Snow Day in Flagstaff!

The idea was to leave at 8:00 a.m. and head for the high country, it was 20 minutes to eight when my daughter called me to ask me if I was ready and to find out what time I was leaving. I said yes I am ready (which was a lie as I was still in bed) but told her I wanted to talk to Nikki to see if I could hitch a ride with her. Her reply was, "Oh no Daddy, we can pick you up". So 15 minutes later they were picking me up and yes I was ready to go. Being a man is easier than a woman in situations like this.

The leaving at the same time but driving on our own went down the drain immediately, my kids just love doing things together and so we all headed for my son's house where we all met. After a short wait for my daughter in law we finally hit the road. It was 9:30 by this time. My niece and her family were already half an hour ahead of us, they were traveling in two cars, later my sister in law called to let us know that her family was behind us by about 45 minutes too.

So off we went, all six cars and 27 of us. Traffic was good, no accidents thank God, no construction, no road blocks, it was smooth sailing all the way. We were blessed with great weather, I always take a bag full of extra jackets, scarfs, gloves, etc. As someone always get too cold or too wet up there, but this time the sun was shining nice and bright, some of the guys were wearing only t-shirts, and the coldness of the snow which by the way was plenty felt pretty refreshing.

I needed a new picture of me and my wonderful but crazy kids.
I am paying the price today because going up and down that slope with the grand kids took a toll on me, but it was worth every minute of it. As they are a bit older they now appreciated the beauty and fun of sledding down the hill. The "I'm having so much fun grandpa" statement came out of their mouths more than once. Even the toddlers loved it and actually got upset when we said we were leaving.

They just loved being dragged around on the sleds.
Last year most of our regular family outings were put on hold but I have bowed to get the wheels moving forward again and to engage in all these fun activities we so love doing together as a family.

The only downside was that the park was so packed that it took us forever to get in and actually the car that was 45 minutes behind us was denied entry to the park because I was full to capacity. Obviously they were not going to let this spoil their trip, they found a nearby play area were they too played in the snow and had lots of fun too.



We are so used to make the best of this situations and I for one am looking to our next family adventure.

And here is the whole gang except maybe the photographer.
Many of these images "borrowed" from Michelle's Facebook page. Thanks Michelle!

Snow Day!

Hola Familia,

So, for the third time in four years we will be going to the snow. This year everyone agreed on Sunday the 16th since the following Monday is a holiday for the kids and there will be no school. We have always had fun at the snow and I think this will be a good experience for the little ones that have not seen the snow, but not for the three tiny little ones.

I am thinking that like the last time, everyone will travel on their own or on small groups two or three cars together because trying to stay together as a large group proved to be a nightmare. As long as we all leave at around the same time and stay in contact via cell phones we should all get there at around the same time. Last time somehow we all managed to get together in Flagstaff without even trying. That worked out pretty nice. I say use the buddy system, one or two cars together in case someone needs help.

We will be going to Wing Mountain Sledding and Snow Play Area again. For those of you that haven't been there here are some directions that will help you get there:

An Easy Drive Just North of Flagstaff, Arizona.

From Interstate 40, follow Hwy 180 north 2.8 miles past Snowbowl Road to mile marker 226 (approximate), turn left onto Forest Service Road 222B. The exit is clearly marked as “Wing Mountain Snow Play Area.” You can find a map here.

Their fees are as follows: The parking and use fee for the Wing Mountain Snow Play Area is $12 per car. No re-entry is allowed. All children under 16 must be accompanied by and supervised by an adult.

I suggest we all bring food "pot luck" style. so we can all share. And please, buy everything here in town so that we don't have to be wasting time up there in Flagstaff on the actual day.

If you like to visit their website just click here!

Come on gang, let's get together and let's have fun. And please take plenty of warm clothes as well as extra clothes for the kids as they may need it. Do not take them in tennis shoes cause they will freeze and won't enjoy their time up there. We've been there before so everyone should now know what to bring and how to dress.

Let's stay in contact and hope to see as many of you there.

Wing Mountain Snow Day

OK it was a little bit past 5:00 a.m. when the alarm clock went off and mi chica woke me up for the first time, of course she knows I won't react until maybe the second snooze. Yep, that's me. Finally I got up and woke up everyone else. A quick shower, a cup of coffee and a loaded van. We were ready to hit the road, but not before dropping "chapalita" off with her ninos.

We did really good time and pretty soon we were stopping at the Prescott/Flagstaff crossroad. My daughter in law and two granddaughters caught up to us there. My daughter and her family left last and somehow were like half hour ahead from us. After a short pit stop we resumed our trip. I like a dummy got on the wrong lane and headed towards Prescott, I realized this right away so I threw a u-turn and got back on track, however my daughter in law didn't realized this and she kept driving towards Prescott thinking she was on the right path. When she finally realized her error she was a good 25 minutes behind us now. There for a while the kids were watching rocks, when I asked why the sudden interest in rocks, they said, "Didn't you see the sign that said watch for rocks next two miles" Not really, while the sign was there I just made this up. lol

So, when we got to Flagstaff we stopped at a gas station and that served as our meeting point. Half an hour later we were all on our way to the snow together. Having the instructions in advance on how to get there was a plus because we found Wing Mountain Recreational Park very easily.




We parked next to the snow so the kids started to explore and to play in the sleds we had bought a few minutes before. We all started on a little slope that didn't even look like a slope at all. In the meantime my in laws started setting up the TV in the back of an SUV. It took a lot of tweaking the antennas but they finally found the reception, it was sort of ironic because the reception was kinda snowy and we were in the snow.





After a while we graduated to the bigger slopes and that's where the fun and the accidents began. While everyone loved it, there were many wipe outs. Diego came back with a black eye, Jen and Nikki wiped out and landed on the gravel, Noe was totally knocked out by a runaway sled and got a bloody mouth, booty aches, scrapes, yep we had it all but in the end everybody wanted more. Junior decided to stick around the TV and he watched most of the game, they came calling out the score and of course the Cards were winning most of the game so the crowd went crazy.

At four we were ready to leave, the game was not over but that was fine we were still winning but wait... what? Philadelphia just scored and we are now down by one. Man that just sucks. Let's go.

Two miles down the road there is a small restaurant that sells the best coffee and hot chocolate, we went in and they were all watching the game. We were still down and I just couldn't take the pressure of watching my team lose so I went outside and babysat all the sleeping kids on three cars while everyone else stayed inside.
I said let's go and they said are you crazy? We won't leave until the game is over. With that they all marched inside the restaurant to watch the last 2 minutes 53 seconds left in the game. Of course to me that was an eternity, in the meantime mi chica called from home and told me we were winning and there was only 1 minute left. She said it's pretty safe to say we won, but me knowing my Cards I had to know the game was over.


Good coffee and hot chocolate and inside featuring the Cardinals. And this is where we found out we (The Cardinals) are going to the Super Bowl.

A few more minutes and everybody comes out running from the restaurant screaming and jumping and saying that the Cardinals won and that we are going to the Super Bowl. Ufff what a sight of relief, I knew my three and a half hour drive to Avondale would be a nice one.

Junior bought me a coffee and I started to drink it, everybody fell asleep and I was enjoying my coffee when I read a sign that said "Do not drink and drive". Man and I was really enjoying my coffee.


Part of the group, it was just too hard to get everyone together.

The Trip to the Snow.

"Do you realize all of our kids our coming with us on this outing?" Yep, I said, and then some. For some reason every one wanted to go see the snow. Most of the little ones had never seen it so we knew then it would be a treat.

We had to wait for my sister in law's husband to come off from work so we hit the road at about 10:30 a.m. already a bit late but the best we could do. I suggested for us to take the 101 up to the 17 as it would be faster, but if you know about Murphy's Law if anything can go wrong it will. Not even three miles into our trip we found out they had a freeway closure. Man they have those every weekend and they are a pain in the rear. It took us almost 40 minutes to cruise a 4-mile stretch, that was valuable travel time.


We got to our first stop at the McDonalds at the Camp Verde exit. Got off the van and realize that the long sleeve shirt I had was not warm enough anymore, so on went the sweat shirt. We ate home made tacos, bought drinks, went to the rest rooms, and some 35 minutes later hit the road again.

Next stop should have been in Flagstaff, except mi chica noticed that one of the four cars we were traveling in was not in following us anymore, she got on the cell phone and found out that the car kept stopping for some reason. So she called all everyone and we all got off on exit no. 315 on Rock Park Rd. There was already plenty of snow there so we all got off and the kids started to experience the snow for the first time ever. Some of them thought, wait a minute this is not nice at all, they kept sinking in the snow, they couldn't walk, they were cold and all of a sudden they decided that this snow business was not nice after all.




















We took pictures with "Mike" a snow man made by some previous travelers, our stranded team was only about five minutes behind us so we didn't even have to wait for too long. We deiced to put them in the middle and pushed on towards Flagstaff.

We finally got to Flagstaff at around 2:00 p.m. Since we didn't have drinks we stopped at the local WalMart, big, big mistake. The store was crowded, it was hard to find parking spots, we were scattered all over the place and winded up wasting a good hour and a half there.



Now it's late so we decided to push on, we started heading towards the Grand Canyon and couldn't find a suitable spot. Mi chica once again noticed the same car from before was missing, she gets on the phone and finds out that they got stuck in the snow, but had been able to get the car going again.

At this point we were hungry as well as frustrated, we headed back to an area we saw with some activity and just parked there. We all ate, and mi chica found out she wore the wrong boots for the snow, as they had a smooth sole all the way, she had to skate instead of walk and was afraid of falling. So, there was a huge pile of dirt and tar covered with snow about a quarter of a mile away and we all headed that way. It was a pretty steep climb and the cardboard boxes we took to use as sleds did a good job. The kids were coming down so fast that we had to catch them at the bottom but after doing it once they got the hang of it and they loved it. The hard part for all was getting to the top of the slope.

















After a good hour there and once all the kids were totally wet and with running noses, we all headed back to the cars where a dry set of clothes waited for each one of them and decided that the next time we would prepare better. Yes the plan is to go up there again later in the year before the snow melts.

All in all we had a trip that was a little stressful, as too many of us went without a previous plan, but was so much fun never the less. Next time should be a lot better. But always remember about Murphy's Law.