inflamed. The strep swab came back negative. So, based on his symptoms, we have concluded that CJ probably has sort of small virus in addition to teething. They gave us a prescription that we are going to go ahead a fill that way we will have it on the road with us if we end up getting to the point that we need it...but for now we are just going to keep an eye on CJ. He finally did end up having a wet diaper right after we left the Dr. (of course!), but JT and I feel like it was better to be safe than sorry when it comes to CJ's well being, especially while traveling and no normal pediatrician access!!

After lots of fast food the last couple of days, JT and I really needed to eat a sit down dinner. We went to the Beaver St. Brewery on the recommendation of the office workers at the Urgent Care Clinic. JT tried their beer sampler. He had shrimp tacos and I had a yummy homemade chicken pot pie!! CJ ate lots of watermelon, and some french fries (Don't judge, we were just happy to have him eat something!). We did the check right after we got done eating, because CJ was getting tired!! (Understandably so, with two time changes in two days on top of not feeling well!!)

CJ went down a little better for bed tonight, but still really wanted to cuddle. He has been moaning in his sleep a little, poor boy, but hopefully we will all get some more sleep tonight! (Fingers crossed!) Our original plans for tomorrow have been scrapped. We were going to go up and spend the day at Grand Canyon, but considering the heat, and the fact that it is Fourth of July weekend, we don't think it is a good idea for CJ to be riding around on crowded buses all day. We are going to just play tomorrow by ear. Something that is kinda hard for my Type-A Planner personality sometimes, but this is life with a toddler-you have to go with the flow to do what is best for them. We may go to Walnut Canyon National Monument since it is only a few miles away (that was our original plan for this afternoon before we went to the Urgent Care). Or, we might just hang out here at the hotel and play with toys, and watch the Disney channel, maybe go swimming at the pool? I really don't care what we do, I just want CJ to feel better!!

Lastly, I made a comment setting change since several people told me they were having trouble commenting...not sure if it will help or not, but it was worth a shot! Thanks for following our journey, and for all the good thoughts and prayers!! Night y'all!