Phoenix, Arizona

Last week I had the amazing opportunity to go to Arizona and visit my sister, Carolyn.  A few months ago she called me to see if I wanted to come visit her and go see Wicked with her and my cousin, Cynthia.  She had worked it out with Cynthia to get me a flight pass so I didn’t have any excuse.  Well, it turned out I had a kind of good excuse not to go since she had bought the tickets for Wicked already and they were right smack in the middle of the busiest week of celebration our family has all year.  Thankfully I have an amazing husband and kids and they didn’t mind me being gone for the anniversary and birthdays that I would miss.  It turned out to be a super fun trip with lots of visiting with family.  I was enjoying myself so  much that I didn’t take too many pictures.  I did get a few though.  This will be a long post mostly to help me remember so if you are bored…sorry.

I arrived on Wednesday and after getting settled at Carolyn’s house we picked up Cassie (isn’t she cute?) and headed out to do a little shopping.  I was hoping to find something great to wear for the play on Thursday, but it was a strike out shopping trip for me.  There was one dress at Banana Republic that was pretty cute, but it was just a tiny bit small for me and since it was on clearance they didn’t have any in my size.  They had a size smaller and two sizes too big, but nothing my size.  Thankfully I came prepared with something to wear just in case.  We got home and had dinner, put Cassie to bed and then watched a movie to relax.

Thursday morning dawned bright and early (Cassie is an early riser).  We hung out for a little while just playing with Cassie and visiting and then we got ready for the play.  We got to the play in just the nick of time after having a tiny bit of trouble finding parking.  Thankfully we got super lucky and found a good spot and walked FAST to the theater.  The play was wonderful!  I’m so happy I finally was able to see it.  I’ve been wanting to see it for a few years now.  Ever since we listened to the soundtrack on a girl’s trip.  For some reason it is super hard to get tickets when it comes here.  I LOVED it!  A HUGE thank you to my awesome sister for taking me and to Cynthia for getting me to Arizona so we could all go together.  I have the best family! 

After the play we bought some souvenirs and then we headed to La Grande Orange for dinner.  I had read about it on a blog and it looked fabulous so I had asked Carolyn if we could go, but it didn’t sound like we were going to be able to so I forgot all about it.  As we were driving there I asked her what kind of food it had and that’s when she reminded me that I had asked to go there.  I have to say it did NOT disappoint.  The food was fabulous and the service was amazing.  I was the only one that ordered a burger at the table and I asked for it to be well done.  Well, when I cut into it there was still a bit of pink in the center.  I decided to go ahead and eat it anyway.  Well, the server came back and noticed on his own that it was not done how I had ordered.  He also noticed that I had taken off the green chile because it was too spicy (I had asked him specifically if it was spicy—usually I really like green chili, but this one was flaming hot!)  He offered to get me something different even though I had already eaten half the burger.  I told him it was fine (amazingly enough the burger tasted great even though I usually don’t like it if there’s any pink at all)  Even though I had told him I was fine with the burger a few minutes later the manager came over to check on it personally herself.  Seriously, we eat out a fair amount and good service is definitely hard to come by so I was super impressed that he noticed that stuff on his own and asked about it.  If I lived close I would be a faithful customer. 

Everyone else got pizza and traded slices all around.  I only tried Carolyn’s pizza with avocado and prosciutto and it was REALLY good.  Their desserts were fabulous too I seriously wanted one of everything plus one scoop of every flavor of  gelato they had too.  In the “grocery” side of the store they had all kinds of souvenir type stuff.  Think cracker barrel type stuff, but a little more upscale.  The stuff was seriously cute!  I was so busy oohing, aahing, and eating, that I didn’t take one picture!

Friday we headed to Mesa to see my Grandparents.  I haven’t seen them in a few years so it was great to see them!  My grandma is a talented seamstress and she is still going strong with her sewing.  She showed me several of her projects and they were beautiful as always!Grandpa sent me home with some of the jewelry he makes and a belt buckle for Jason too.  I could tell he was a little sad that his trembling hands have made it so he can’t make much jewelry anymore.  He was so good at it too.

We met up with Cynthia at the mall for a little shopping and girl bonding.  It was lots of fun!

Friday night we stayed in and made some chipotle chicken tacos for dinner and it was delicious! After dinner we spent the rest of the night talking.  It was nice and relaxing.

Saturday we slept in a tiny bit and then headed out to find some accessories for the house.  We found some really nice vases to go in the entry way niches she has.  They look fabulous, but I forgot to take a picture (are you noticing a trend yet?)

In the afternoon Albert’s Mom came over with her husband and my cousin Cynthia came with her family and we had a BBQ.  Cynthia’s husband, Eric made some amazing steaks for us.  We also had potato salad, roasted asparagus, and apple crisp for dessert.  We were all stuffed at the end. 

Such a cutie pie!  I could have snuggled her the whole time and been happy.

After everyone left we all collapsed on the couch and just relaxed.  I did remember to take a few pics of that.  Thanks for the great time!  Now it’s your turn to come visit me!  Love you all!

Bean Museum reptile show

The kids on our playgroup are getting older so I thought I would schedule the reptile show for them at the Bean Museum.  The kids really loved it, but the Museum that day was REALLY busy for some reason.  It was pretty loud and a little hard to hear the cute girl doing our reptile show, but the kids didn’t seem to care at all and had a GREAT time.  Here they are feeling a crocodile skin---or maybe it was an alligator skin, I can’t remember.  The turtle was really cute and Liam touched it, but I missed the picture.This lizard was really creepy looking to me.  His tail is all fat because it is where he keeps his food stored…a tail full of crickets…YUCK!

Why do snakes make my skin crawl??  I was glad to use the camera as an excuse not to have to touch it.  Liam didn’t mind though.This is Liam with his friends Adam and Gannon.  They were three wild boys and all of the Mom’s together couldn’t’ get them to stay calm. 

Every time I got the camera out they “posed” for me.  Adam’s Mom, Angie got a  hilarious picture of these guys both doing SUPER cheesy grins, but I missed it.  This is Liam man-handling Adam’s brother Cooper. 

I was taking Liam’s picture and cute Adam jumped right in.  I’m always happy to see kids doing things that Liam does all the time too. 

It took some convincing, but Liam finally agreed to a picture with his Mom.  It’s always good to have proof I was actually there. 

Even though it was pretty crazy at the museum I think we all had fun!

Valentines checklist

Valentines craft made for grandparents and birth mom—check (Liam had a blast doing this)

Valentines made for Liam’s teachers—check (see what I made here super easy and cute)

Valentines addressed to classmates—check (I helped a lot with this one)

Cute valentine heart treats made for Liam’s valentine party—check (I dipped pretzels in pink candy melt and filled the holes in on a few so they looked like hearts)

Valentines made for my kiddos—check (idea from here I just gave each child one and put a cute saying that goes with their little gift on it)

Inexpensive Valentine gift for kiddos bought—check

Valentine gift and card made for the husband—check (from here—continuing the scratch off card theme)

Yummy dinner planned for tomorrow—check

Whew!  Now I can finish up everything else for our week of celebration…that I will be missing most of.  Hopefully my family will survive without me.  Normally I don’t do so much for Valentines, but since I’m missing all the other celebrations this week I thought I’d have fun with it. 

Do you celebrate Valentines?  What traditions do you have? 

Blessed

I am feeling so blessed lately.  It really isn’t fair, how blessed I am.  I mean, I have had some struggles, but nothing near as difficult as so many people I know personally or have read about in blogland.  We (my little family) are healthy, we are strong, we have the gospel.  We have everything we need and so many things that we want.  We are comfortable.  We have love in our home.  I have a wonderful husband that takes such good care of me and our children.  Honestly, I keep waiting for something hard/bad to happen.  I know it will come eventually because trials always do, but for now I’m going to enjoy being happy and healthy and incredibly blessed and then I’m going to go out and try to find someone to share my blessings with. 

What about you?  Are you in the midst of a challenging time in your life or are you feeling content and getting ready for the hard stuff that is to come?