Home From Arizona

We had such a great trip!!!

We drove 8 hours on Thursday, through snow in Flagstaff, but nothing but sunshine as we neared Phoenix.

We got to Grandma Bunny’s house in time to have dinner and watch Wheel of Fortune with her. It’s practically a law in Sun City: the world stops between 6:30 and 7:00 each night for Wheel of Fortune. Cool with me—I never get to watch it! Boy, Pat Sajak is getting OLD!

We got all the kids bathed and put to bed, then played I Buy with Grandma. I won. :-)

We had a nice breakfast Friday morning with fresh squeezed orange juice. It’s amazing how different juice tastes when it comes out of a carton from the store and when you pick the oranges off the tree in the backyard and juice them yourself! YUM. The kids think it is the coolest thing in the world to walk out the back door at Grandma Bunny’s house and pick grapefruit and tangelos off the trees.



Here we are (minus James) with Grandma Bunny.



It was the kids’ birthday (Katie’s & Joe’s) and we went to Chick-fil-A for lunch. Jacob and Philip were working and were more than happy to “refresh our beverages” and the kids even got some free birthday ice cream! (Thanks, Jake!)




We met up with the Shuler gang at the park so the kids could run and play for a little while before the cake and presents.



It was a little tricky because of the wind, but we (they) managed to build a pretty good human shield so the kids could blow their candles out.

Even with all the wind Katie had a hard time. She blows like her Grandma Vicki! Ha!
Here's Joe with his specially selected piece of cake...


They each had three gifts to open. One from us, one from my folks, and one from the Shulers.

A pop gun (very close range! Ha!) and a girly bath set.
New homemade pj's for Joe (in a picture later on, in use!) along with some miscellaneous toys, and new jean skirt and apron for Kate.
Joe was full of great facial expressions. Here he is trying to operate his new pop gun...
Katie trying on her new apron made from her Great-Grandmother Smith's curtains, and the heart is made out of her Grandma Vicki's curtains. (She LOVES it--AND the skirt, Mom. Thank you sooooo much!)
Here's Katie anticipating her present from her Mom and Dad...
"Shocked and slightly embarassed at the sight of..." it's meager size! Ha! (You can see it in James' hand.)
Thrilled with the outcome: a little camera.
The boys were excited to see Uncle Colin and Joe provoked him with his new dart shooter and was chased down and tickled to the ground a few times. Same thing with Sam, only he doesn’t need the aid of a dart gun to provoke anybody!





Friday night and all day Saturday we were in our Arizona District Convention. James thinks we had about 70 people there, which is fantastic! We had a great crowd come from Hatch and they were such a blessing. And we got to see Hector & Erika’s two month old little Amie! She is soooooo pretty. We had good preaching at the Convention and some really good prayer times in the altar. Ashley brought a friend with her on Saturday and she got saved! PRAISE THE LORD!!! Everybody pray for Nicole as she starts her new walk with the Lord! :-) Pictures are better than anything, so I’ll post some for you…

Not particularly spiritual, perhaps, but cute nonetheless. Tommy rode with us a few times. Seems he just could find enough seatbelts to suit him. ;-)

This is Brother Juan Carlos who pastors the new Spanish work in Phoenix.
Love seeing this!

James decided to join the Shuler Family Band...

And then the Hatch church... Ha!

This is Brother Banuelos' son (older brother to Luis and Hector) who just got saved this past year.
I love scenes like this--one brother praying with another.



And that's about it!
We had a nice, relaxing morning on Sunday since they don’t have church until 2:00. We had another good service and Brother Chris preached a really good message. Afterwards we shared a few laughs there at the building. Jake and Phil even put on a skit, of sorts, for us... but you would have had to have been there! ;-)

We even got to see Sister Shanda laugh herself to tears! It’s been years since we’ve been around to see that! HA! It was great. ;-)

Here are a few pictures we took after service. Sam modeling Jacob's shades...

And me with some mighty handsome young men! ;-)
LOOK AT THIS PICTURE!!! I must let it be known that I was wearing my boots with the big, tall heel. Look how tall that kid is getting!!! ~sigh~ Amazing.


We all went out to Wendy’s, then it was time for the Shuler Family Band to practice…

So we enjoyed a few songs...

RATS!!! Don't know what happened to the video clips. They used to work. Check back later--I'll see if I can get 'em up and running again sometime Wednesday. :-)




Then we headed over to visit with Chris & Shanda for a little while. I’m so glad we did! We hadn’t had much opportunity to spend time with them throughout the Convention and we so enjoyed the time with them. The kids played like a bunch of crazed Indians all night and had a blast with each other.



We enjoyed visiting with the adults in between all the chaos. Just like old times in Salida! It was great. :-)

When we got back to the Shuler’s house just after 10:00 Aunt Kay & Uncle Colin had just gone to bed. We were able to obtain special permission for the kids to stay up late and party since it was our last night there. If it can be considered a “party” when you’re only allowed to whisper! Ha! We played some game that was fun, but took a very, very long time. Until nearly 2:00am, I believe! But it was so great to have some time with all the kids. We love them so much and don’t get to see them nearly enough. The little boys petered out way before the game ended--thank goodness!



The next morning Katie just had to try out the straw/glasses. Not sure what Megan's doing, but I have no question where she gets her animation from! Ha!



The boys (big boys, that is--I can't bring myself to call them men, although they are much more that than boys anymore!) had to work on Monday and Aunt Kay took Sara to a dentist appointment, so we took Megan and Tommy with us to Jack in the Box for lunch. Then we just had a nice, leisurely afternoon visiting back at the house… while the kids dug holes in the backyard with golf clubs, made mud patties, slammed each other in the jaw with a tennis ball (accident that time) and who knows what all! They also created their own band. Megan, Katie, Joe and Tommy practiced a few songs and then performed them for us. They introduced their band as “Dos Guitars, Drum & Fiddle,” and Joe had to translate each time, “TWO guitars, Drum & a Fiddle.”



We had a big family dinner that night with 30+ people, half of which I didn’t know. The kids thought it was pretty cool that they have a Great-Great-Great-Uncle Harry. It was cool enough to have a Great-Great-Grandma Bunny, but a triple great was truly wowing. ;-) We had a nice time visiting and toward the end Great-Great-Great Aunt Ruby (only two greats to me; three to the kids)—the musical one—insisted we hear some singing before we leave. Megan, Katie, and Tommy sang "Jesus Did it For Me" together, then Philip treated us to "My Friend, Bill"… which was a little disturbing when he couldn’t remember the third and final verse—the one that clarifies the confusion that the first two verses had induced! He came through for us though and everyone got a real bang out of it. Who wouldn’t?! It was PHILIP! That kid is so stinkin’ cute!!! After his solo we were treated to a trio…



We left the dinner and went to spend one last night at Grandma Bunny’s house. We put the kids to bed shortly after we got there, then my 91 year old Great-Great-Grandmother kept us up until after midnight playing I Buy! For real!!! Is that not the coolest thing you’ve ever heard?! (James is determined that people in my family just... never... die! Ha!) We played one game, then James suggested a second. It was about 10:30 when that one ended and Grandma asked about another. After that she wanted to go ahead and finish out the scorecard (you’d have to know her to appreciate that!), so we played a fourth. Crazy! But it really was a lot of fun. She’s an amazing lady, that’s for sure. We really enjoyed our time with her and are so thankful we were able to be there. We enjoyed our time with everybody! All of the folks at the Convention, the Clarksons, the Shulers… it was all so great!

This morning we enjoyed another nice breakfast with Grandma, then went back to the Shulers house to retrieve all of the things we’d forgotten the night before (!) before hitting the road. And now we’re home! Wa-Hoo!!! I love to go on trips like this. And then I love to come home!!! :-)