Road Trip- Day 9- Arizona

1) Raiden was the only one who wanted to pose for a picture for me... everyone else was too busy playing.  2) Callie and all my girls loved meeting all their cousins but they especially enjoyed loving on baby Landen.  3) Raiden, Lexy, and Dallin- what a bunch of cuties!

On day 9, we spent the morning meeting Ty and Lynsey's kids.  (Ty and Lynsey look the most like Grant, in my opinion.  Lynsey was the first person we saw a picture of when they started getting in contact with us, I think like 10 years ago.  They sent us her graduation announcement.  I remember how crazy it was to see this girl who looked so much like Grant.)  Ty has two little boys who are 15 months apart.  The older one, Raiden (who is a week or two older than Calyssa), has red hair and the younger one, Landen (who is almost 1), has blonde... just like Jeremy and Grant.  I thought that was pretty neat.  Lynsey has two kids- Lexy, who is close to Rori's age, and Dallin, who is 2 also.  All of them are super sweet kiddos and absolutely adorable.  I was especially impressed by Ty and all he does as a single dad of these two little boys!  He is amazing!  We also met Ty's friend, Kindy, who was sweet and very geunine.  I really liked her.  And we met Lynsey's husband, Chad, who was a nice guy... we enjoyed getting to know him.

We all talked while the kiddos played with all the fun puzzles.  Then Lynsey took Grant and the girls out and showed them how to shoot her bow (although they didn't actually shoot it, as it was too heavy for them.)  It was super cute to watch Lynsey helping our girls.  Riana especially thought that was cool, since she is way into Katniss from the Hunger Games.  Grant thought it was cool that Lynsey is left-handed like him, so that he could shoot her bow.  I have always been pretty good at shooting but apparently never with a real bow because just holding her bow was hard!!  Yikes!  That thing was like 50 pounds!  It made me way impressed with her!  She did great shooting it!  I can't even imagine shooting it.  Lynsey said it needs to be like 10-20 pounds heavier to shoot elk or something like that.  Crazy!

Lexy and Dallin had all kinds of fun things to play with-- a trampoline, bike/cars to play on, a playhouse, all kinds of dress up, etc.  The girls enjoyed dressing up in all the different dress-up clothes that Lexy had.  Callie especially loved the Merida dress and looked so cute in it!  She is the perfect little Merida with her curly red hair, especially when she was running around with Aurora's bow and arrow.  She even made this super serious face when she was trying to shoot.  Then Riana made this picture with Merida and Calyssa, that was a super cute comparison!  I love it!!

That afternoon, Ty and Kindy took the boys back to his house for a nap.  While Lynsey and her kids and our family grabbed some lunch at Panda Express.  Then we headed over to the hotel to go swimming.  It was a lot of fun!  The little girls had a lot of fun.  We even noticed that they had similar swimming suits.  And so did Tia and Nina and Riana and Sariah.  They just loved laying out on the lounge chairs, underneath the palm trees, next to the pool... just like in the movies!  So cute!  It was so adorable watching Grant with Dallin.  I was seriously in love with those two.  When I imagine what our little boy would've looked like, if we would've had one, Dallin is exactly what I imagine.  So it was really sweet to watch Grant playing with him.  I'm glad we have so many cute little nephews, since we didn't have the opportunity to have a son.  I can't wait to see how many adorable grandsons we get someday.  :)  We had a ton of fun swimming... the water was so nice.  (I have to say that I thought it was strange that all the pools were outdoor in Mesa and then I remembered, oh yeah, it's Mesa!!  LOL!!  We Washingtonians aren't used to outdoor pools.)  We even had some fun with Grant's new shatterproof camera, which goes under water.  The girls had fun pretending they were mermaids.  Swimming was the perfect way to cool us off in the almost 90 degree temperatures (which were the hottest of our trip.)  We had a wonderful, relaxing afternoon spending time with Lynsey and her kids.  I just feel so comfortable around her!

1) Callie and Raiden- these two redheaded cousins are only 1-2 weeks apart... so cute!
2) We found an orange tree and a grapefruit tree right next to each other, outside the restaurant.  I so badly wanted to just pick one and eat it!!

After swimming, that evening, we headed over to Blue Adobe Grille-- Lynsey and her family, Ty and his family, and Grant and I and the girls.  This restaurant was highly recommended to us by our good friends, Jen and Jason, who happen to be from Arizona.  None of them had ever been there before but had heard lots about it.  From the outside, it doesn't look that nice and I actually didn't realize it was going to be a nice, sit down restaurant.  Jen recommended a sweet mushroom dish that she loves but I am not really big on mushrooms, so I went with what Jason recommended, stacked enchiladas with pulled pork (I think it was) and a fried egg on top.  I told Riana to get the mushroom one so I could try it.  When I did, I realized that I had made the wrong choice!!!  {Sorry Jen... should've listened to you!!}  I liked my dish a lot but I loved Riana's!  Everything was great!!  The kids all enjoyed their meals too-- although two different kiddos spilled their water and Callie threw guacamole on the wall... nice!  I turned to tell Grant to leave a BIG tip, when he pointed to Ty, who was signing the check to pay for us all!!  What a sweetheart he is!!  I couldn't believe we had just been spoiled like that!!  It meant a lot to us!!

After dinner, we headed back to the house, where we were able to spend time with Jared and his son, Kamdin.  We just had such a great time sitting around visiting for a few hours.  We talked about so many random things but just totally got each other.  It was really neat!  The kids had so much fun too... just running around and playing with each other (and puzzles, and creating dresses for barbies, etc.)  Tia and Nina and Kamdin were so funny!!  If they knew anyone was watching, they acted like the other one had cooties or something... but as soon as we turned around they were chasing each other all over the house!  They were so cute!  Good thing they are related!!  LOL!  Oh and Lexy and Rori were like twins!!  They are so similar!!  They had a blast together!  She loved hanging out with the older girls too!  (Lexy totally cried when we left... it was the saddest thing!!)

A couple more explanations of pictures-- 3-4) It was difficult to get a good picture of all the cousins together because so many of them are super young... but we tried.  LOL!  :)  Pretty good!!  15) Uncle Ty had the coolest truck!!  It totally jumps up and down and makes all kinds of fun noises and sparks and such!  The girls thought it was so cool!!  16) Also, this palm tree looked so beautiful with the starry sky and so I tried to take a picture of it.  Then a plane flew by.  It turned out so cool!!

We had such a wonderful day in Mesa.  I felt like this trip was really nice because we had already met and been Facebook friends for a while so this time we were able to really spend time getting to know each other better.  And they are all just good people.  I think we all felt a lot closer after this trip.    

Here is what Jared wrote on his facebook that night.  "It was so nice spending time with my brother and his lovely wife and kids. I am so proud to call him my brother! I wish I got to spend more time with him and his amazing family. I'm looking forward to get know you guys better!"  What a sweet thing to say!!  It even made me emotional!  It seriously meant a lot to read that!!

Even though it was hard to say goodbye because we all felt closer, I am glad we took the time to drive there and spend time with them.  Hopefully it isn't another 8 years before we see each other again.