May 13th 2023

Chapter 209
Fun In The Sun

It had felt almost supremely important to the Friars, the closer they had come to summer, that they be able to go and have a family vacation, all eight of them. Parents, children, babies, leaving home, leaving Austin and Texas as a whole, and just have a wonderful time together. Did it need to be anything overly extravagant? Not at all, and they would never have been able to afford something like that even if they'd wanted it. They knew what would make them all happy, and that was entirely within their means.

There was a thought of doing what they had already done, a few years back, and rent an RV, packing up everyone and driving off like that, but they thought of the logistics of all eight of them in there, and as much as they felt like they could probably have pulled it off, they decided in the end to put a pin in RV Summer 2 and instead align themselves with something a bit more stationary, grounded.

Before the school year had ended, long before the news of the trip would be announced or even entertained by any of the kids, Maya and Lucas had floated the question toward Ava, who might have had some ideas to share on the subject. They had asked her if there were any places, in or out of the country, that she had ever dreamed of seeing. By the gleam in her eye, they already that the answer was bound to come down to 'a lot.' She named more than a few, enough so that they could have the inspiration to plan family trips until even the youngest among them would have been old enough to graduate high school... or college.

There were several candidates that felt doable as far as this year, but they could only pick one, so they did that. One of Ava's greatest wishes was to go and see the Grand Canyon in person? So, they would. They wouldn't even worry themselves over getting their bunch through a flight, no. They would hit the road and get themselves to their destination, and the rule would be a very simple one: if they saw something and they wanted to stop, they would stop and go see it from up close. It could take them twice, three times, four times as long to actually get to where they wanted to go and they wouldn't care, not so long as they all had fun doing it.

They would never forget the reaction out of the kids when they were told about the trip. Ava, naturally, only had to hear where they were going before she reacted with great and squealing glee. Her little brothers weren't so well informed about why this was exciting, but after they echoed her reaction for a few beats, they asked her what the Grand Canyon was, and she merrily told them. The reactions were not any kind of surprise. Elliott looked intrigued, Noah was raring to go, and Jamie had absolutely no trouble imagining a vast chasm and deciding that he was already terrified. His siblings did their best to promise him he would love it, but he wasn't sure yet. They'd have their work cut out for them.

"Look, the babies are excited, too," Noah pointed to the twins before dashing up to crouch and kneel next to their little brothers, sat side by side on the living room floor. He took one each of their hands, shook them around, and got giggles for it. Simon and Jackson had been growing with an easy fascination toward their big brothers and sister, so more than likely this was what had gotten their attention, more than the news of the trip itself, but no one was about to bring that up.

They'd all been counting down the days, some more than others, and finally the morning had come. The bags were packed, loaded in the minivan. The dogs and the cats were left in the care of Pappy Joe and Patty, who promised to come and see to them every day while the family was gone. Jamie was thankfully enthusiastic about going, although this might have had more to do with how everyone else's moods had gotten to him. He very much enjoyed long drives, and the idea of seeing great things along the way. To their knowledge, he was still fully hesitant with regards to the place they were going but, with any luck, this would all have changed once they got to Arizona.

They started off strong with some songs they could all sing along to at the top of their lungs. The twins may have taken issue with this when they were still newborns, but in their months of living they had been submitted to enough of 'the family way' that they had become very happy in the midst of a singalong. They didn't have much for speech, but they would sometimes babble and make noises along with whoever was near them, or otherwise would stick to what they knew best, kicking their small feet along, stretching their arms this way and that, moving their heads... It was always hilarious to see them and it would only get the rest even more enthusiastic about keeping the music going.

Maya was always so happy now when she got to hear Ava's voice in the mix. In the short time since she had confided her desires and insecurities with regards to her singing, the two of them had done some notable work, most of all in the department of confidence. Ava had never felt that about singing just for singing, not when she had grown with the constant reminder - as fed by her birth mother - that her voice was not beautiful. And maybe she was not in line for any kind of contract or role, but where her adoptive mother was concerned, that didn't have to matter, not if she just wanted to sing because she enjoyed music and felt compelled to do so.

Little by little, she had been achieving that awareness, with Maya, and the results were manifested in smiles, in an unbound happiness that was echoed back on to her family when they heard her. And if Ava or Maya needed any further convictions of what Mrs. Nash had done for her daughter's voice - or against it, more like, they only had to listen to what a brief time of reinforcement had done for Ava. She was shy about believing she could ever sound better, not even good, just better, but Maya had worked out ways to more or less coax it out of her without realizing, until after just a short time of covert training, Ava had shown improvement in her singing. Maya was more certain than ever now that what had held her back all along had been self-doubt installed by efforts thrown back in her face as a child. There was nothing to hold her back now, and she loved to just sing because she wanted to.

The way they were going, as they drove, and stopped here, and drove, and stopped there... It was a good thing that they had plotted the trek from Austin to the Grand Canyon as being about two days, because it would probably take them that, if not longer. But that was alright. They were making slow progress not because of the driving part so much as the reasons to stop, and they were good reasons, ones that made their children happy, so what more could they ask for?

Elliott was particularly mindful of including his baby brothers in their discoveries. They had all been throwing around the fact that this trip would mean that they'd all get to make memories at a family, and the kids were looking forward to it so much. When it had dawned on Elliott however that, because they were as little as they were, it was highly unlikely that Simon or Jackson would remember much of anything about it, he'd been disappointed. This wasn't fair, was it? So, once they had taken off, once they'd started taking their detours here and there, he had made it a point to address the twins in his most engaging tone, that they might focus on him and, hopefully, retain some of it in the years to come. If that didn't work, at least there could be the slightest chance that he, Noah, and Jamie would have stronger memories of the trip for themselves, together and apart.

As slow as the progress might have come off, they reached their destination - and their hotel - two days after having left Austin and just in time for check-in, which was a good thing, as the entire family was in dire need of just stopping and collecting themselves. They had stopped for the night on the way, but it had been a quick stop on the whole, while the next night had been spent making up distance, with Maya and Lucas alternating driving duties while the other one slept. They hadn't even been spared a stop then, as the twins had woken up while they'd been stopped, which in turn had awakened the rest of the kids, all of them briefly startled and confused at where they were. They'd been soothed back down by their parents, especially when made to look out at the night sky. The stars calmed them, no matter where they were.

"Right, guys, let's go check out those beds, huh?" Lucas guided the three boys running around the hotel room, even as Ava was helping her mother as she brought the twins along in their car seats. Elliott, Noah, and Jamie all looked at their father like they knew what he meant but they hoped that they were wrong. "Just a quick nap before we get unpacked, okay? You'll thank me later, let's go."

As much as they resisted it at first, it took little more than getting the three of them settled in and Maya coming along with a lullaby before the brothers were out like a light. Ava benefited from that song as much as them, off in her own bed, across from theirs, so much that she went to sleep smiling. She was hardly at the target age for bedtime songs, but she appreciated them so much when she got them.

"You know, I'm not complaining about the fact that we chose to drive here, and take our time, none of that," Maya hummed as both she and Lucas followed suit and went to lie down after getting the babies seen to.

"Neither am I," Lucas replied, his expression reading as someone who very much knew that a smirk or a laugh would soon touch his face, but knew also that it had to wait.

"But *right now...*" her tone slipped into a thin whisper, as though it had been crushed under the weight of her exhaustion. He chuckled now, even as he felt that exhaustion with her, and pulled her nearer. She took this easily in stride, abandoning the little spoon mode in favor or burrowing herself in his arms. He was more than on board with that, and they fell asleep this way, letting the next hours slip them by.

They were awakened again, as they would be, once the kids started to wake up again and discovered that they were hungry. They simply couldn't wait for that. So, they went out to eat, and the rest of the day was spent mostly in or near the hotel and their room.

The big moment would come the following morning. Everyone got up, everyone got dressed, and then it was off to breakfast. This was a much more wakeful event than dinner the night before, with the kids all as excited as the next. Knowing where they were soon headed, Ava was a constant fount of knowledge, which she gladly shared with her parents, her brothers, and the wait staff as they came along. They were all very amused with the display, and impressed as well. They couldn't know exactly how happy the young girl was, not just about where she was about to go but also about where she already was, and who she was there with. This was not the first family vacation she'd ever had, but it was certainly the first one that actually felt like one to her. And her parents wanted nothing more than to honor that for her.

It could not have been a more beautiful day for them to drive out together, and they would recall this later as one of the many contributors to their wonderful day at the canyon. Ava's enthusiasm was another, and maybe the hotel staff they spoke to here and there before heading out, and the songs on the radio as they went... Whatever it was, everything was kind of perfect. One of their biggest concerns, along with just going out there with four children and two babies, had been the one of them who'd been frightened to go. Jamie had had ample time to consider it all, to the best of his abilities, but even on the drive over from Texas he hadn't looked fully convinced, enough that Lucas and Maya had been considering the possibility of having to pick which of them would stay back at the hotel with him, and maybe the babies, too, while the other would go on with Ava, Elliott, and Noah. Lucas had won the argument in pointing out that he'd already gone out there, even if it had been somewhere about twenty years since, and he thought it only fair that Maya should get to go.

But the day had come, and Jamie didn't look like he was hesitant to go at all. He looked, as his siblings did, excited to take off, so they ran with it. The family was loaded up in the minivan, and they drove off, and they carried that mood all through the day. In years to come, Jamie Friar would hardly believe it when his parents, siblings, and family as a whole told him that he had been afraid about going to the Grand Canyon. He remembered only that it was the best day ever, that everything he'd seen was either beautiful or sort of magical looking, like they'd stepped into another world. He wasn't the only one to think so.

Most pictures they had of Elliott from that day showed him with the same sort of overwhelming awe on his face. They would have to lead him by the hand, even as he'd keep looking at whatever had his attention, and most times he'd resist being moved, just bearing down on his feet to make himself as heavy and grounded as possible until they'd get the message. Noah might have gotten the least out of being there of all places in the end, but it didn't mean that he didn't have fun. Shawn Hunter would say of his grandson that the boy could find a way to enjoy himself anywhere, and he did so here. For once, he and his big brother were not of a single mind, but that was alright, because with this one, Elliott had Ava.

Oh, if the boys had a good time, their big sister had something that defied words. When she actually found some of those to explain herself, all she could say was that she would never forget a second of this. She had always found it so much easier to escape into facts and fictional worlds, growing up, rather than to exist in her reality as it had been, and this was the first time she'd ever gotten to connect this way with one of her fascinations. It was better than anything she could have imagined.

They had one more day before they would start the trip back for Austin, and they would make the most of it. This was all very much about creating an experience for the kids, but it didn't mean that their parents didn't take anything away from it. As they had done on their previous trip, Maya and Lucas found a lot of... unchartable joy in just being out there, the two of them and their children, in seeing them experience everything on their own and together, in knowing that they had been able to provide that for them, in every sense of the word. They knew that they could have given them a great summer experience back home, and they would, once they'd returned, but this year, just then, they had gotten to do this. And they would never forget it either.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners