It is crazy that so much time has passed and so many things have happened. We have had SO much fun as a family! To start it off I MUST talk about our trip to Arizona. Some of my most favorite people live there and since going there I have even MORE people that I love living there.
This was our first trip going out together for a long extended trip. My sister and brother-in-law wanted to come as well, and we wanted them to come too, but I didn’t want us all going together in different vehicles. That can sometimes be the best times. So luckily, my sister Diane donated her van to the cause and we left her our car to use. I must say that we learned a lot about traveling with kids. Add about 2 hours to your expected travel time. My poor brother who lives by Price thought we were going to come and see them and hangout but thanks to kids we got there late and weren’t able to enjoy being at their home as we would have liked! Not once but twice! (They were our “halfway” point to sleep.) I still feel bad about that!
We had so much fun at some of the places we stopped along the way to help the kids not get mad and restless.
It was so exciting and such a relief to pull up to my aunt’s home in Mesa after all that driving. Gavin had this “clock” that seemed to go off at exactly 1 hour or so before we got to the destination and just scream. It took a bit to calm him down and he would always start up again later.
After getting settled and having some good sleep, the next morning we had breakfast and my Aunt asked us what we had planned. My answer? Seeing cousins and going to the railroad train park in Scottsdale. We went upstairs to get ready for the day and by the time we made it back downstairs; my wonderful aunt had the rest of our vacation planned. Seriously, the rest of the week was filled. She had enough suggestions that could keep us around another week or so. Most of the suggestions dealt with water, but honestly we were in Mesa Arizona, that’s what they do.
Our first stop was to my cousin, Courtney’s in-laws home. They were keeping the house warm for them while the in-laws were out on a mission. Awesome house with a gated pool. We came prepared with suits and had our first interaction with water in Mesa. So much fun just chatting and catching up. And see little baby Mia. I CAN’T BELIEVE I didn’t take any pics of her!!! She was the one I got to see the most and I neglected the camera whenever she was around apparently. ugg.
One of my favorite finds in Gilbert, besides my cousins, was this:
As many of you know our best friend are Merrill and Corinne. What are the chances of seeing their names as streets that cross each other? Crazy! Sure Corinne’s name was spelled wrong but a little Gimp work by Andrew (free photoshop) and we fixed that and gave it as a half birthday gift to Merrill for his B-day. Perfect! Now Andrew and I are convinced that there has to be a Debra and Andrew somewhere in the world!
Next Cousin was my cousin Meagan. She just had a baby not even 1 week earlier. She was due almost 3 weeks earlier, if I remember right, and that babe just didn’t want to come. The whole point of this trip was to see everyone’s new babies. Courtney’s and Meagan’s. I almost didn’t get to see one of them! It got pretty close there!
The rest of the trip was such a blast and has turned into a blur now but we made it to the train park in Scottsdale. Becky, Trevor’s wonderful wife who was also expecting( I had no idea!), and her 2 children came with us. Anyone who knows Austin, knows that this was a HUGE deal and such a fun time.
We went back to Courtney’s, and I made it back to Meagan one more time before we had to leave and got to see Caroline, Brad’s wife while there. They had such a busy week they weren’t able to make it over to see us. We didn’t stay for the weekend because of a wedding Scott needed to be to in Manti. There were nights of games and lots of water fun. We went on THE shortest hike of my life to the hole in the rock in Phoenix. Seriously, not even a block long, unless you count the walk across the parking lots…
Trevor’s and Courtney’s families we got to see everyday we were here. It was so awesome to get to know them again! We hadn’t seen Becky and Trevor since before they had kids and their oldest was about 5 or so? I’m guessing I really have no idea how old he is! I knew I loved talking to Becky before but I got to remember exactly why. Trevor was able to talk to Scott in French. (Scott went to France on his mission and it is hard to get him to talk sometimes.) It was cool to see them talk back and forth for a little bit. :)
Cute kids story. We put them to bed in the same room but in different corners of the room. We came up to this.
Gavin moved his bed over to Austin’s. Ahhhh!
It was a great to see everyone that we could! This was one of our best trips we have ever taken and thank all those that made it that way! We will DEFINEATELY make this trip again!
No comments:
Post a Comment