Weekend Wrap-Up: The Traveling to Tucson with a Toddler Edition

WHEW!!!!

We are home from a whirlwind 4 day trip to Tucson, AZ for our dear family friend Ellen's wedding.  It was SO much fun to be able to spend so much time with my family and the Suurmeyers.

And we also learned that traveling with a 2-year-old is...shall we say...challenging. :)

So I'll start at the beginning.  Of course, I took many more pictures than I could share on one blog post, so I will post a link to the rest of the pictures at the end.

Friday
11am flight...Mommy was nervous about nap time, but a certain toddler was excited to be in an airplane!

Waiting to hear from "the lady" when to put our seat belts on.

How nap time on the plane went down...for 40 minutes.  At least it was something.

After we landed, we had to wait to get into our hotel (a LONG time), so we went to explore a little bit of the U of A campus.  Palm trees, running and sunshine were awesome!

After a failed attempt at a 2nd nap, we headed to Ellen and Vince's house for a fun groom's dinner party!

Hanging out with cacti

Hendersons

All the Hendersons and Suurmeyers!

Saturday
Somehow, the weather in AZ was 20 degrees cooler than the weather in MN.  And rainy. We didn't do enough research and assumed the pool was indoors.  So we trooped down to go swimming, and alas!  It was outdoors and rainy.  We put Callie in for about a minute so she wasn't too disappointed, and then she went swimming in the bathtub in the hotel room.

So cold!

We had some time before nap time and the wedding, so we headed to the Tucson Children's Museum.  Definitely not as cool as the one in MN, but still fun.

Shopping with Boom

Fire truck!

Thankfully (and amazingly) despite a 2-hour time change and lots of routine changes, Callie was a really good sleeper the whole trip.  So after a 2+ hour nap, we headed to the wedding!!!

Congrats Ellen and Vince!

Fun wedding!

Sunday
On Sunday morning we headed to the zoo with Mari and Boom.  The coolest part of it was the "Giraffe Experience" that we just happened to walk past at the right time.



So fun!

Then we headed to a "Food Truck Roundup" and got some great food.

Mmm...corn on the cob!

After another good nap we got some ice cream...

Too focused on the sherbet to take a good picture

 ...and then headed to the Suurmeyer's rental house mansion and enjoyed spending more time with them.  I snapped a pic of the scenery on the way there.  Not what we're used to in MN!

Monday
This morning was slightly warmer, so Mari and I tried to take Callie swimming again.  It was still cold.

Then it was time for brunch and VERY large pancakes before heading to the airport.

Blueberry pancakes!

The flight home was more stressful (i.e. toddler refusing to do what either of her parents wanted her to do...sleep!), so we handed her off to Boom and she promptly fell asleep.

So we're home safe and sound and thankful for a great trip.  We learned that traveling with a toddler isn't really a VACATION, per say, but she did really well considering the circumstances.  I'm very thankful to my wonderful husband for taking her back to the hotel early 3 nights in a row so I could spend time everyone (and do lots of awesome dancing at the wedding!).  And I'm also very thankful to my fam for stepping in and helping with our little one when she didn't want to listen to her parents anymore.  It was truly a team effort. And thanks to the Suurmeyers for throwing another rockin' wedding! :)

The link to the rest of the pictures is here: Baby Goose Shutterfly Site