Sedona

Dad here (Ryan)  
We took a vacation within our vacation to head to Seven Canyons Resort in Sedona.  The drive to Sedona was absolutely amazing!  The desert turned into mountains which turned into canyons full of evergreens and wild life.  The views were spectacular!  We stopped just before Sedona to let the boys run a little bit and catch some of the canyon views.

The boys had fun at the rest stop climbing on rocks and getting their ya yas out.  While we were driving down into the canyon, Caroline was driving and was getting a little tense on the winding roads that were covered in fog....with cliffs dropping off on the sides hundreds of feet into the deep abyss, Caroline finally said to the non-stop talking boys - "Boys, Mom can't talk right now, she needs to focus on driving!" To which our son John said in a very informative voice, "Mom, you CAN talk, you have one mouth on your head!"  Duh Mom!

Kind of foggy, but this is the view heading into Sedona.

We finally reached Sedona and stopped to grab some groceries.  If you've never been, the town is great.  It is a small canyon town that has a river running through it with beautiful cottonwood trees along the river banks - their stark white bark contrasts the red canyon surrounding the city and is made even more beautiful with the hundreds of Christmas lights that were up. 

AT LAST we reached the gated entrance to Seven Canyons and pulled up to the guard.  I told the guy our names and he looked at the list...."You aren't on here" he said.  A state of panic came over Caroline and I.  Having just driven 3 hours with a 1.5 and 3 year old and it now being 9 at night, we did not know what to do.  After some investigation we discovered that we had a communication error and had come to Sedona a day early!!!!  The nice guard told us of a few hotels in town that we could stay at, and we reluctantly turned around.

We passed a few local establishments and settled on a chain hotel.  We checked in and got all of our things unloaded only to find out the mini fridge did not fit all our food we purchased at the store...Fortunately, the staff was really nice and said they would cook our frozen pizza (the one item that didn't fit) for us while we swam.  The boys were ecstatic to swim and we headed out to the outdoor "heated" pool.  Now, let me tell you, this certainly did not feel heated to me!  After dipping our toes in, we opted for the hot tub.  The boys splashed on the top step of the tub and had a great time.  Afterwards, we headed to our room for some tub time and pizza.

The boys found the ice bucket pretty entertaining.

After pizza the boys were pretty wound up from being in the car all day and were being boys - jumping and chasing each other around.  Unfortunately, we had adjoining rooms and our neighbors didn't think the boys playing was as much fun as we did.  They ended up complaining to the front desk.  FORTUNATELY, for us, the ladies at the front desk were both moms and understood our situation.  We offered to move rooms, and the hotel thanked us by comping our stay! 

The next morning we finally headed into Seven Canyons.  We were allowed to have an early check in since they felt bad that we arrived a day early.  After getting our keys, we drove to our private villa and headed to the park across the street before even going in.  The resort is a grouping of 25-30 private villas that are surrounded by breath taking canyon views and an amazing golf course.  The resort itself sits about 10 minutes outside of Sedona and is surrounded by national parks and serenity.

Finally, we were able to get into our villa.  WOW!  What an amazing place.  Our villa was a three bedroom, 3.5 bathroom beauty!  The villa was constructed with every detail thought out and embellished with the most ornate building materials and furnishings.  The entryway led into a vaulted living room with a state of the art kitchen in the background.  Off the kitchen was a gorgeous outdoor eating area, equipped with a gas fireplace, grill and TV.  There was a spa outside on the private patio, with comfortable lounge chairs and reading nooks crafted into the walls.  We all shared the master bedroom so that we could keep tabs on the boys.  John slept on some extra pillows in the walk in closet and Stephen slept in his pack in play near the gas fireplace, which he enjoyed.  The bathroom floors were all heated, and each tub had a small flat screen TV mounted near it...another thing the boys loved, oy! 

We are so thankful to my parent's friends, Pete and Liz, for letting us use their timeshare and are not sure how to say thank you for such an amazing experience!

Below are a number of pictures of the villa.

The playground was right across the street from our villa

The boys eating lunch at the table...note that we put towels on the chairs!

A picture of the kitchen with doors in the back leading to outdoor eating area

The patio, with canyons views.  Caroline and I saw an amazing shooting star out here one night!

More of the patio

We had such a great time in Sedona. The first day, we swam in the hot tub (we turned the temp down in the days so the boys could swim).  After that, we headed out to the Polar Express, about a 2 hour drive from Sedona

This is the view from Chapel Rock... it was beautiful, with this over the top mansion that (in my opinion) really took from the natural beauty.

  It was great to spend so much time together as a family.  On our last day we headed into Sedona for dinner and found a great clump of stores/eateries along the river and amidst the cottonwood trees.  Everything was lit up for Christmas and was so pretty.  We found a family friendly joint and had some burgers and fries before heading back for our last night.  All of us crashed early and enjoyed the warmth of the in room fireplace.

I almost forgot, before heading back to our place, we had promised the boys ice cream in town.  Since the place we went for dinner didn't offer any, we got into the car to find somewhere else.  We were hoping the boys would forget about it and fall asleep.....no, no, John reminded us and we ended up stopping at a Walgreens - the boys had a great time eating ice cream cones outside on a bench!

What an experience!

Thanks again Pete and Liz!