One Last Long (And Wonderful) Vacation Part 1

Jason and I have been students for our entire 4 years of marriage. One really great thing about being a student is that you get regular, long breaks between certain semesters. At William and Mary, it gets even better since you get about three weeks off in a row at Christmastime (Jason got 4 off this time because he finished his finals early). Coming up on our last semester of school, we had one last long break before we embark on this new journey called "The Real World." We thought we'd take advantage, so we bought tickets to Arizona to visit our families in Tucson and Phoenix.

We spent the first week or so in Tucson with my parents and brothers and sister, and the next in Phoenix with Jason's mom and siblings. The whole trip was a blast and the kids did great. Due to not having hardly ANY pictures from our trip to Tucson I will have to save my family for the next post. My mom is a professional photographer (check out her website here...I created the logo and my kids are on her opening page) and takes great candid shots of my kids and the whole family, so I just let her do her thing and end up with much better pictures of all the fun when I get them from her (they're in the mail).

To record the rest of the trip, here we go.

So we left on the 17th, early in the AM. The kids were huge troopers.

No big incidents to really report, especially since the last time I took the kids on the plane I looked like I got in a food fight when I met my parents in the airport, and cried several times just simply because the babies were so bored/tired/livid with me. Keep in mind that I braved a full scale across the country trip BY MYSELF with 2 children under 3.

During this trip we did in fact see Jake Pavelka (ABC's the Bachelor, fame obsessed jerk of a star) in the Atlanta airport train car. We are certain it was him, plus he is a pilot for Southwest I think. I was kind of sad that the first "famous" (or "infamous") person I ever was to come across was him. He was a lot smaller and less good-looking than he was on TV.

Anyways, we made it to Phoenix where my parents picked us up. I'll post about our week there later.

But we will continue with the rest of the trip, starting with the day after Christmas when we came up to Jason's mom's house in Gilbert. We walked in and were greeted by several of Jason's siblings and Jason's mom, and we all got to meet baby Noah for the first time. He is 5 months old and our very first nephew. The day was spent opening Christmas presents, eating a Christmas dinner, and just catching up. The rest of the week, we went on many walks to the park around the corner (it was beautiful weather the whole time--60's and 70's, breezy), watched lots of movies, played with toys, fed uncle Davy's dog Moose lots of treats (Moose is aptly named, as he is a huge great dane/german shepherd mix), played games, fed the ducks, and did puzzles. We also went to the movies and saw "The Muppets," which Rachie loved and Alden loved 1/2 of. Movies and 16 month olds aren't best friends.

(Feeding ducks at the riparian preserve)

(Almost 3!)

(With Grandma Howell, eating birthday cake)

(Skateboarding with Uncle Seth)

(Feeding baby Noah with Uncle Davy)

Over the weekend we celebrated New Years Eve by lighting sparklers and throwing poppers all over the driveway with the kids (it was just our family and Elizabeth since everyone else was off partying) and then falling asleep early. I have a habit of doing this...New Years just isn't the same when you know your kid is going to wake up ready for the day at 5 am because of the time difference. Later that week we had quite the dance off in the dark, complete with glow sticks and taped with a video camera. We split into teams of girls vs. boys, and the boys danced to "YMCA" while the girls did "Firework." It's a good thing it was all in the dark, or it would have been terribly embarrassing. The same night we celebrated Rachie's birthday (a week from that date) with a purple cake, and ate way too many hot wings after the kids went to bed. I had a blast being with all my in-law adult siblings. It's so much fun when you're all grown up and can stay up forever laughing and telling stories. I have been adopted into a truly hilarious and awesome family. I love love love being a Howell.

(Married 4 years!)

One special day was Wednesday the 28th; Jason and I celebrated our 4th anniversary. We got to have an overnight date to celebrate down in Tucson, but we still wanted to have the evening out so Elizabeth took care of the kids for us and we went off to visit the Mesa temple, where we were married. My cousin was going through the temple for the first time, so we joined in the session. It was great to see everyone and sit with my Grandma and my Aunt Pennie for a bit inside. After the temple we went to Fuddruckers. It was a fun night, and really nice to be in the place where we were sealed forever. I can't describe how happy it makes me to be sealed to my man. More info here and here on temples.

(Wedding day December 28, 2007)

Anyways, more to come on the trip with my family, but I think that catches the blog up on at least that part of the trip.