AZ {mesa temple}

The Sunday we were in AZ Jon and I had dinner plans in Mesa to go see all my extended family (no really, almost all, it was awesome. Aunts, uncles, cousins, babies, the works. I hadn't seen them in so long, so it was so great that they could all make it. The bad thing is, I totally spaced taking a picture with them, so lame, I know. But we love you all, picture or no picture!!! Thanks so so so much for getting everyone together for us!) so we wanted to drop by the temple on the way there. It was beautiful as always, and I especially love seeing the Mesa temple since my parents were married there (almost exactly 32 years ago), and my dad proposed to my mom on its temple grounds. Aww.

AZ {phoenix zoo}

We love zoos, we love animal watching, we love beautiful weather, so what's not to love about a day at the Phoenix Zoo? We were really impressed with this zoo too. Van probably didn't notice the difference between being in the zoo and being in the backyard, but someday he will, and then he'll appreciate our love of zoos.

(I think it's funny that Van is grabbing Cole's eyes in this photo)





how cute is this of Jon and Ella? This makes me so excited to have a little girl someday...



look at the size of this tortoise!!! He's HUGE!


We like making sure the dads are pulling their weight and then some. :) Jon somehow began the double stroller pushing, diaper bag carrying, cooler dragging man of the moment. We owe him big.


Jon & Eric ready to throw some carrots to the elephant during their feeding time.


the little ones doing what they do best in the afternoon

AZ {pool time}

I was totally sold on paying HOA fees so that you can go to a pool for free in your neighborhood. It was so nice, the weather was great for swimming, and best of all, Van LOVED the water. He wasn't so impressed when we first put him in this...



He must have been bored to tears or something. As soon as we took off the hat and let him come out and play like a real man, he was ecstatic, as witnessed in the photos below. Looks like we've got a little fish on our hands!





look at those cute little wrinkled feet!!


here's everyone else having fun...






all tuckered out after a hard day's play in the water



we get this reaching arm thing from him all the time now.

AZ {cactus walk}

One day we braved the heat and decided to take a scenic cactus hike (um...walk) in part of a national park, and we had a blast. The saguaro cacti are HUGE, and we learned all sorts of things about them, like how they don't grow any arms until they're 100 years old (although wikipedia said 75 years, either way, you can imagine how old some of these huge ones are with tons of arms), they swell up when it rains as they store all the water, harming them in any way is illegal by all Arizona laws, they bloom flowers and grow fruit, and when they die they leave a huge skeleton behind. Who knew? I loved how tiny we all looked next to them. We were all sweating like crazy, but it was totally worth it.

Here's a little Arizona desert beauty for you.




How cute is she?!







I already posted this one on the preview post, but it was smaller, and the way Van does what Jon does is just too funny to not show larger.

AZ {the cute kids+backyard}

We loved Nick and Julie's backyard and can't wait for the day when we have a yard all our own to play in. Kids + energy = the need for playing outside. All the time.

Check out their cute kids. (these are just the boys since Ella was taking a nap then)

Cute little Ren


Cole & Eric playing with the mini remote control cars Jon and I brought. These were a major hit of the trip.

AZ {the synopsis}

the trip.
I finally managed to get all our AZ photos ready for the blog world, so this will be a series of posts to avoid one post of a hundred photos. Embarrassingly enough, today it's May, so that means that almost 2 months ago from now was when we took off on our own personal spring break to the land of cactus and sunshine, the beautiful Arizona. Jon's sister and her family of 6 live outside of Mesa, and having never seen their house, we thought it was about time to pay them a visit. And I'm soooo glad we did. We had so much fun!! We loved seeing how big the kids were (they have 4, but make it look easy), eating Julie's awesome meals she prepared for us, enjoying the PERFECT weather, relaxing by the pool, having a campfire out back, going to the zoo, hiking out in the "cacti" (I say cacti in quotation marks because we all decided that saying it so proper just sounds stiff, and that it should really just be cactuses anyway. Who's in charge of pluralization in this country?), making new wallchatter for their place and ours, staying up way too late talking, sleeping outside (okay, Jon and the boys slept outside), and celebrating Ren's 1st birthday. Our only regret upon leaving was that it was only a week instead of a month long sabbatical.

the boy.
Van was a saint, and we learned something about our son that we had already suspected. He's not fussy, he's just bored. Because the whole trip we were outside doing new things all the time, and he hardly made a peep. Julie kept saying she was forgetting he was even there because he was so quiet. So it turns out staying cooped up in a basement apartment all winter does in fact cause a severe case of cabin fever. He was SO HAPPY the whole trip, we loved it. He was great on the plane (thank you for your direct flights, US Airways, but no thank you for charging us for every bag, underweight and all), he adjusted to the 3 hour time change like it was nothing, and adjusted right back when we got home (how did he do that?). So you can guess that we'll be spending most of our days outdoors this summer...I can't wait. Oh wait, neither can Van.

the song.
Random side note, for some reason this funny song came up in conversation on our trip because I guess Jon sent some funny email to his whole family years ago with this song in it, and I guess I somehow missed that youtube craze and never heard it. So for those of you who have also been missing out, I present to you The Cuppycake Song. Thanks Nick and Julie for bringing it up for the quality youtube entertainment. Youtube never fails.


the afterlife.
Just in case you've ever wondered what life is like on the other side of the veil, Jon and I discovered on our flight that you just need to ask first class. Looks like they already know.



And US Airways, there are couple things you might want to proof more than once before you let them go into production, namely any items that your passengers could be staring at for 5 hours straight.


I think you meant for it to read more like this.