Fun with Five!: Spring Break with the Gang

Another Spring Break has come and gone and what a blast we had! This year we decided that we’d hit the town of Tucson. Look out Arizona, here comes the Filley Family!

We stayed at our favorite place ....La Posada. Steve found it during one of Sean’s basketball tournament trips. It’s nestled into the side of a hill, has quail and lizards running around for the boys to find. It has a great pool and hot pool....which is what John calls a hot tub.

The boys were so excited about going and the main reason was not only because of not having school but because there is an In- n- Out burger in Tucson. Yep, you heard me. All that really matters deep down is good food!

We learned early on that traveling with our gang meant learning how to keep them all busy and entertained. This of course means ELECTRONICS and food…lol. It also means we all have to have patience with one another and work as a team. It's just a given that John is going to dominate the DVD player with something the boys have seen a million times…probably Clone Wars. Not everyone is going to want to do the same thing or eat at the same place, occasionally the truck will smell really bad, there will probably be some fighting but majority rules and Steve and I have the final say. I think the boys understand that we start off as a Democracy but can swing to a Dictatorship at any time. It works!

The drive wasn’t too bad. Sean even drove for a little bit. It was nice to have another driver in the group. Steve could rest for a little bit and I could catch up on Clone Wars...lol. We took our time getting started and even stopped off in Las Cruces so Steve could give the boys a tour of Digital Solutions. This is the company that has worked with Steve and his partner to create OrganizeMyDad.com. All of our boys are computer savvy so this was right up their alley.

Once we got to Tucson we took it easy and swam. The next day started early…we hit the Pisam Air Museum. Austin is going to be our pilot and Jason loves WWII so we figured this would be exciting for both of them. He was in heaven! We saw every type of plane imaginable, rode the flight simulator and even had dried ice cream like the astronauts would eat. The afternoon wouldn’t have been complete without our first stop at In-n-Out Burger.

Our second day started out with the fun trip to the zoo. We saw lions, tigers and bears…oh my! During our trip around the grounds, we met 2 of the funniest people. They were an older couple that were the sweetest and friendliest people we’ve ever met. They were so funny that Sean (our aspiring comic) wanted to follow them around just to be entertained…lol

Steve and I discussed what to do for dinner and figured what boy wouldn’t want to go to an Old West Town for a Steak. We decided to go to Pinnacle Petes. It’s a huge area of land that's made to look like a small western town. It has gun shows, little shops, a train and even one of those old photography places where you dress up and take old time pictures! I’ve been wanting to do one of this pictures for several years now. Steve and I had talked about it ahead of time and decided to not tell the boys about it. It’s better to take them by surprise…..they do out number us. After the gun show, we walked over to the photography shop and went in. The boys were a little thrown off, but surprisingly they all went along with it! Yeah!!!! We all enjoyed stepping back into that era and taking a traditonal western family picture. The photographer and his wife were great at dressing us, teaching us about that time and reminding us not to smile. That was hard...how do you take a family picture and not smile?!?!? The picture turned out great !