Thanksgiving in Arizona

We spent Thanksgiving this year with my mom and Kim in Arizona. And we were not alone. It was us, and my step brother Justin and his family, and my great aunt Judy and her husband, and Shay and her family, and Matt, and 3 dogs. All together there were 19 people and 3 dogs staying in the house. For dinner itself we increased that number by 7 when my Grandma and Grandpa Hall and aunt Jan and her family came over. I had some serious anxiety over the ability to happily house all of these people in my parent's house, but it actually worked out beautifully. My family was assigned to the biggest room (with the phantom bathroom, which is an entirely different story) and it worked out great. Nic and me on the bed, Mason and Sage on the pull out couch in the room, and Jonas (Harry Potter style) in the closet. Oh- and Nell in the corner. Surprisingly it didn't feel cramped at all with all those people and honestly the kids loved every second of it. Mason and Sage would disappear first thing in the morning to go play with their cousins and I wouldn't see them until bedtime. Cody is only a year older than Mason and they loved playing together, and Brinley and London took both Sage and Jonas under their wing and nearly completely cared for them (other than the whole nursing bit). Older cousins are awesome. That, combined with Sage figuring out how to stay afloat with her life jacket on (thus allowing to me to sit by the pool and not actually be in the pool at all times), made for a very relaxing trip for me. The kids and I stayed for 2 weeks. Nic stayed the first week, then flew from Mesa to Chicago to go to the ACR conference. He then flew back to SLC, worked a couple of days, then flew back down to Phoenix so he could make the 11 hour drive home with me the next day. I so appreciate him being willing to do this. Having a nursing baby, a 2 year old, a 4 year old and a dog would have made that drive painful. The potty breaks alone would have been misery. So the help was beyond appreciated.

So here are some pictures and a run down of the 2 weeks.

Wake up, watch a cartoon until everyone else is up, wear goggles while doing it.

Sage and London. Two seriously awesome girls.

Beautiful Brinley

My Jonsie baby.

I only wish London lived closer so she could be my live in nanny. Or even just my babysitter. She loved holding Jonas and when she wasn't holding him, she was completely entertaining and loving Sage. It was awesome, I'm telling ya.

The boys.

One day, the kids, Nic and I decided to check out the Phoenix Zoo. Its funny because we have been to more than one zoo in Phoenix, but never the actual Phoenix Zoo. We got discounted passes with our Hogle Zoo membership and it turned out to be a really nice afternoon.

It was the day before Thanksgiving, so the kids thought it was great to see the turkeys. Mason kept telling them they should feel lucky because they were safe at the zoo this year.

We paid to feed the giraffes. I was a little disappointed with this because there is a zoo in Phoenix where you can just feed the giraffes for free. You can even pet them and just hang out with them as long as you wish. This was a little more controlled. Which may not be a bad thing for the giraffe's sake, but I still enjoyed the freedom of the other zoo.

Back at the house, this is what the evenings often looked like.

For as spastic as Nell can be, she sure is sweet with the kids. She didn't move for over a half an hour while Jonas just hung out with her.

I love this blonde haired boy.

Swimming + cousins + 19 people in one house can wear a girl out.

In fact, it wears everyone out.

One night, after Nic left, we went to see the Mesa Temple lights with Grandma, Shay, Casey, and Bubba.

This picture cracks me up. That would be Shay, running through the garden after Brighton. Love it!

Cousin love.

 

 One day Nicole called us and told us to meet her at this indoor tree house place. This place was insane. It had corkscrew slides, slides that dropped at nearly a 90 degree angle, and some crazy netted tubes that dangled very high in the sky. Shay and I climbed up in the tube seen below with Sage. It was swaying and I was so afraid that our weight was going to break it. I made Sage go way ahead so that if it did break, she wouldn't go down with us. Then I took Sage down the crazy steep slide and ended up losing the majority of the skin on my elbow in the way down (a major friction burn). Nicole waited for us at the bottom to get a picture and we couldn't stop laughing at my mangled elbow. Well, that night I wasn't laughing when it hurt so bad I couldn't sleep. I can't believe they don't have some kind of regulation on that thing. It was fun. But I didn't do it again.

Brinley was sweet and took Sage down the corkscrew slide over and over again. I didn't let her take her down the other slide for fear of both of their hides.

The crew.

Toward the end of our stay, something very unusual happened. Kim got in the pool. In fact, he stayed in for a few hours and played with kids. I think he caught Sage coming down the slide like 50 times and played "Diver Down!" with Mason 100 times. It was great.

Nothing like getting out of the pool and warming up under some industrial heaters.

And then having S'mores.

While wearing princess crowns. (Mason and Brinley worked long and hard at the arcade games at the tree house place to win Sage this crown. It was sweet.)

Kim even got in on the crown action.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was just spending time with these guys. No house to take care of, no schedule, no real responsibilities.

Shay, my mom, and I decided to take the kids to the Scottsdale train park one day. This is the very park where Nic left our camera 3 years ago. And once again, we didn't leave unscathed. I left the wipes case that goes with my diaper bag. Not a big deal, but also not replaceable and kind of disappointing.  Oh well, the kids had fun.

Mason is on a seed collecting kick and hit the jackpot collecting all sorts of seeds in the park.

Shay and I took the kids on the train while my mom stayed with Jonas. The train is an open air train, except for the little cattle car at the back. Of course the kids wanted to ride in that. So Shay and I scrunched in. See the top of the window in the picture below? That was the top of the car. There are a few pictures I took of Shay scrunched inside, but for her sake I won't put them on here. You're welcome Shay.

Also, this window was directly behind the car in front of us, so the people who were sitting there had their butts directly in front of the window. So Sage thought it was funny to spend a large portion of the ride crying out, "Help us please. Help us." to the rear end of some fellow passengers.

When she wasn't requesting rescue she was mooing like a cow in its cattle car.

Overall, the trip was perfect. We played games and ate obscene amounts of food.

The kids swam everyday.

Nic got his obligatory photo of Nell poolside.

And we made some great memories with some great people. All of whom we love dearly.

Thanks for a relaxing, fun and (thanks to the awesome new pool gate) safe holiday mom and Kim. It was perfect.