Hi Foxy Friends! Back during Spring break we went to Big Bear with friends and I'm finally doing a recap on it! I have to say that we wanted to go with the friends we have Friday night dinners with and we thought, there is now way that all of our Spring breaks align. We have three different school districts we have to take into account, and what would you know...they all aligned! Woo hoo! We have another friend that owns a cabin and we asked if we could use it during Spring break and they said yes! All the stars are aligning. It was great, we all left our computers at home and just hung out.
Since we had our vacation booked, I reached out to Mazda to see if they would loan us a car, and guess what? They did! It arrived the day before we left, they ended up sending us a Mazda CX-9 Grand Touring. The kids were so stinkin excited to be getting a bigger car.
They couldn't wait to test out all of the bells and whistles.
The next day, it was so nice to just pack up the car and not have to worry about space! Space is always our enemy, usually the there is stuff everywhere, the kids have things below their feet, it's like a huge game of tetris...not this time! We even could pack extra stuff. (This was a picture taken on the way home), clearly we just threw stuff in you know when you're packing to leave somewhere at the end of the trip, is not nearly as organized when you leave for said trip).
Usually when we leave for a trip, we almost always take a family selfie...well this car is so big, I couldn't get everyone in the shot...haha.
We first headed to our favorite Mexican place up the mountain, it's only a slight detour...
We actually ended up at the cabin at the same exact time as our friends, so it worked out. First thing we did was unpack and let the kids run around, while the moms went grocery shopping for the weekend. The first night I made pot roast in the Instant Pot and mashed potatoes, it was so good! Yep vacation means paper plates because no one wants to do more dishes on vacation than need be.
Finally after breakfast we decided to do something fun and went on a small hike. We went on this one, which I highly recommend, all 4 kids (ages 4-7.5 did great and walked the whole thing).
Men folk taking the kids up the rocks, while the woman folk have heart attacks watching.
Mini Fox found this rock and immediately wanted to take a picture doing the little mermaid pose...LOL!
Yes Mini Fox wears dresses to hike...this is not the first time either...check out what she wore on our hike last year. When we got home we let the kids play in the backyard while we relaxed and made dinner. The girls were out there for 2 hours playing, and making pretend fires. It was super cute. Give kids some nature and they can pretend play for hours, it was awesome.
Dinner, bath time and a little tv watching to end the day.
The next day we went to the Big Bear Zoo, all of the animals have been rescued, and while it's a small zoo, it was pretty awesome and the kids loved it.
He was not amused.
Our one and only group shot I could get everyone to do.
More playing in the backyard.
and then suddenly it was time to go home...
The Mazda had a third row seat which we really appreciated, the only thing we didn't like that you could only fit 2 people back there, instead of three.
Fit two car seats great, plus I could fit in between them with no problems.
There was heated steering wheels and seats, plus the kids had heated seats...you know if they were't sitting in car seats, that would have been awesome.
And all of the controls were right near the gear shift, so you never had to lean forward to touch controls, which was a really nice feature. Towards the end of my week it was getting easier to do it without looking much.
All in all, it was a great car, was a MUCH smoother ride than both Mr. and I anticipated. When at a stop light the idle was super quiet, and it drove really nice. Honestly, before driving this, we never would have considered it, but now...it's on the list of potentials when we do finally get an SUV.
Oh and because this is just too cute not to share. When I saw the kids were excited, that is an understatement. They did this all on their own, I wasn't even there, and Mr. recorded it for me.
