What a Week! Rehoboth, Canyon deChelly, and the Grand Canyon

One week ago, we were just getting back from a wonderful week. We left on a Saturday about 2 weeks ago (April 16) and spent about 12 hours driving across southeast CA, Arizona, and into New Mexico, making it to Rehoboth Christian School just in time for dinner! I've included a LOT of pictures here, so skim through whatever you're interested in!

After going to church on Palm Sunday, the group that had arrived from our church (about 6 families ranging from younger couples (yes, I still consider us "young"!) with little kids, to families with kids in jr. high and high school, and a couple of retired couples) all went on a hike behind the school property.

This was pretty typical of our 2 1/2 or 3 mile hike: Scott has one kid on his shoulders, is dragging one kid along, and Sarah Z. has a kid in a baby carrier... it made for good exercise!

Taking a break in the shade! (Notice the girl in the straw hat on the left side... this is Alaine... and this hike is where Calvin fist took notice of Alaine... more on that later...!)

On Monday morning, after starting with breakfast and devotions with the group, we got started working on the playground.

The kids spent a lot of time playing tag on these huge tires right next to the playground we were working to set up.

Norah spent one whole day playing in this pile of dirt. She was pretending little sticks and rocks were characters from Toy Story 3, one of her recent favorite movies.

making progress!

Ken Zylstra, our good friend who is moving to Rehoboth (sigh!) was the man in charge of the playground set-up. He did a good job giving everyone directions!

The finished project! The whole crew worked hard and got a lot more accomplished that what Ken was hoping we'd get done, so we decided to stay an extra half day on Thursday and get the railroad ties and the pea gravel set (5 20-ton trucks... that sure was a LOT of gravel!). It was great to see all kids from the school lined up Thursday at lunch time waiting to run out onto their new playground!

On Friday morning we left Rehoboth and drive about 2 hours north to a place called Canyon deChelly. It was beautiful seeing the amazing rock formations -- it's so different from where we grew up and the landscape in CA!

We hiked to the bottom of the canyon (about 1 mile down). Here is the trail going down. Scott was pretty nervous about the heights and the drop-offs in certain areas! He kept a pretty firm grip on Norah's hand.

At the bottom of the canyon there was a spot where there were some old Indian dwellings built into the side of the cliff -- interesting!

The ruins look doll-sized in this photo!

Another picture at the bottom of canyon

Calvin loved collecting rocks to throw into the river.

Taking a break in a little cut-out in the rock.

Throughout our week at Rehoboth, Calvin got to know a high-school girl named Alaine and became absolutely smitten with her. When he woke up in the morning he would go knock on the door to her motor home and ask if Alaine was up yet, he saved her a spot next to him for meal-times, and wanted to hold her hand and be near her at all times... it became pretty comical for all the kids there to see the romance blossoming throughout the week! While we were at Canyon deChelly, we ran into Alaine and her family and the Westra family at the bottom of the canyon. Needless to say, Calvin was delighted! They were on their way back up and we were on our way down, so they got back up to the parking lot about 20-30 minutes before us. When we got back to our car, we discovered the above "graffiti" on our car... the Westra kids had been busy! It was funny to see several cars honk and wave as we drove home over the next couple of days at the "newlyweds".

After leaving Canyon de Chelly we drove across northern Arizona through the Navajo and Hopi Indian reservations to go to the Grand Canyon. This was one common sight --horses grazing everywhere.

This was another common sight (sorry for the poor photo quality) -- the houses were so small and run-down. It made me very sad to see the poverty the Indians live in!

Around 5:00 pm on Friday, we made it to the east entrance of Grand Canyon National Park.

We drove along the road to the south entrance, enjoying the magnificent views along the way. Then we found a hotel just outside the south entrance and got up the next morning to enjoy a few more views and we watched the IMAX movie of the Grand Canyon.

These pictures are a little out of order; I think this picture was taken Friday night as the sun was setting and the previous one is from Saturday morning.

Norah

Calvin

Daniel

And this is how our kiddos spent many hours! They did a very good traveling with very few squabbles and crabbiness. They were pretty content to sight-see, watch movies, play angry birds on my ipod, and listen to books on cd.

No matter what was going on, the sight of a train never failed to get an excited reaction from all the kids. It was a great distraction since we discovered that the southwest highways we drove on must be busy train "highways" as well -- we probably saw 100 or more trains (moving!) on our trip!

All in all it was a great trip! We were excited to be able to participate in a work project with the whole family and (overall) we were pleased with how well the kids did. But we were also very thankful to arrive safely home and sleep in our own beds on Saturday night!