Arizona--July 5th-11th

Jake's sister, Christy, and her family moved to the Phoenix area right after this last Thanksgiving. Jake's mom lives in Alaska and usually comes down here once a year to visit Christy's family and us. But since Christy's family moved to Phoenix, Karen decided to go there to visit instead and see if we could come down there while she was there. So, Monday after Jake got off work, we packed up the car and headed to Arizona! We had decided to leave and drive mostly through the night so Jackson would sleep and we would have more time with Jake's family. We put Jackson in his p.j.'s and left at about 9:00 p.m.


We had a great and easy drive down (Jackson was an awesome traveler) and arrived in Maricopa (south of Phoenix) where Brent and Christy live around noon the next day. It was great to see everyone! Isaak and Sophia (Jackson's cousins) and Jackson all reconnected right away and went off to play as if they were the best of friends. Christy and Brent have a gorgeous home with a great pool, which we took full advantage of:

We had a lot of fun outings while we were there, but relaxed a lot too, which was nice. One night we went to a Rainforest Cafe, which was especially fun for the kids (and Jake and his mom had never been to one before either).


We also spent a morning shopping at Arizona Mills (a huge outlet mall) and found a few good deals. Later that day we went to Big Surf, a waterpark. It was really fun. The bigger the slide, the better for Jackson. We started off in the toddler area with small slides and really shallow water, then Christy found a larger kids area with bigger slides that Jackson could do. They were pretty big and they didn't allow adults to go down with the kids, so one of us would take Jackson up to the top and the other would stay below to catch him. I couldn't get any pictures of those slides because the pool area was too big to have easy access to my camera. After awhile, we wanted to go back to the little toddler area because Jake and Isaak and Christy wanted to go down adult rides and that didn't leave me a partner to help with Jackson. He threw a big temper tantrum and kept saying he wanted to go on the bigger slides, but once we got him involved on the little ones again, he was happy and had a blast.

One night Jake's mom wanted him to take her to a casino about five miles from where Brent and Christy live. Jake had been doing awesome with directions and driving in the city and getting us everywhere we wanted to go. No one else really wanted to go to the casino, so we got the kids to bed and Christy and I were hanging out, assuming Jake and his mom were having a good time over at the casino (exactly five miles away--it was on the main highway we had been using the entire time we were there). About an hour and a half into our conversation, Christy got a phone call from Karen saying they were lost and had been lost the entire time! Somehow, with it being dark and all, Jake had taken a wrong turn and they were clear out in the desert. He was trying to use his GPS, and it was saying he was going the right way, so they had kept driving, but after an hour and a half of seeing nothing but desert, Jake wisely decided the GPS was wrong in this case. Well, somehow, they got turned around and headed back into town and then found the casino with no problems, but Christy and I were a little worried! Anyway, I guess Jake lost his twenty bucks within an hour, but they still had a good time.

Another night we all went out to a great place for chicken wings. That was where Jake heard the breaking news that his favorite basketball player, LeBron James, would be signing on with the Miami Heat. I guess we should have headed back over to the Mills for a new selection of hats and other sports memorabilia so Jake can ditch his Cavaliers stuff and support James in Miami, but we didn't. ;0)

We had lots of good visiting and Jackson had lots of good playing. When we were getting ready to leave on Saturday morning, we had the car all packed up and Jackson had said goodbye to everyone, and he reached out his hand to hold Sophie's and said, in the sweetest little voice ever, "Sophie come with us?". It broke our hearts. It was so sweet and he already misses her and Isaak.

On our (LONG) journey back we went to the Grand Canyon--another first for Jake, and of course Jackson. It was amazing! I think Jackson was more interested in collecting rocks along the trails we walked on than the actual sites of the Canyon.

The trip back was extremely long...1. We stopped at the Grand Canyon, 2. We had to stop at every little place along the way because I was swelling (which, in two pregnancies, I never did swell at all until this trip), 3. Jackson needed to wiggle a lot, 4. We took the Utah way home, and not only that but we took the LONG Utah way home...and let me tell ya, we were all three extremely glad to see our little home!

But we did have a great time and are grateful for Brent and Christy's wonderful hospitality and for putting up with a constant stream of guests for most of July. Also, it was so nice to see Jake's mom (who we won't see again until December). And, of course, it was wonderful for Jackson to get to play with his cousins! Also, thanks to Jake's supervisor and friend, Gail, who traded us vehicles for the trip! We both drive gas guzzlers (Jake has a truck and I have an SUV), and Gail was kind enough to offer us her little car that gets excellent gas mileage. The trip cost us about a third in gas money as it would have if we had driven one of our vehicles. We were so grateful for that (plus it was much easier to drive in the city with a small car). So, that was our summer road trip!