PadawanOfHappiness

I am not saying that Arizona is a hole in the ground but it has a few famous ones, so that is what I nicknamed this vacation.  The ones we saw were: Meteor Crater Sunset Crater Montezuma Well The Grand Canyon The one we almost saw was lava river cave tube, technically it is open year round, but in the spring and summer months you can use a forest service road to drive to it and then you have about a 3/4 mile hike.  If the road is closed it is a 4 1/2 mile hike, it was in our plan to see at the end of April, but the road was still closed.  As we drove past the closed road we did see some random small piles of snow in Flagstaff.  I think it would have been cool (pun intended) since the cave stays between 32-44 degrees year round.  Sunset Crater, Montezuma Castle, and the Grand Canyon are all part of the National Parks system and they accept the America the Beautiful Annual Pass .  If you are going to multiple National Parks look up the individual fees, it m...

These tips are not specific to any one trip, but I have found them very helpful for family car trips.  Some of these tips I no longer use but were very helpful when the little Padawans were younger so I included them. Packing lists, they are a must, the level of detail and how cute you want to make it is up to you.  At the moment I do put down the number of shirts, shorts, underwear etc.  Each person uses it to pack their own bag, when they were younger I would review their bags before we left.  I no longer need to check it they have the system down.  You can save these so you only have to make minor edits for each vacation. One edit I made for this trip that I plan to keep is listing what goes in their duffel bag (this is what they use as their carry on, or in the car what they keep with them) and what goes in the big suitcase. Pack in clear plastic tote bins.  It is easier to see what you have as well as they are more easily stacked so you can pack a lot ...

Instant Oatmeal Since I was last here I have managed to try making my own instant oatmeal.  One good thing is that Mr. Padawan and the little Padawans* are very happy eating the same thing over and over again.  This makes my life a bit easier since I don't have to make a variety of instant oatmeal flavors. I settled on maple and brown sugar.  I did play with a few different versions that I found on the internet and found that I prefer the old fashioned rolled oats because that is what I use to make my granola and I didn't want to have a variety of oats in the pantry.  This means that I do toss my oats into a mini food processor and some of it I do chopp relatively fine, some are cut down a bit and some are left as is.  I then dump it all in a big bowl add in brown sugar and cinnamon, mix and then dump it into a glass jar.  For Mr. Padawan I do a general 1/3 cup, for the little Padawans, who seems to eat BIG breakfasts they do a 1/2 cup. One note, I need to ...