Yuma Art Symposium

Steph went to the Yuma Symposium with some art colleagues for the first time last year as a participant and had a great time. She was selected to be a presenter this year, and since Alex had to go with her to eat and my mom wasn't going to be available to provide childcare this time (she was going to be back in Philadelphia with my sister Hilary for the imminent birth of her first child) we decided to take a short family vacation to Arizona.

As I mentioned last month, we've been working on getting Alex to sleep better but it's been a struggle, so this trip didn't come at the most convenient time ever. We all had a good time, especially Steph (which was the main purpose of the trip), but the boys and I spent a lot of time in the hotel room trying to get one or the other of them to nap. That's proven to be hard enough at home, but it's extra challenging when you're all in the same room with nowhere else to go.

Anyway, that's why a lot of our pictures are of us in the hotel room, such as this one of Steph and Evan reading the paper in bed:

and Steph and Alex playing on that same bed:

Since Evan had to spend a lot of the time playing quietly so Alex could sleep (thank goodness he's willing and good at that) he spent a lot of time with "his guys" -- in this case, Blue Corvette, Lightning McQueen, Miss Sally, and Scoop:

Of course we didn't spend all of our time in the hotel room. We took a long walk around downtown Yuma each day for one of Alex's naps, and we went out in the evening most days too. On the last day of the symposium, though (when they have several outdoor activities), it rained on and off all day. Less than 0.3" of rain and an 87% chance of sunny days on average in February, and it rains on us! We didn't really come prepared for walking around in the rain so we waited for a dry spell before venturing out, but it didn't last. Fortunately some of the symposium goers bought boxes of plastic garbage bags, so we suited ourselves up as best we could:

On our last day in Yuma, before starting the 3 hour drive back to San Diego we wanted to let Evan run around a bit, and we'd read about a pretty cool playground that was part of the park system that ran for several miles along the Colorado River (including a section we'd already visited right by our hotel). So after a somewhat leisurely morning (if any morning that starts before 7AM can truly be considered leisurely) we stopped by the Stewart Vincent Wolfe Creative Playground on our way out of town:

That's Evan on the right standing in front of one of the castle parapets. There were several neat themed areas of the playground like that castle at the main entrance, a multi-level pretend tree (almost more of a tree house) you can walk up into, a jet airplane structure, and a huge spider in its web, just to name a few:

Then it was time to pile back into the car, drive to the San Diego airport, and fly home. As I mentioned in passing above, we all had a good time in Yuma, although I doubt the boys and I will make the trip next year. I'm pretty sure Steph's going to be an annual attendee, though, and hopefully in a few years we'll all go again and the boys and I will get out to see more of the sights (or at least swim in the hotel pool).