In October, we took a trip down to Arizona. This had been set up as a surprise family reunion for Aaron's dad for his birthday, and he sure was surprised!
This was our first time taking kids on a plane ride so I was super nervous about the whole ordeal- everything from going through security to keeping them entertained to dealing with diaper changes... I packed Aaron's bag full of snacks, bought Andrew some new toys for him to carry in his backpack, and made sure we had lots of diapers and an extra outfit for everybody.
At the airport, Andrew was super excited to look out the windows at our gate, watching the planes that were sitting right there. He even got a wave from the pilots of the plane leaving our gate before our flight and he loved it.
Our flight there went pretty well, thanks in part to my overpreparedness and Aaron's ability to get Brandon to sleep in public. We had a quick stop in Austin (Hi Austin!) before we got on the second leg of our flight.
We got to Phoenix mid-afternoon and met up with one of Aaron's brothers, who was bringing carseats for us to use. We couldn't check in to our hotel yet so Justin left to pick up Brent from a different airport and we headed to a Verizon store to deal with Aaron's phone, which had annoyingly stopped working sometime before we even left BWI.
After all that was dealt with we got to spend the rest of the day hanging out at the hotel pool with two of Aaron's brothers (plus wife and kids, of course). Dan and Karen weren't due to arrive at the hotel until later that evening. Once they arrived and got settled in their room, we all gathered around their door and knocked. Dan answered and had such a happy surprised look on his face. Success! Unfortunately we found out that Steve wasn't going to make it, but everyone else was there or en route.
The next morning we headed out right after breakfast for the house where we would all be staying in Strawberry. It was a great house, but unfortunately we moms had to spend some time making the house safe for (and from) the kids- we probably moved over half of the decor and closed off the carpeted dining room, which had been set for us with real china, silver, and crystal. Eek.
We spent the next few days having a great time hanging out with everyone. We don't get to see Aaron's brothers that often since everyone is spread out around the country, so this was a rare treat. The last time we were all together was at our wedding! Fortunately we made plans to have more regular reunions from here on out.
We got family pics done (I haven't seen the official ones yet, but a few of us were taking our own as well), hiked the Tonto Natural Bridge, went geocaching, played games, ate lots of food, and saw several elk (the owner of the house was a little crazy about the elk- the lights in the house even turned off automatically whenever they showed up). I even got to braid some hair, which was great since I obviously don't style my boys' hair...
We spent another night at the hotel in Scottsdale before we flew home, so we had time to stop for a picnic at a park partway back, again with Justin and his family, and spend another afternoon at the pool and we went to this awesome pizza place for dinner called Organ Stop Pizza. The pizza was fine but the organ playing was amazing!
The flight home wasn't quite as smooth- we were all tired, plus both kids had diaper disasters that required new outfits (Aaron deserves an award for dealing with both in the tiny airplane lavatory)- but the last leg was actually pretty nice since all four of us (I think) got some sleep.
Sorry for the photo overload but there's a lot to remember about this trip. We had a great time, and we're looking forward to the next Kimbler reunion!
