Mason Family: Tucson!

We're going on vacation! We decided to load up the fam and take a vacation to Tucson. I know, and yes, it WAS hot. But we had a great time and were able to do a lot of fun things. Besides, it wasn't that hot. I think the hottest it got was 106 and we had monsoon rains on two of the days we were there, which helped cool things off.
Since Henry hates his carseat with a passion, we thought it would be best to do all of our driving at night while he slept. So we got up for his feeding at 1:30am, loaded the boys and hit the road by 2. Tired, yes, but at least there wasn't any screaming to go along with our six-plus hours of driving. We made it a little over halfway before the sun came up and the boys woke up. We stopped at one of the few rest stops so Jonah could run around (it was over 100 degrees at about six in the morning!) and Henry could eat. Then back on the road. The boys both did amazingly well!

Hangin' out at the rest stop somewhere on I-8 near the Mexican border

We stayed at a really great resort (summer is off-season in Tucson, which leads to great resort deals!) that had three swimming pools. Jonah took to the water like a little fish. A goldfish to be exact. He requested that we call him a goldfish whenever he put his swimsuit on! We got him a special swimsuit with floaties built into the front and back. One of the guests at the pool commented that he looked like a superhero!

He found this little basketball at one of the pools and claimed it as his own! I think he did everything with that little basketball while we were there.

One of the days, we went to the Tucson Desert Museum. It was the hottest day, but it was still pretty fun. It's kinda like a desert zoo. This was inside a cave exhibit.

Desert landscape at the museum - so pretty! When I think of "desert" I think of tumbleweeds and dead grass. Not so - this desert was very alive and beautiful (and green!)

This little raccoon came right up to us as we were watching it play in the water. Jonah was eating some peanut butter crackers and I think this was his version of begging for a cracker. Sorry little guy!

As we were leaving, Jonah got out to put some coins in the "piggy banks". They are actually havalena which are like desert pigs, although people get cranky if you call them "pigs." It was toasty, so we had soaked the boys' shirts in the bathroom sink to cool them off. At first Jonah looked like a wet dog, all sad and confused, but he learned to appreciate it when it cooled him off!
Jonah also had to face his fear on this trip. As we were going around the museum he started screaming and crying. When we looked into the stroller, a fly had landed on his leg. Jonah was crying, "BUG!" and was hysterical. A little dramatic!

All ready for church - my cute boys!

The last full day of our vacation, we went to the Childrens Museum. It was so much fun! We met our friend Jennifer and her two kids, Owen and Amelia. Owen was our tour guide through the museum (and Jonah's new best friend!) This room was a big submarine that you could pretend to drive. Jonah loves to push buttons, so you can imagine the fun he had here!

This room was like a big tidepool/ocean room.

Some sort of big string maze. The kids didn't really know how to do it so they just crawled around like "ninjas".

They had a craft set up to make a mask. Jonah wasn't into that so much, but he was into holding each and every last colored pencil.

Not so happy to wear the mask either.

This room had a big metal wall with a ball maze on it. The pipes were magnetized so you could move them around to create a new maze for the balls to go through.

LEGOS!!!!! (They even had a LEGO cactus - only in Tucson!)

The train room. If you look through the train, you can see Jonah at the end!

He has one of these at home, but he still spent a lot of time with this one!

This room was super cool! They had a desert scene projected on the ground with sensors in it. Little bugs would run out and if the kids stomped on them, they would disappear or run away really fast. They burned off a lot of energy in here!