Climbing with a little bit of home! Grimper avec un petit peu de chez nous!

Nous sommes excites de notre prochaine aventure car elle comprend une visite de nos amis de Rossland! Andy Holmes et Mike Kent nous rejoignent a Joshua Tree pour faire de l'escalade!

We are very excited for our next adventure as it includes meeting up with friends from home! The first time since we left that we meet up with some Rosslanders! Mike Kent and Andy Holmes come to Joshua Tree for some fun climbing in the sun!

Nous avons aussi rencontrer leurs amies Leanne et Tracy de Pemberton. We also met their friends Leanne and Tracy from Pemberton!

Nous nous sommes vraiment amuses et avons beaucoup ri! We really had fun and shared some good laughs!

First we stop at the Five Ten Warehouse which is about to move to Europe for an excellent timing of a massive crazy sale! We were able to get kitted out in climbing shoes! Here we are happy with our purchase!

Premier arret, l'entrepot de Five Ten a Redding pour leur vente de demenagement. On a pu s'equiper en souliers d'escalades avant d'arriver a J.Tree.

Premiere escalade a Joshua Tree. Les garcons nous surprennent avec leur aise a grimper!

First climb in Joshua Tree. The boys surprise us with their ease and how natural they are.

New Year's Eve: We make our own fireworks by putting a dead tumble weed in our fire! Whiz! boum! Crack! We had smores and everything you need for a good time!

La veille du jour de l'an: nous avons fait nos propres feux d'artifices en mettant un buisson mort dans notre feu de camp! Whoosh! Crac! Pop! On a grillé des guimauves avec biscuit graham et chocolat fondu! Tout le necessaire pour dire aurevoir a 2017 et souhaiter la bienvenue a 2018!

Janurary First! Who do we see at the crag? Mike Kent (we have to say both names not sure why) and Andy! we were very happy and excited to see them!

Le premier Janvier! Qui voit-on a la roche d'escalade? Mike Kent et Andy! nous etions tres excites de les voir a ce que vous pouvez constater sur la photo!

Autres grimpes. More climbing.

 Lost a tooth in the Joshua Tree desert! Perdu sa dent dans le desert!

 Andy leading a climb.

Some people take selfies instead of looking at the climbers!

The Twentynine Palms post office brings us some xmas prezzies from Anthony and Helen. 2 Lego sets and the boys do not want to wait for daylight, so they assemble them at night at the campsite with headlamps!

Day 3 of climbing:

Leanne is a brave climbing leader! Which is awesome that the boys get to see the best at climbing in our group is a woman! YEAH! They were well impressed!

 A special picture for me as I think my dad would have loved to see his daughter and grandson climbing at the same time. One is struggling way more than the other...

There was a lot of bromance action and cuddles!

A really fun group climbing day at Real Hidden Valley:

We also meet up with Liz and her very adorable cutie boy Sage.

Henri and Charlie take to him immediately!

We were sad to see everyone leave but so happy to have spent time with this lovely group at Joshua Tree!!

Birthday in Vegas! Fete de Henri a Vegas!

Our time in Vegas was very fun!
Nos deux jours a Vegas ont ete tres l'fun!

La veille de la fete de Henri, nous sommes alles voir MJ Live, le spectacle de Michael Jackson.
On the eve of Henri's birthday, we went to see the show MJ Live, the tribute to Michael Jackson.

It was AMAZING and so fun!

We stayed at Treasure Island while in Vegas and we were staying on the 28th floor with amazing view of the strip!

Birthday morning opening presents and then off to Paris (Vegas) for crepes!

Then we went to the Bellagio Gardens who were decked out in snowy Christmas style. The photos don't give it justice! There were big polar bear statues all made of flowers!

Nous sommes ensuite alles au jardins du Bellagio qui etait dans le theme de Noel et de la neige.

Il y avait plusieurs statues geantes d'ours polaires faite en fleurs!

Next stop and the boys' favorite: crazy candy store with money to spend!

Notre prochain arret fut un magasin de bonbons decadent!

 Choices, choices, choices...

We finished the day with a grandiose show: Cirque du Soleil Mystere!

WOW!

Christmas time in Arizona! Noel en Arizona!

Enfin, nous arrivons en Arizona vers le 20 decembre!
Nous traversons le Nouveau Mexique rapidement malheureusement avec un seul arret pour voir l'endroit ou Billy the Kid a ete condamne a la prison a vie!

We finally get to Arizona around Dec. 20th.
We crossed New Mexico too fast unfortunately with only one stop to see the courtroom where Billy the Kid one of the worse desperados of the Wild West was sentenced to life in prison.

Then we went to the famous Tombstone, where the battle at OK corral happened. It was the end of the day when we got there and so things were shutting down, so it wasn't as great as we were hoping. We ate dinner in a saloon while watching the film Tombstone about Wyatt Earp.

Slept in the Coachise Valley which is gorgeous and good for rock climbing but we ended up getting a flat tire (this time on the truck). boo.

Nous avons dormi dans la vallee de Coachise qui est spectaculaire mais a la place d'escalader le lendemain matin, nous avons tout juste eu le temps de reparer une autre crevaison, cette fois-ci sur le camion et non la roulotte.

 Saloon:

 Again, don't be fooled by this picture, Gareth really changed the tire, I tried to be a little helpful..

Off to Tucson to get the puncture fixed at the Ford dealership...they said it was free, no charge...until they told us it was unfixable and had to order a brand new tire! Anyway, we felt like we were had but what can you do.
Did a bit of Xmas shopping at the mall in Tucson and off to Sedona we went!

Nous sommes alles a Tucson pour faire reparer la crevaison a la concession Ford. Ils nous ont dit que c'etait gratuit...jusqu'a ce qu'ils nous disent que la crevaison etait irreparable et que l'on devait acheter un nouveau pneu. On pense bien qu'on s'est fait avoir mais bon, pas vraiment d'option. On a fait un peu de magasinage de Nouel pendant qu'on etait a Tucscon et ensuite on a filé au nord vers Sedona.


We camped in one of the national forest outside of Sedona and were surprised on the first morning to see hot air balloons taking off meters away from our trailer! Surprise!

Sedona was lovely and picturesque as I remembered but oh so touristy!! we stayed two days before heading out to Flagstaff for Christmas eve and Christmas day.

Sedona fut tres agreable avec des vues incroyables comme je m'en souvenais mais tellement touristique! On est resté deux jours avant de se rendre a Flagstaff pour la veille de Noel et Noel.

 We climbed Bell Rock one day which was very fun and a little dodgy. Basically scrambling up these slabs with regular shoes amongst tourists from all over the world. I am surprised nobody fell to their death looking at the yahoos that were trying to get up really high with loafer shoes!

Nous avons grimpé Bell Rock ou la Roche Cloche comme on s'amusait a l'appeler. Il y avait plein d'autres touristes de partout dans le monde qui essayait de grimper la roche plutot a pic avec des souliers pas toujours adequats...je suis surprise que personne n'est tombe dans l'abysse!!

Veille de Noel a l'hotel. Voici notre petit arbre de Noel pour cette annee...

Christmas eve in our hotel in Flagstaff...here's our pathetic little Christmas tree!

Santa did come to deliver presents! Le pere Noel est venu livrer nos cadeaux, meme a l'hotel!!

                                          Tout le monde est content! Everyone is happy!

I got a tea mug decorated with black birds on a wire but when you put hot liquid in it, the birds change into beautiful colours! Wow!

J'ai recu une tasse de the couverte de petits oiseaux noirs sur un fil mais quand j'ajoute du liquide chaud dedans, les oiseaux deviennent colores! Wow!

 Gareth got a fancy beard soap! Santa must have felt like this was needed (erm)

Gareth a recu un savon pour sa barbe! Le Pere Noel a du penseé que c'était necessaire!! (hum)

 Un hamburger en bonbon pour les garcons de leur lutin de Noel qui n'est pas venu cette annee. :(

A candy hamburger for the boys from their elf who did not come to us this year.

 Nerf guns. beuh.

We spent a lovely Christmas day in Flagstaff, rented bikes for a mellow bike ride and went to a 5* restaurant for a decadent Christmas dinner buffet. Wow, yummy. Still wasn't nearly as nice as the Red Barn Lodge Christmas meal!!

Nous avons passé une belle journee de Noel a Flagstaff. Nous avons loué des bicyclettes et avons fait un petit tour bien relaxe. Nous sommes alles a un resto tres classe pour le souper de Noel, style buffet. Delicieux mais pas autant que nos soupers de Noel chez nos amis Helen et Anthony a Rossland!

 Nous avons adoré Flagstaff et nous y retournerons au retour!

We loved Flagstaff and we will return on our way up!