Heflin's Head West - Grand Canyon and Las Vegas

After our days at Disneyland we then packed up the rental car and started out toward our next adventure. We were on our way to Arizona and the Grand Canyon. It was around a 6 hour car ride, so the little DVD players were plugged up and running all the movies the kids could watch. 

On the road to Arizona.

We made it! Arizona was the kids 17th state. Only 33 more to go!

After we checked into the hotel we decided to try and go see the canyon at nighttime. Before we even made it into the park we spotted our first wildlife, an elk. If you don't see it, it is because it is hiding behind that tree. 

The kids first time at the Grand Canyon National Park. Jennifer and I both went here as kids and we had totally different experiences. Jennifer loved it and thought it was one of the most amazing sites she had ever seen. I just remember it being a big hole in the ground.

We spotted about 10 elk in the first hour of being at the park. After that the kids didn't really even care when I pointed them out.

One of the first views of the canyon from the south rim.

Family selfie with the canyon.

The kids wanted to climb on everything and Jennifer was a nervous wreck. She wouldn't hardly let them get out of her arms reach. 

Family picture.

Sometimes they are actually nice to each other.

This is one of my all-time favorite photos. Just me and my little man sitting here without a care in the world. 

The girls wanted to join us out on the ledge too. Doesn't look as dangerous from this angle. Three of us are shoe-less because we didn't want our sandals to fall off.

We saw this awesome looking tree and Landon said he wanted to climb up in it.

We stuck around to watch the sunset. It was a beautiful sight! Pictures aren't even able to do justice to the beauty.

Sitting on the edge with my favorite people in the world.

Jennifer was a nervous wreck the whole time. She wouldn't let the kids out of her reach and tried to hold onto them at all times.

The grand canyon proved to be much more impressive to me as an adult. I could have sat and looked at it all day long.

The next day we got up and headed out to the national park again. The kids were not overly excited about coming back, but this part of the trip was not about them. Jennifer and I wanted to see the Grand Canyon, so this was our little excursion of the trip.

Our kids are usually better at taking our picture than random people that we find and ask. Works out pretty good.

To help get rid of some of the kids excess energy we hiked part of the south rim paved trail so that the kids would sit still later in the day when we were driving to our next destination.

Besides the kids being our awesome photographers we have also put to use quite a bit the function on our apple watches that allow us to take pictures on our phones. Just prop the phone up and then hit the button on my watch and then we have our own photographer.

We hiked and rode on the buses along the south rim all the way up to Hermit's Rest. 

We had packed some snacks and drinks for a little break up at Hermit's Rest.

Another family picture with the canyon in the background. You can even see the river on the right hand side.

Definitely somewhere you should go sometime in your life to just look at the beauty of it all!

Around noon we finally decided that the kids were over it and we didn't want to push our luck with not having any kids falling over the edge. We hopped in the car and started our 4 hour drive to Las Vegas, for our last destination of the trip.

After checking in at our hotel, Circus Circus, we headed down to the strip to show the kids all of the sights and sounds. We walked almost the entire strip.

View of all the lights looking down the strip. 

Our little photographer took a picture with us in front of the Eiffel Tower.

We made a great move when we decided to take the strollers on the trip down the strip. We got a lot of weird looks and I even overheard people talking about us saying "Why would you bring your kids out to the strip'" and "Las Vegas is no place to take a kid'" We made it back to the car at midnight, so I can kinda see their point, but hey we were on vacation! Also, I would have loved to hear what they would say if they knew that it was really 3 am in our time zone.

The next day just happened to be Father's Day. We were trying to figure out exactly what all we wanted to do, but top on the list was playing in the hotel pool. We could see it out of our window and it was all the kids could talk about.

Landon was excited about the play area. However, this morning, the water at the splash pad  was freezing.

Brinley was talk enough for the water slides. We went down about 4 or 5 times and she loved it. 

The last time we were in Las Vegas I had discovered that they had my favorite restaurant of all time, Giordano's! So, when they asked me what I wanted to do for Father's Day this was tops on my list. It did not disappoint!

Jennifer and the kids with the Eiffel Tower replica.

While we were out in Las Vegas last November we went to see the Nathan Burton magic show. At the time I thought the kids would like it. So, we bought tickets and went to see it again. The kids thought it was really cool.

We stopped at the Carlos Bakery Las Vegas location for a little sweet treat. I got this cannoli and asked them to put a little Happy Father's Day toothpick in it.

The entrance to our hotel Circus Circus. The clown looked a little creepy, but don't all clowns look like that.

Jennifer had really wanted to take the kids to a Cirque de Soliel show while we were in Vegas. Brinley loved it and Landon slept through about 75% of the show. It was an interesting show with lots of acrobatic stunts and some funny stuff. 

You can't go to Las Vegas and not get your picture with the Welcome to Las Vegas sign. It is iconic. There was some random man there with a spotlight that was helping people take pictures. He said that if you didn't use a spotlight then you wouldn't get a good picture. He snapped this picture of us.

We stopped at Top Golf  to play for a while before our flight. Apparently Monday morning is an extremely busy morning. The wait was over an hour long. We thought about waiting and even played a couple games of shuffle board. After a little while I decided that it wasn't worth missing a flight to play. Jennifer said we could go sometime in Cincinnati which sounded fine with me.

Instead we took the kids to get a picture with the back of the Las Vegas sign.

Back to the airport to wait for our flight home. The kids loved the moving walkways at the airports.

Vacations are fun, but it is always nice to head home!

We missed out on getting our wings on our flight out west, so I was sure to ask early for some wings on our way back home. A little side perk was that the wings came in a little goody bag with all kinds of snacks. The kids were so excited about getting their wings!

Landon was again my seat partner. I just love this picture because Landon is looking up to me like I am the greatest thing in this world. I just hope this little guy always knows how much I love him and his sister. They mean so much to me.

Our trip out west was full of fun and adventure. We packed an awful lot into the 12 days. Brinley said her favorite thing was the San Diego Zoo and Landon said his favorite thing was Legoland. I would highly recommend going out west sometime if you ever get a chance. I know that there are so many other things out west that I would like to see sometime, so we might just have to take another trip out there sometime. Maybe next time I can talk Jennifer into driving out there. Thanks for reading and God bless!