Trip to Arizona

I am finally all settled in from our wonderful trip to Arizona. We got to see Gigi, Papa, my dad, & my sister Andrea! The girls behaved so well while we we there! It was so fun to show off my girls to the family down there.

We left on Friday afternoon to head to the airport in Seattle and made it to Phoenix at 10:00pm. I was amazed the girls did so well so late. On Saturday though, the girls got up too early in the morning. In fact, they got up two hours too early almost every day we were there. Thank goodness someone else got up with them besides me! On Saturday we dyed Easter eggs and made ''resurrection cookies." The cookies have a part of the Easter story with each ingredient and you put them in the oven on the night before Easter before bed and then in the morning you eat a cookie and it is hollow just like Jesus' tomb! The cookies must have made an impression because when we were reading the Easter story to the girls that morning, Kelby said, "just like our cookies!" when it came to the part about the tomb.

Easter was wonderful. The girls had far too much candy to find when it came to the Easter egg hunt. The plastic and real eggs were hidden all over the orange grove. It was so cute to watch them look for them all. That day was Papa's birthday too so it was twice the celebration. We had a delicious turkey dinner and cake and ice cream for dessert. Mike and I left that evening to head down to Nogales for the night. Gigi & Papa watched the girls for us all day on Monday! Mike and I got to go to Mexico the next day. We only lasted there a couple hours because I couldn't handle the stress of bartering with the store owners. It was so much fun to go though & really an experience. We only took three pictures while we were there because we didn't want to look too touristy. After that adventure we went to Tombstone. Mike has always wanted to go there. We went out to lunch, then to a little show about the town & a re-enactment of the gun fight that happened there. There was a museum to browse through and then we went to boot hill. It was an interesting day and a fun time being together alone. On our way back to Mesa we stopped at my sister's school and she showed us around and introduced us to all her friends. It made me miss being in college. We gathered that the girls and Gigi & Papa had a good time that day too!

Kelby spent her whole time playing in the kiddy pool that Papa kept full of warm water, jumping on the trampoline, & playing in a pile of dirt...sounds like heaven huh? Tegan didn't like the pool quite as much. She was a little afraid of the trampoline but finally got into it when someone was holding her hands.

On Tuesday it was a little bit chilly, so we bundled up and went to the park to feed the duckies and played for awhile. After that Gigi & Papa took us out to Tortilla Flats for lunch. That's a little "town" out in the middle of nowhere in the hills near the "Lost Dutchman" mine. The bathrooms in the restaurant there were something else (see the pictures.) We drove up to the top of a mountain and looked down over a beautiful canyon. It was a wonderful day for all of us.

On Wednesday we relaxed and tried to catch some rays before we headed home early Thursday morning to the cloudy & rainy Washington.

Thank you Gramma and Grampa for having us come down there. The girls and Mike and I had so much fun with you. Kelby and Tegan miss you much.

		2003 Arizona Trip VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

All is Well!

Can you believe it? Kelby's scans came back great! She is stable. Thank you Lord for taking such great care of my baby girl. We are so happy and relieved. She doesn't even have to go back for another scan until October. That means six months of normal life. We are just going to carry on and live as a normal family. Thank you to everyone that has been praying for our little sweet heart. Please accept that every one of these days of the past year since her relapse have been an absolute gift from God. Her chances are pretty much zero and yet here she is! Don't discount this miracle...for that is what it is.

Scans on Thursday!

Try as I might, I cannot get this thing updated as much as I'd like. The days are just absolutely flying by! First thing first, Kelby's scans are coming on this Thursday. I'm just assuming everything will be fine because she seems to be doing great! This is the first time that I haven't been overwhelmingly worried about it. They decided to do it right away because we'll be out of town (in Arizona!! Yeah!) when she is supposed to be getting it done.

We are getting very excited about going down to Arizona. Mike really seems to need a vacation. We keep talking about GiGi and PaPa so the girls are looking forward to it too!

Let's see, what have we been up to? I had a Tupperware party a week and a half ago and bought too much!!! Well, I am really excited about it. You should see my cupboards. It suits the organizational freak in me. It is an investment because from now on we'll have organized cupboards. Mike thought I was crazy, but he let me do it anyways. It really was a great deal because the stuff I bought was buy one, get one free. So, then I spent the rest of the week trying to come up with schemes to make more money with my stamps to pay for it all...I'm still working on that. I did a stamping birthday party for a friend of a friend this weekend. That went over great I thought. I charged her $4 per kid for 3 stamping projects and a goodie bag. It was fun and the kids seemed to like it a lot. I might try to advertise that on my website now. Last night I had a "Mystery Hostess Party" just to give everyone a chance to buy anything if they needed it...actually I need to buy something too. My Stamp-Til-U-Cramp nights have just gotten really popular! The last few months and next few months are full! There's a waiting list to get in on my events. It is actually a really fun way to make a little extra money...to spend on Tupperware!

I've been working on the website for our MOPS group, but I'm not obsessing over it too much because I don't want to burn out on it.

Mike bought me a cool toy, but I had to give it to him instead. It was a fancy Handheld computer that was color and everything...but it was too much for me to handle. It made my brain overload. So, instead, he can use it to play MP3's and other stuff. He's working on writing programs for it already, so it looks like he might have a new hobby. He needed one I think.

Okay, enough about me and Mike...the girls are, of course, doing great. They play together every now and then. I caught Kelby combing Tegan's hair ever-so-sweetly just this evening. But most of the time there's a little hitting, poking, and otherwise bothering each other. They love to go for walks. Today we went to the park for a picnic lunch. I'm glad it is almost that time of year again. I haven't been taking too many pictures lately so I don't have any to post today. I'll be working on that. So, I'll update again after we see what happens on Thursday. I'm sure it will be fine. Love to all!