Our trip to Arizona was a success. And by success I mean we made it there alive and made it home alive. Overall I will choose to hold close the memories of us having fun, playing in the sun, enjoying the beautiful landscapes, taking the boys to new places and visiting with family and friends. We had so much fun. It was great to visit with Grandma Becca - the boys had a blast. Dane quickly got into the habit of calling for "Becca Becca" when he woke up and pretty much all day. They made a construction zone in the back yard between the rocks. It was too cold for the pool but we all enjoyed the hot tub. We saw a bobcat right outside Rebecca's fence, heard coyotes and saw 2. We got to meet a number of her friends that we've heard so much about. We also took a Feng Shui class which was awesome. After a week in Tucson, we moved on to Phoenix. I was so excited to see my Grandma Bonnie and go back to the house I spent so much time at growing up. I immediately felt "home" when we got out of the car in Phoenix. I love it there. I could truly see myself living there.....but that was before I had my family and our "forever" home, of course. ;) We visited with my Grandma Bonnie there, her husband Dell, her daughter Lori and grand-daughter Brooklyn and her son Brent. Also visited with (neice) Kelly and her daughter Emma - all people I haven't seen in ages and who have never met the boys (except GB) I also got to visit with my good friend Amy, who I met when I was in high school on one of my trips out there. We became fast friends and have been close (well, as close as you can be living across the country) for the past 18 years. It was awesome.

Having said all that, it was a pretty difficult trip. After one particularly stressful day when I was near tears, I called my husband who was at home on the couch watching football with his dad, and I wondered who was really on vacation. Please don't get me wrong, I am SO grateful that we were given the opportunity to go out and visit. But darn it, it was HARD. I told Luke I am never, repeat never, going on a vacation without him again (excluding Michigan of course). At least not until Dane is older. I don't know what was going on with Dane, but he screamed half the time we were in Tucson. I think part of it was my own fault - the stress that I put on myself making sure they were "behaving." You know the stress that you take on about things that nobody else really cares about, but you are on high alert the whole time making sure they're not playing with things that they're not supposed to, not being too loud and being polite well behaved all the time. After getting to my Grandma Bonnie's, in about the first 10 minutes I had the place semi-child proofed. I had taken the nice fall decos off the coffee table, moved all the "pretties" up to higher, safer, ground. In the past I have gotten exhausted after one night of visiting at someone else's house, and this was 10 straight days of all of these things combined. The icing on the cake was getting sick the day before we flew home. I couldn't sleep that night prior because of my sore throat. I woke up and had a fever, chills, sore throat and one of those coughs that kind of rolls out because you're so weak you can't even produce a strong one. I ended up in urgent care and the Dr. put me on an antibiotic. I think the stress of not knowing what my state was going to be the next day, the day I had to fly with the boys by myself, which I was already stressed about only added to things. The day for our trip home I felt better, but still was constantly alternating between freezing and sweating. At the airport I was sweating so bad but I couldn't even take off my sweatshirt because my gray t-shirt was SOAKED underneath. Every time I bent over my head pounded and I got dizzy. I was most stressed about getting from the rental car return, putting both car seats into our big duffle bag, then getting the three of us plus our luggage to the airport. It was going all right until the shuttle dropped us and our luggage off at the airport. With no curbside check-in in sight and no luggage carts nearby, I almost lost it. What was I supposed to do? I could not physically lift all of our luggage at the same time plus the pack-n-play. I couldn't just leave it there, plus I had the boys. I found a bench nearby, which I parked the boys on and told them not to move a muscle (I don't think either one of them would have dared) then a bit further down and still in sight of the boys, found the luggage carts. $4 later and some rage at not being able getting the cart free from the contraption quickly enough - I was racing back to the boys and luggage. Just in time for another shuttle full of people and luggage to be dropped off. I made my way upstream through all the people, literally pushing them out of the way in my panic mode of having to get back to my boys. Not. one. person. offered to help me. It reminded me of the time I went to see Straight No Chaser at the IU Auditorium when I was 9 months pregnant. I ended up going in to labor that night, in fact my water had already broken. While we were on the packed-full bus riding back to our car that night I had to stand the whole way, holding on to the bars along the top of the bus. Nobody offered to let me sit down. I refuse to be the lady who needs help, or even expects it, but seriously people! Anyway, once we got our bags checked it was much better. The boys were both extremely good on the flight back. Will was an angel, ANGEL, the whole trip. He could not have been better. I was so proud of him. And when we got to the airport my dad was waiting for us as close as he could get to the gate. He was quite the welcome sight! He later told me that he had explored actually getting a flight out to Phoenix just to help the boys and me get home! One of the sweetest things I've ever heard.

The trip was great, stressful, fun, sad, exhausting and exciting. I'm so glad we were able to go. I'm glad the boys got to see a different part of the country. And I'm so glad that I did it - made it through. Traveled by myself with two small children. Mission Accomplished. Check!

Arizona Adventures

Will and I had a date on one of our days in AZ. (We also had "hot tub dates" a few nights after I put Dane to bed:) Rebecca stayed with Dane this day and Will and I went to Colossal Cave Mountain Park which was near her house. It was so nice to be out with just my big boy. And a very cool cave! It was discovered in the late 1800s when a rancher fell through. Over the next few years many outlaws hid there, Indians used it as refuge. It has been explored and made accessible over the years. It was huge - and we just saw a fraction of it on our 1 hr tour. It was full of history.
A cool sundial. It worked! It was 11.
I asked Will to stand on the sundial but I had to catch him quickly, as he had a project to do there. If he found all the blue boxes and stamped his blue sheet of paper from each one, he got a prize. He did! And he was determined.

We were down at the horse ranch and hiking around - that beautiful building on the side of the mountain is the entrance to the cave.

Here is looking through to one of the parts that I imagine it looked like before they built paths and walkways through it. Some places in the cave have 30+ drop offs, lots of stalagmites and tites.


A different day Rebecca took us to a bridge that looks like a rattlesnake. The outside has a snake pattern, you can see the entrance down below. And the other end (you can actually see it poking up outside the bridge over Dane's head in this picture) has a rattle that "rattles" when you enter or exit. The boys LOVED it.

This is where Will and I had lunch on our date. :) Nice view!

Grandma Becca and the boys enjoying the hot tub.

The moon was full and gorgeous the other night. I took this pic right outside Rebecca's back door.

Yesterday I took the boys to the Reid park zoo. It's a small zoo but really nice and you can get up really close to the animals. We met a girl I went to high school with (and probably haven't seen since) and her husband and two kids. It was a nice outing and the boys loved it. Highlight was getting to watch the mama lion with her 3 baby cubs.

It's a good morning to golf on grandma Beccas putting green!

After I put Dane to bed Will and I had a date in the hot tub. The moon was almost full and we were hoping to hear some fellow coyotes howling but we didn't - yet.

We Made It!

After a very long trip we finally made it to Arizona. I picked up Rebecca and we drove our car to the airport. My dad met us there and took our car and will keep it at his house for us. Check in and security were a breeze. We got to our gate where they said the plane was only about 1/2 full so we could spread out. The boys got to finally open up their new backpacks from nana that they'd been eyeing for days and were filled w new toys and books and play dough and snacks and everything else under the sun. Things were looking good! We got on the plane and Will, Dane and I had our own row and Rebecca had her own right across the aisle. Shortly after takeoff things started going south. Dane fussed and fought sleep the entire time. It felt like most of the time I was walking him up and down the aisle. It was exhausting mentally and physically. Fortunately Will was an angel. When we got to Denver thank goodness our connecting flight was right around the corner plus we saw our bags being loaded on the plane. Which was good since my (large) bag had Danes car seat and wills booster in it and that had caused me a bit of worry. Our next flight was considerably better. We watched a movie and about 45 mins into it Dane finally lost his hard fought battle with the sand man. *cheering*. Plus Rebecca had free drink tickets so I had wine, which was well deserved after our first flight. We got into Tucson at 11:30-1:30 our time- and Will was still awake! He also stayed awake until we got to Rebecca's around midnight and then in bed at 1am (3am our time!). Then he was up at 6 this morning. Joy. Today we went into Tucson- went to the store and picked up a few other things. I've been deliriously tired today and am really looking fwd to a good nights sleep tonight and hopefully a little energy and kids that are well rested tomorrow.