ARIZONA

One night in January, just as I was dozing off to sleep, I remembered that we had five free airline tickets that were expiring in February! AAAGH! Not ones to let a cheap vacation pass us by, we got those babies booked for the first week of February and managed to keep the "get-a-way" a surprise for the kids until we arrived at the airport. It was snowing and blizzarding in Rapid City but off we flew to spend a week soaking up the Arizona sun.
(Thanks again to my parents, who let us stay at their place while they were out of town!)








The kids were perfect on the plane-who knew flying with three littles could be so easy?! The Arizona weather was gorgeous, the mexican food to die-for, and it was so nice just to relax and play together as a family for a few days. We went on walks, shopped at the outlets, and had movie nights in Grandpa's theatre room.
The kids swam in the pools for hours every day and we met up with our old playgroup at the park one afternoon.









On Friday night, we had dinner with our "Iowa friends", The Stephens, at Peter Piper Pizza. Our back doors were only 20 feet apart in good old Des Moines, and we have lots of good memories with this fabulous family. We shared sick kids, mint oreos, a turtle sandbox and more laughs than most would believe is even possible in a year's time. Sarah taught me everything crafty and introduced to me the necessity of always having a laminator in the home. Aaron and Chris talked hunting and guns and were known to play alot of basketball with a little tykes hoop while they were supposidly babysitting... thankfully their on-going "Tournament of Champions" found its way to the foose ball table during part of the together! Livi and Logan were best of friends in their toddler years and can pick up right where they left off and have a great time together. Both are still darling and blonde with big blue eyes; I remember when they used to be mistaken for twins! A few more kids have graced both families since Iowa and now the troop is a six-pack. It was so fun to catch up with them and see how well they are doing!I wish we lived closer!!!

Aside from the great company, we were quite impressed with Peter Piper Pizza. The food was yummy and the kids were able to run wild in what is a cleaner version of Chunky Cheese. Nick was the business man of the night, figuring out early on that he could win the greatest amount of tickets playing "Wack-A-Mole."He gladly took tokens that Aaron had bought for his kids and played until he was sweating and exhausted. Sadly enough,he still didn't have enough tickets for the ipod! I think he settled for some sweet tarts and a rubber spider. Way to go, buddy, you made momma proud!

Chris' brother, Joseph, flew down with his fiance, Lisa, for a few days and we had fun hanging out with them and getting to know her, too! She is darling and perfect for him...a total keeper in our book! Welcome to the family, Lisa!

I should have known that, with the flight down being so easy, that the flight home would be a nightmare. A nightmare it was. Our plane left Phoenix an hour late so that, upon arriving in Denver, we were sprinting to make our connection. Maybe sprinting isn't the right word...dragging probably describes best what we were doing with three kids, 15 pieces of carry-on luggage, a car seat and a stroller. Nick was moaning and Olivia said she "couldn't feel her legs" by the time we made it to our gate. Thankfully the plane has just closed and there was no way to get us on so we had nearly killed off the family for no reason! We ended up staying the night in Denver, where I complicated things by loosing our boarding passes, hotel voucher, and debit card. Way to go, Jenn. After getting settled, we ate beef jerky in the hotel room and then crashed...we were all so tired!We were able to make it home the next morning so everything turned out just fine. The kids were troopers and I could not have been prouder of them. It sure felt good to come home, even if it was to the cold and wind!