Auntie Em

For the past 2 weeks you could find a lot of excitement and fun at our house. The first big round of excitement came when Aunt Emily flew in for a visit. She had a conference to attend for work. She arranged to fly in a couple of days before so she could hang out with us a bit more. When she arrived she had even more excitement for Macy. Her flight was a little late because a plane in front of hers sucked a bird into its engine on the runway. Macy thought that was a neat story and wants to hear about it the next time it happens.

The first stop for us was the zoo. There was supposed to be a lot of fun Halloween things going on like feeding the animals a special treat in jack-o-lanterns. Well none of us could follow a schedule nor find the exhibits we wanted (we are not regular zoo goers yet, however we did win a free year membership so I think we will try to use it more than this one time). So we only saw left over jack-o-lanterns that the animals didn't play with any more. We still had a good time because we bought a purple and a red snow cone and the girls got to ride the merry-go-round and the girls didn't have to walk (we dusted off the strollers).
We made sure Emily tried our favorite restaurant, Joe's Real BBQ. She also had to go to our ward trunk-or-treat. Macy and Kelsey were so excited that she got to take them around to each trunk. The girls got to see her hotel room and thought it was the best playroom. Vacationing in a hotel with them will be scary. We might have to prolong this experience. We also made sure she saw a lot of downtowns. Our adventures took us to downtown Tempe, Old town Gilbert, Downtown Mesa and the temple, Old town Scottsdale and the Great and Spacious Building (aka Scottsdale Fashion Mall), and also downtown Phoenix. Most of these were driving adventures but adventures nonetheless. On the way out of downtown Phoenix we even saw Play World. This was an adult store or club (not sure because we didn't stop this time) that welcomed couples. I thought that was a little out of the ordinary. Maybe Brian and my next date night :)

Mother's Day

Well Mother's Day was a great day. All of the church meetings were cancelled so the dads could be home. We took advantage of this and took a drive up to the mountains. When you take a drive to the mountains it is a little longer trip than when living in Utah. So we packed up a picnic, our jackets and the DVD players. In the mountains we went to a fish hatchery first. Brian commented that it was not my ideal location for Mother's Day (I am not a fish lover.) It is a perfectly fine place to visit because I didn't have eat them, touch them or swim with them. The only bad thing was the smell. The girls loved seeing the fish.

The little un-manned visitor center had record fish on display. One that caught my interest was the 3 almost 4 lbs. blue gill. I would not have wanted to swim by that thing. Ask my grandma and mom how friendly they are. At Lake Powell they like to swim by you and one of their fins has a hook on it so it feels like they bite you.

After the fish hatchery we made our way to a lake for our picnic. It was beautiful weather and the girls really enjoyed throwing rocks into the lake and over a tiny ledge. In fact the first picture was of us trying to do a family photo. Kelsey was not excited about this because we had to force her to stop throwing rocks and sticks for a few moments.
In the above picture you can see Kelsey's lovely hair. She pulled it out of the clip in the car and wouldn't let me do it again.

That evening we came home and Brian gave me my Mother's Day cards from the kids. Saturday he helped them make the cards for me. They dictated what to write and he played the scribe for them. They also gave me the gift of relaxation (a massage from Spa Envy). Thanks for a good mother's day.