Stephen and Emily in AZ!

Ok, my blogging has been ridiculous. It's hard to get motivated to sit down at the computer, transfer pictures from the hodge podge of phones they were taken with (my "regular" camera hasn't had batteries for a year now), and actually get words down. I plan to go back and blog about lots of highlights from the past 6 months, but for now, I'll start here.

Eric's younger brother Stephen and his beautiful wife Emily and their son Daniel (who is a total charmer, by the way) came down for a long memorial weekend-o-fun! For those of you contemplating trips filled with sunshine, we sure know how to party!

In four and a half days we fit in swimming, a trip to the zoo and the splash pads, a drive down to Tucson to the Titan Missile Museum, a quick stop by the Gilbert Temple, paint balling, shopping, a surprise birthday party (for me!) and lots of good food. The best part was that I had essentially no part in making any of that food! Thank you husbands who like to cook in their spare time, a nice date night out at My Big Fat Greek Restaurant, and Joe's Farm Grill.

Here are a ton of pictures, most thanks to Emily :)

the moon was huge. and apparently worth a short hill hike for better viewing :)

the zoo splash pads are AWESOME.

water babies!

Aunt Emily was a HUGE hit with my kids. Alyssa in particular wanted NOTHING to do with me if she could have Emily!

Titan Missile Museum

Date night: hooray for awesome friends (thanks, Linds!) who volunteered to babysit all our munchkins

Sneaking some piano time with Rachel

She's getting pretty brave

Happy Birthday to me!

Scotty was a great helped with Daniel

Our new temple! Coming sometime Fall 2013 (hopefully)

I so wish my kids got to live near their cousins! Someday...someday.

Life Like This

So, it's busy season. Eric is on day 12 of working 19 days straight, Saturday and Sunday included, so that about sums it up around here. The kids have been great and well behaved despite suddenly losing their dad to the work abyss. Because Eric had to work last Sunday, he wasn't able to come to church. Of course, it was Stake Conference and I just wasn't feeling up to chasing two kids around the wood floor for two hours by myself, so we had mini primary at home. A few days later, I was reading Scotty a story from the friend about a girl who discovers that her new friend doesn't go to church. After a little tension, the story resolves by the girl deciding that she can be friends with people even if they don't go to church. I asked Scotty what he thought about the story and about being friends with all kinds of people, and he thought for a minute before replying, "I think that's a good idea. I will still be friends with daddy, and he can still be my daddy, even though he doesn't go to church."

You miss one day and you're out around here, apparently!

Fortunately, Eric had two weeks off for Christmas before busy season kicked in so we had time to do lots of fun things.  Like the train park (complete with 2 different playgrounds, a carousel, a train museum, and a train ride).

And the zoo, where the bear was actually moving around. And then trying to break the door down....

And of course, Eric and I celebrated our 6 year anniversary in best way we know how: college football. The Insight Bowl (Iowa Hawkeyes vs. Oklahoma Sooners) was played in Tempe on the 30th so we took it as a sign.

ASU stadium

We ended up sitting on the Oklahoma side. Up in the boonies :)

Cadets from the Air Force Academy did pregame jumps

Some of the few who stayed till the end! It wasn't a very even game....

Thanks to mom and dad for watching our kids overnight, Grandpa Woodhouse for the giftcard for dinner, and Grandpa and Grandma Gould for the extra Christmas cash to help with the tickets :) I'd also like the thank the Iowa Hawkeyes for finally scoring in the fourth quarter to make it more resemble a bowl game. we had a great time!

Capturing a Christmas Tree

To: whom it may concern, more specifically "color-specific" people who feel we Phoenicians deny our children of a "true" Christmas experience due to the general dearth of a certain "omnipresent" color that isn't technically even a color...

I present: The Arizona White Christmas, aka the Great Christmas Tree Adventure. Also known as "I don't think Eric will ever do this again but the rest of us had a good time."

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we piled the kids in the car with plenty of snow gear, grabbed our tree-cutting permits, and headed out for a two-hour drive to Heber in search of an authentic Christmas tree. After two days of constant snow prior to said adventure and quite the amount of fluff falling all morning, the original road was closed, forcing us to drive an hour farther north to the top of the rim, where we found beautiful frosted snow, plenty of trees, and even some sunshine.

It didn't take too long to pick a few trees and dispatch the boys with a saw and some clippers to capture and drag them home for dinner, err, decoration. Meanwhile, mom and I played in the snow with kids making snowmen, snow angels, and having a great time until Scotty finally admitted he was cold.

Merry Christmas!

A Day Among Dinosaurs

I have always enjoyed a good "adventure" whether we talk a long walk or go to an amusement park, but I'm finding that we're having more and more fun as Scotty gets older! Last week I took the kids to the AZ Museum of Natural History and we had the best time. We'd been there several time before, but now Scotty is old enough to actually look at the exhibits and want to know about them, instead of just looking at the dinosaurs. Plus, they have huge puzzles scattered throughout the museum and we went questing for them.

Alyssa had a fabulous time, mostly on my back. She's happier that way because she can "talk" to me the entire time and she's tall enough to actually see things. I do actually let her run around sometimes, I promise! She has fun dismantling puzzles for us.