Our Arizona Family Vacation

Two years ago our prophet President Monson announced that two new temples would be built in Arizona. One was to be built in the Gila Valley and one in Gilbert, only 3 miles from my front door. Although the Gilbert temple hasn't even began to be built, so sad, the Gila Valley Temple is just about to be dedicated and opened. This was an awesome opportunity to take our kids on a 3 hour drive to see the inside of this beautiful house of the Lord.

We were suppose to arrive at the Temple about noon, but there had been a horrible accident on the freeway, which lead to it's closure and therefore we didn't get there till almost 4 pm. Thank goodness a friend of ours had called us that morning and told us of the freeway closure so we were able to avoid sitting in traffic for 4 hours. The temple was beautiful and wonderful and my kids really enjoyed sweet feeling inside.

We planned this journey with our good friends, The Johnson's. It made the trip so much more enjoyable with friends. Since we were driving 3 hours away, I had the great idea of turning this little trip into a weekend of fun:)

We had found a Arizona State Park only 20 minutes away from the temple and we had brought all of our camping gear to camp. After we got our tent set up, we were able to change:) A young couple with two kids were camping right next to us and they had done the same thing. So nice to have some people around you know why you showed up to camp in your Sunday best:)

It was a very basic campsite, but perfect for an overnighter.

It was only a short walk to the lake.

David quickly got out the fishing poles so the kids could try and catch a fish before dark. Unfortunately the mosquitos wanted to eat the kids up too. So the mission was aborted since we forgot our insect repellant.

I had made foil dinners earlier that day at home and it was a perfect way to enjoy a good meal outdoors.

The next morning David got up with the kids to take them back to the pond to fish.

This time he took the kids to a pier that was nearby.

Our friend, Ellie, had a great idea on how to fish in comfort.

Jayden showing off his ability to cast his own hook.

Once Jayden got bored, he began throwing rocks in the lake. That is a perfect way to scare all of the fish, so he ended up sitting in timeout for a period of time:(

These cute little cabins were near the campsite and were rentable for only $50 a night. They slept up to 6 people. Very fun idea, but the camping was still cheaper:)

After fishing and breakfast were through and we packed up camp and went down the road to a natural hot spring. I'm so glad that bathing suits were required!! :)

The kids had a blast and probably could swim there for hours, but we had other things we wanted to do.

Emma figured out how to have a great time even though she had a cast on. I wasn't too worried since she was getting it removed in just a couple of days. Thank goodness she was good at keeping it dry or else she would have been one STINKY girl:)

We stopped by another lake that had more interesting things to explore, but we didn't have enough time to really do that exploring. The kids did, however, find another water hole.

Thank goodness cactus' can be beautiful too during the spring, because we have a lot of them around here.

We drove about 1 1/2 hours from the campground to visit another state park that we have been wanting to investigate. This one had a HUGE cavern that was so awesome to walk through. There was also a really neat museum and movie that taught us about caverns. We definitely recommend this place for a family activity. Unfortunately, they didn't allow pictures to be taken inside the cavern:(.

On the way home we stopped in Tucson for some yummy dinner. We love Inn-n-out:)

This was a very quick and full of fun trip to spend as a family. We were only gone for 2 days and 1 night. I still can't believe how much we accomplished in such a short period of time. We loved it!