Life is a Journey: 2 More Weeks in Arizona

We knew if we were going to drag our kids all the way across the country, we should definitely make it worth the effort (and money) and stick around for a while. We were excited to all be there in Mesa together for the wedding, reception, and as icing on the cake, we all got to be there for Phil & Sophie's new little guy, Baiden's, blessing. Somehow I don't have any pictures from that day (though I have good memories of the yummy chicken salad croissants Sophie fed us all), but here is a cute picture of Baiden. He is so adorable, and I can't wait to get to know his personality later as he gets older (and we get to see him again sometime in the next year)!

We drove home to Pima that day, and the next day we were all set to take family pictures with our Jeremy's side. Abbie had found cute matching outfits for the girls, (with capris) and a new shirt and shorts for Reilly. It had been in the low 80's the first 5 days we were there, and we were ready to take the pictures outside at the Farm part of the old Pima Museum. Do you know what the weather was doing Monday? It snowed. It did. In the middle of March. Needless to say, we didn't make it through too many shots outside, and almost everyone refused to take their jackets off. I think Chloe had -2- jackets off. We relocated to the Thatcher Fire Department, and made some good memories with the whole process. I'm still waiting on those pictures (our poor photographer ended up with sick kids followed by surgery) but here are some of the previews she showed us on Facebook. I'm so excited to see the rest, and I'll post more later. (hopefully, along with at least one picture with my whole family in it).

It was completely freezing. This is as we're leaving the farm museum

Abbie, Larry, Jeremy, & Ashley

Jeremy had to leave right after dinner (after we did family pictures) to go back to Mesa (to catch his flight Tuesday morning), and as busy as we stayed, we definitely missed him over the next 2+ weeks we were there without him. We stayed busy though. I was working on some video projects, and we were bouncing back and forth between families (and houses - we stayed the last half at Jeremy's parents') trying to spend time with everyone. My mom brought home a couple of kittens (after Jeremy left) and all of the kids had a blast with them. They were pretty fearless, resilient little things, and managed to still not really be scared of the kids even after 2 weeks.

When they came down for the second reception,
Kinzi was utterly obsessed with the kittens. She did
TRY to be gentle.

I forgot to get the picture from my Dad's camera that we took, but my Mom, Dad, and I went on a hike one Saturday on the "old Swift Trail" road. Well, we thought there would be an actual road/trail, but my Mom and I soon found that it was more of a "Dad's going to try to track where the old road went, even though it hasn't been used for 40 years and things like giant culverts have been removed from it, and lots of cactus has grown on it, (you get the picture)." It was a little more than we had signed up for, and I was having killer allergies, the like of which I haven't seen for 12-13 years, I think. I had allergy problems the whole time I was in Arizona (except on that one cold, snowy day) but I must have been super allergic to something growing at the base of Mt. Graham, because the sneezing was unreal. I'm lucky I had stuffed my pockets with Kleenex, but even then I couldn't see straight for sneezing sometimes, and it never really did calm down that day, even after some Allegra and a shower. Got a work out in, I guess, though.
Here are some fun pictures of the kiddos. I didn't use my camera as much as I thought, when there weren't wedding- or big family-togetherness things going on, but the kids had a blast being able to play outside all the time, getting dirty, riding bikes & trikes, jumping on the trampoline, playing with Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, and cousins.

Grammy K got them these cute shirts, also!

Well,l I guess that's it, actually. I -really didn't take many pictures again until the last weekend, when all of my family got together again (minus Jeremy) for the Pima Reception for David & Nicole.
It was a lot of fun, if chaotic. We weren't even sleeping there, but we were there a lot, and my mom's poor house usually looked like a hurricane had hit it. There are now 7 grandchildren, and 5 of them are 2-and-under. Here are the little munchkins:

Justin (2), Kinzi (1), Reilly(5), Baiden(3 m), Katy (1), Jaina(4), and Kayden (9 m)

Justin pretty much helped himself to whatever looked good on the
refreshment table. He's a go-getter. :)

Dave & Nicole were technically a few minutes late for their own reception,
but only because David had been playing tennis with Jason until
just an hour before it...

Good-looking people!

Good looking decor!

Happy kids with more sugar (that night) than they normally get in a week...

Spencer was our music-guy. Doesn't he look schnazzy in his suit?

Poor Phil got stuck at work, and they didn't make it until the last half
hour. But at least they made it! We were so happy to see them again!

The reception was really nice. My mother had been pretty intensely stressed trying to pull it all together and get it all decorated, and pull the food together, etc. She had so much help putting the decorations up and getting the food together and helping during it and even cleaning up. It was amazing. People are wonderful. Here are some pictures from the reception. A big shout out to Jeremy's parents, who took my kids home a little over halfway through when they were getting to that too-much-sugar/exhausted point.

General Conference was that weekend, so we all stuck around and enjoyed? it together. Conference with a bunch of little kids is hit-and-miss at best. Oh well. It was still nice to be together. When the guys went to the Priesthood Session we tried to do a pseudo girls-night, and parked the older kids downstairs with a movie (they could be trusted not to mess with Dave & Nicole's gifts) and the 4 little ones we tried to put a movie on for as well. We DID get to play a few rounds of cards, but the living room didn't fair too well, and they lost interest before too long and joined us for cards...

Miraculously (seriously, I fasted and prayed for this) no one was sick the whole first 2 1/2 weeks, (other than Reilly throwing up all over in the middle of the night the first night Jeremy was gone. We kept him quarantined the next day, and he seemed fine. No one else got sick. I wasn't feeling too hot Sunday morning, but thought it was from too much leftover cake. I was fine most of the day Sunday, but was feeling sick again by that evening, and when I got back to Jeremy's parents' I found Larry had been sick since he got up that morning, too. I was horribly sick for about 4 hours that evening/night and was shaky for a few days after. But NO ONE else got it. Not my kids, not my family, not Abbie. So amazing. And I was so grateful for it. By Wednesday, (our travel day) I was feeling up to our marathon day (seriously, we left Pima at 4:30 AM, and our flight didn't end up getting in until after 10 (EST, that's 7 on AZ time). It was nice because unless we were departing or landing, I could have the other two kids scoot over (even staying buckled) and sit Kate right next to me. A lot easier than trying to keep an almost-2-year-old on my lap the whole time, especially with a slightly sensitive stomach. Our 2-hr layover in Nashville turned into a 4+ hr one, but the kids did pretty well, and there was very little screaming or crying. (A little whining is a given)

You can nearly see how red and almost-puffy Katy's little eyes are already.

Wednesday wore me out, mostly since I'd been sick, but we made it, and were SO glad to see Jeremy and our home. Katy hadn't slept AT ALL (other than about 5 seconds when she nodded off during a movie) in that almost 15 hours after a short night's sleep. She was a trooper, but was completely out within about 2 minutes of hitting her comfy car seat. She transferred when we got home (unusual) and slept through getting her pajama pants on and being transferred again from our bed to her crib. And she proceeded to sleep for14 hours... Which is what I need to do now. What a huge blog entry. If you got through all of that, I'm -seriously- impressed.

(Whoops, forgot a few choice pics. :)