Arizona

One of my best friends and roommate for 3 years decided to up and leave me for Ohio because she thought it was good to be with her husband while he went to med school. Who does she think she is. That was 3 years ago and even though she has made a couple of trips to Utah, I have really missed her. So when I heard she was going to be in Arizona (a lot closer than Ohio) for like 2 months, I decided we HAD to go visit her. The plan was for Ryan, me, and Emry to drive to Flagstaff to Becca's parent's cabin and spend a weekend with Becca, Jacob, and her two kids Brock and Jane. However, Ryan's work got crazy busy and wouldn't let him take a single day off in October and I was getting really sad it wasn't going to happen. Then my wonderful husband told me to just fly out and see Becca. Spend a week hanging out with my college best friend? Yes!!! So off we went to hang out in Mesa, AZ for a week. It just happened to work out that one of my other best friends from college just moved to AZ and had a baby two weeks before (YAY!) and Ryan's brother just moved to the area about 3 months before. It was time for me to go visit :D
We stayed with Becca's parents (they were so nice to let us take over a bedroom, eat their food, use their car, and invade their life! So nice!!) in Mesa but we were able to visit everyone, so it was a successful trip.
I can't remember everything we did, so this might just be a post in picture form, which will be long, but worth it. I completely fell in love with AZ while we were there and absolutely want to move there! It was like 80 degrees and sunny every day. The people were so nice and I'm moving next week (ok, not really, but I wouldn't object!)

Seriously, I didn't bring enough pairs of shorts because every day was beautiful and sunny. It was so nice to go back into summer when Utah was starting to turn cold and snowy... Here is Brock and Emry playing outside. Brock looks super happy about me taking his picture. haha!

Becca with the girls Jane and Emry. Jane is such a happy baby and content to just be. Adorable!!

One of the first nights we went and found this fall carnival. We expected it to be fine but not all that great, but it totally exceeded expectations! They had so many fun things to do, we ran out of time. Here is Emry and me on the tractor ride. I was scared she wasn't going to like this because the driver was really fast and liked to whip us in circles but Emry just laughed and laughed. I guess she is a daredevil at heart!!

Emry and Brock on the teeter totter. Emry would have stayed on that forever but my legs got tired from the squats I had to do to balance out the weight. 

A collage of the activities. Emry riding in the wheelbarrow. We went to go pick out pumpkins and she just wanted to hang out here. It was funny. Teeter totter again. They had these blow up horses you could sit on and kinda bounce around on. It was pretty funny and Emry loved it. Us on the tractor again.

One day I drove out to see Miss Rachael and her beautiful new baby girl Myla. She lives about 45 minutes away from Becca but thankfully Emry slept the whole way both ways. That makes for a happy mama!! I am so sad Rachael left Utah, but so happy that she is having the time of her life in Arizona with her new baby. Myla is so darling and tiny!!! New babies make me realize that Emry isn't a baby anymore and it just makes me sad. Rach and I went to lunch where Myla did awesome (in the car and just hanging out while we ate) and then we visited at her house for a while. Then we had to get back. It was such a fun day and I hope we can spend more time in AZ so that baby knows who I am (I realize the chances aren't good, but still...)

We decided to spend Saturday morning with Jenna and Jason since Jenna had to work all the other days we were there. We couldn't come up with anything fun to do that was open in the morning, so we decided to go back to the Fall Carnival. I'm glad we did because we basically missed half the stuff the first time anyway. It was really really hot, but fun too. Here is Jenna on the teeter totter with Em.

Here is Uncle Jason helping us race the duckies with the water. Emry like to put the ducks in and pump the water to make them race to the other side. I liked that this was in the shade and out of the really hot sun!!!

Oh my gosh, this was hilarious. We saw a big gathering of people with umbrellas and little cages so we wandered over to see what was happening. I thought it was a petting zoo or something where people could come look at the animals. Well we realized quickly there were just a bunch of guinea pigs. And I mean a bunch. Like 50 people each with their own guinea pig all gathered around a table. After asking around exactly what was happening, we were told it was a guinea pig eating contest. Like see which guinea pig can eat the carrot the fastest. I am not joking. It was the funniest most hilarious thing I've ever seen. (In case you were wondering, guinea pigs eat really slowly. We stayed for like 5 or 10 minutes and no one had finished their carrot yet. Hilarious!) Also, Jason now wants to own a guinea pig so he can enter it into this contest. :D

Becca's mom put on a fun Halloween party for all her grand kids and some of their friends. It was awesome and really fun. They had a bunch of different stations where the kids could play games like pin the tail on the cat, cookie decorating, a cake walk, etc. She had a bounce house and Emry was completely happy!! Here she is in her cute lady bug costume (she doesn't look that happy here because she isn't in the bounce house. haha) I don't have any pictures of her in the bounce house, just videos, but that was her favorite part of the evening. 

Now we're happy, eating candy and decorating cookies!! 

On the swings like a big girl. She loved it.

On our last day before heading to the airport we went to a really good breakfast place. It is so much fun hanging out with Becca and just talking about old times and our new lives, discussing problems, joys, kids, etc. It was a great time!

Emry outside soaking in the last bit of sun before we headed to the airport. We are going to miss playing outside all the time. Utah summer cannot come soon enough!!

This is what we did for like 30 minutes while we waited for our turn to board the plane. Walked back and forth on these runways. Emry loved it and it kept her from running all over the place. 

Arizona, we love you and we are coming back soon!!! Thanks for the fun times everyone!!!