Thanksgiving in the Land of the Sun

This year we spent Thanksgiving in Arizona. The weather was beautiful and we took full advantage of it. We swam, hiked, swam, ate and played. Justin and Nicole and their kids were there for the first part of the week and Mason loved playing with his cousins. We went to Raw Hide (a "western town") and had dinner at a yummy pizza place. The first weekend there my mom, my sister and I had tickets to see the Civil Wars play. I was super excited and then super disappointed when we went to the concert venue to find an empty parking lot. They had cancelled the show due to "illness" and I was so sad. We met up with Jake and Nicole and went to a movie instead. The Tuesday before Thanksgiving my mom watched the kids while Nic and I went on a real live date. Often when we are visiting family we will put the kids to bed and rush out to a late show or something. This time we left the kids at like 5:30 and did some shopping, ate at Cheesecake Factory and saw a movie. It was really nice to spend a whole evening with Nic. I like him. Then came Thanksgiving. Unfortunately the stomach bug got Shay and Brighton and they didn't come to dinner. (It got my mom and Kim over the next few days). My Aunt, Uncle, and Cousins (the Aussefs) had dinner with us, as did my Grandma and Grandpa Hall. Then that night we went to the Mesa Temple and looked at the lights. The next day Nic was flying home to take call for the weekend. So we took advantage of the day before his flight and went hiking in the Superstition mountains. We tried to go into the Lost Dutchman's State Park, but there was a really sad plane crash there the day before and they had the park closed. So we found a random trail head and basically wondered our way over to the hike we had planned on. The kids had so much fun. We hiked about 5 miles and Mason did great. We carried Sage most of the way (we didn't pack a backpack for her) and my hips were killing me the next day. It was oh, so worth it though. At the top of our hike we hid some quarters under a rock and let Mason find them and think that he found some of the Lost Dutchman's Treasure. He was pretty stoked. That night we took Nic to the airport and the kids and I stayed and played for the next few days before we drove home. My mom was awesome and made the drive with us. It would have been a very, very long drive without her. Thanks mom. We love spending time in Arizona and can't wait to go back.

Brinley, Mason and Cody

Rawhide Petting Zoo. Sage LOVED these animals and calls them all doggies.

This sweet girl is London and she is awesome.

Mason and Cody rode the burros.

I rode a mechanical bull. Seriously. And I rode it the entire 8 seconds. If you don't believe me you can see it on Facebook. I held on with two hands though. And my thighs were pretty sore the next day.

Train ride.

Pretty girls.

Stagecoach ride.

Panning for gold.

Mesa Temple lights.

Hiking in the desert.

Mason is so goofy. I could make a flip book of a series of pictures I took here and you could see an entire dance. If I say cheese he pretty much just starts to dance like a goofball.

We also went to a train park in Gilbert. The kids love train parks. Only this time the train derailed half way through the ride and we had to walk back. Mason walked back on the tracks and pretended like he was the train.

Cousins.

The horn from the train was very frightening.

Sage LOVED the carousel. She giggled and squealed the entire time.

Brighton was so funny. He was stiff as a board with a look of sheer terror on his face. It was a love/hate relationship with the experience.