I need to catch up on some summer fun we had last month! Over the week of Brian's birthday we drove to Arizona to hang out with Mike, Joelle, the girls and the baby! It was SO much fun! It was definitely a full house but it was a blast spending time, chatting, kicking their butts at canasta, and mostly watching the twins and Legend get to know each other and play together. Unfortunately the Carlile family all caught a flu bug while we were there so they couldn't play for a couple days, but Brian and I had a lot of fun walking around malls and exploring Arizona while giving the influenza as wide a berth as possible :/ yikes! luckily the Williams family stayed healthy other than a little car sickness from the drive out.
morning milk! Legend wanted to be like the girls and have his milk laying on the boppy pillows
Lots of UMAS
Legend thought it was SO cool to have cousins his size!
Elsie loved Legend's monkey
one of many trips to the mall
Trying to hold all three.... unsuccessful...
We put them on the little merry go round at the mall, the girls seemed a bit nervous but Legend didn't want to get off! he was so mad when it ended!
Breakfast time!
Mike put Legend in the toy box and he thought it was pretty cool! He didn't want to get out!
We went to the Phoenix zoo one day. It was HOT! Luckily it was overcast so it wasn't as bad as it could have been, but we tried hard to keep hydrated and cool! Mike was in charge of spraying everyone with water and keeping the babies cooled off. They all seemed to have fun regardless of the heat. We ended up staying for four hours!
Petting the goats...
Legend wasn't so sure at first, but warmed up quickly.
We found a little building to cool off in and the girls had more fun looking at the paintings than at the real animals!
Lifting legend up to the AC...
We got to see the bear come really close and swim in the water right next to the fence!
The last thing we did was the train ride. It was nice to sit and see the animals and take a break from walking. The kids loved it. Since there were four kids and four adults, we each had to keep track of one to make sure no one jumped ship!
Legend and Elsie were two of a kind...!
For Brian's birthday, luckily everyone was feeling better, so Mike and Joelle took us to their favorite Mexican joint, popo's!
I asked Brian what he wanted on his birthday for a dessert, and he explained a VERY elaborate, "better than sex" cake. One that neither Joelle or I had ever heard of before. Since we stayed at the zoo so long we didn't have time to tackle the project, so Joelle and I went to Sam's club and picked up a red velvet cake. (it was SO good). We thought it would be funny to write better than sex on it as a joke, but when I asked the man in the bakery he seemed a tad embarrassed about it! He did it though, and it made for a good joke!
The boys enjoying some "quality" time, shooting soldiers on the tv screen...
We had so much fun with the Carlile clan and the week seriously just flew by! We were sad to leave but were thankful they let us stay so long, and can't wait to see them this November when they move back to Utah! Yay! (hopefully they practice their canasta skills and can be a bit more of a challenge for us pros!)
For our other summer "vacation" we went camping with my family. Brian and I have been wanting to go for a long time and we actually were able to go twice this summer! We went once with David and Pauline and their young women's group which was way fun. Then my parents sent a text to everyone saying they were going camping and whoever wanted to join was welcome. It tuned out we were ALL able to go and it was a LOT of fun! We had fun just hangin' out, playing in the freezing river, going for walks with the dog, and staying up late playing games. Legend LOVED playing in the dirt and after enough whining I decided it wasn't worth trying to keep him clean, so I put him on the ground and let him go for it. He was in heaven! We ended up giving him a bath in a little tupperware basin that my mom brought for doing dishes and he had so much fun, he was way mad when I took him out to dry off and get ready for bed. (Trevor has those pictures so eventually I'll add them).
All in all we had a lot of fun and I hope it becomes a family tradition. I feel like I got to know my brother and sister in law better, had some bonding time with the siblings, and look forward to next year when Carter can join legend in the dirt :) The only lesson learned was probably for my mom not to make beans twice in one day. It was a pretty noisy game night....
Avett was very protective of Legend and made sure to stay close by, especially when playing in the dirt.
Going for a walk. Legend ended up falling asleep the that wrap and Riley got some funny pictures of him totally sacked out and dangling to the side. I need to get those from him as well!
He didn't want to cuddle with me....
Avett LOVES camping!
Makenna also loved playing in the dirt and often kept Legend company on the ground.
Playing games
So cute, even when covered in dirt!
