Dog days of summer

We had a jam packed last month hoo-rah before heading back to work...

Elliot is walking more and more and he is obsessed with sunglasses, hats, his cowboy boots, tunnels, swimming, outside and dancing

After all of Elliot's fun in Pennsylvania with the riding lawn mower, Byron bought a broken one, fixed it up and now Elliot gets to help Daddy with the lawn.

 

Filson loves hats too

Looking dapper at our friend Danielle's wedding

Beautiful location near Walden, CO

This is how Elliot prefer we cook dinner

So last minute we decided to take a road trip down to Arizona to visit my brother Chris, Marissa and Max.  The road trip started with a night in Colorado Springs with Deborah and a visit to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo to feed the giraffes.  Elliot loved it!

Elliot is in love with Monkey's right now, almost all animals were Monkey's

In a "tunnel" with Mommy

On our way to Flagstaff, we spent the night in Albuquerque, New Mexico and had breakfast with Uncle David and Jesse in the morning.  It was great to see family and enjoy a good meal!

Our road trip was going really well, Elliot was being a trooper and we were making really good time.  We passed by many photo-ops and finally I made Byron pull over at the Petrified Forest National Park just for a quick photo.  It was around 102 degrees, no shade and we were a 1/2 hour from the nearest town where we would finally stop for lunch and feed our hungry family.  We get everyone loaded back in the car, Byron goes to start the car and then realizes that...our car key has broken off in our ignition.   Panic set in as Byron calmly started to solve the problem.  Elliot, Filson and I got out and walked around to get the nervous energy out.  After about 20 minutes, Byron gets the car started and the air conditioning going.  I quickly try to get us all loaded up thinking, lets just get going to the nearest town before the car breaks.  He successfully broke the security system and hot wired the car, however now the steering wheel was locked.  Luckily a nice family from Amsterdam pulled in for a photo-op as well and had an ax in their car.  Byron took the ax to the ignition switch, broke it and freed up the steering wheel.  After 30 minutes of panic, I burst into tears, got everyone back in the car and we headed on.  Thank god I married MacGyver!  Filson was so hot, we gave him a bunch of ice to cool down, he was over heated and barfed all over the back seats.  It took us 2.5 more hours to get to Flagstaff and lets just say we were thrilled to pull in to Chris and Marissa's driveway!

Happy family

Freaking out family

Elliot and Max hanging out

Happy Max

Elliot re-living his past

A little badmitten competition

Chris trying to get the cousins to hug without poking each others eyes out

Quick hike in Sedona to get to a swimming spot

Max conked out on the walk

"Simming"

Dads and Boys

Elliot now thinks its a "tunnel"

Working together?

Took a trip to Bearizona!

Uncle

Oink

Our only photo of the trip home, we were stuck in 45 minutes of traffic outside of Moab and too grumpy and hot to get out of the car and enjoy anything, we were sooooo ready to be home

Stopped at a hotel in Rifle, CO and Elliot loved his new "truck"