Flagstaff

All right, I know everyone is fed up with our pictures and Caleb is dying for a change of pace so we are nearly done and then he and I are going for a walk. Finally, we headed up to Flagstaff. And we had a wonderful time there!

. . . after the first night, which was slightly exhausting. This is me and Caleb taking a morning nap since he had been awake since 3:30 that morning.

Later, we went walking around Mt. Elden. This is the coolest tree ever, don't you think?

I'm not really into geology (unlike my uncle who's posing as king of the mountain here), but I think this is one very cool rock.

Dad and two of his "kids" -- one by birth, one by marriage

Peekaboo! While we were gone, great-grandma Billie bonded with Caleb.

Later, we met up with the rest of my dad's family that's in the area. Here's my dad's older brother with their younger brother's older daughter. Does that make sense?

This is funny because we have an engagement picture where I'm giving Patrick a piggy-back too. Three years later and not much has changed. Although, to be perfectly honest, there was quite a while where I wouldn't do this. To carry something in your belly and something on your back? Even I'm not silly enough to try it.

Here we are playing ball with Caleb. Who has the ball? Petra has the ball! He's good at this game.

There will be more updates soon, I'm sure, but for now we're caught up on our latest adventures. Our next destination? Wisconsin. And there we will convince Patrick's older brother that we do, in fact, have a child and he is, in fact, an uncle, which apparently he doubted. And between this adventure and that adventure? Anniversary, birthday, a possible writer's conference, a sleepover, a family home evening, a missionary farewell, and who knows what else!

Phoenix

For our latest trip, we headed to see my brother and his daughter in Phoenix. Originally, the "Arizona trip" was focused on doing a rim-to-rim hike across the Grand Canyon. Unfortunately, our request for a permit was denied. Still, my grandparents had offered my parents their '86 Bounder-- a huge moterhome--and so my parents needed to make the trip to get it from Arizona to Wisconsin and we had already planned on going to Arizona and particularly on visiting my brother, so we all met up. First, we spent the night at my grandparents' in Flagstaff and on Friday morning made the trip down to the hot, hot valley. The weather was around 101 degrees the whole time, but the family bonding was good even if the weather wasn't my favorite.

Phoenix was Caleb's first experience in a pool. He was a little tentative and thoughtful about it at first, but he seemed to enjoy it after awhile. Here he is hiding from the sun in his floating crab.

Family photo at the home of some of my brother's friends. This family was wonderful and I would like our family to be like theirs. Happily, I love my family as it is too. Aren't we adorable?

Another family photo. This one is at the Mesa Temple.

Grandma and Caleb.

We went to a cool (speaking in slang of course) animal park while in the area. Here's Caleb, Dad, and crocodile.

So far Caleb only has the one cousin. She was wonderful with him and loved to carry him around.

Here's our darling family playing in the pool.

Besides the animal park and the pool, we also enjoyed watching my niece at her Karate class and going out to eat at a cool pizza parlor with an organist playing requests on a raised platform in the room. I'd recommend the pizza parlor to anyone in the area. Though we loved seeing my brother and his daughter, we both agreed that we'd never want to live in Phoenix. So sue us, we're not into oven-baking heat that starts in May. We were content to head back "up the hill" to Flagstaff.

Disneyland

We begin with a view of our personal California adventure, during which we experienced for the first time California Adventure and In and Out (which is good, but not amazing) and we experienced for the second time Disneyland and we experienced it with children for the first time. I was very, very impressed by how kid-friendly Disneyland is. When I went I was the youngest at twelve years old, so I didn't have any idea how great it was for families with little kids, but Caleb could go on many of the rides (even asleep). Also, they have this amazing thing called a "stroller pass" so that we didn't have to wait for two hours for each ride. And all the bathrooms (mens' and womens') had changing tables. I suspect it is the best amusement park for people with babies. Still, we do look forward to making a trip someday when our youngest is about ten. It would be a totally different experience! In any case, this was a wonderful vacation and we enjoyed all the time we got to spend with our friends Dan and Michelle and their daughter as well as the family time we got playing and talking.

Pleasure Island: Disneyland itself was very pleasurable. (The food not so much for the cost, but the rides were fantastic.)

Dan, Michelle, and Cosette on the circus train.

Keegan, Patrick, and Caleb on the circus train. It seems to have been his favorite ride (or else he was just enjoying the cup).

On the carousel. Caleb's first time on a "horse."

Patrick got a wild one. Who knew those even existed on these things!

The magic of the Disneyland castle and of friendship (aaahhh!). We are sorry to say that we will be way too far away from these friends come fall. Happily for them, they will be near some of our other good friends. And, well, I guess we'll just have to make new ones.

Caleb somehow got cut out of this picture, but it's a nice picture of me and Patrick. How romantic (or something).

This sweet boy is smiling under that pacifier. This is on the jungle cruise. The guide is obnoxious but also funny.

Patrick shooting in a graveyard.

Water ride #1: Meet Brer Rabbit and his pals.

And into California Adventure. Caleb had a good time climbing around on these ropes, though it turns out you're not really supposed to linger.

Water ride #2: California Adventure's bear ride thing. It took two tries to get so wet and we only got the opportunity because people on the first ride gave us their fast passes. Thanks to them! I love nice people.

After all the fun, exhaustion set in. Home is such a wonderful place! It took a bit of adjustment to be home after this trip actually and this day was a bit stressful, but we could hardly blame him.

So, happiness is when somebody else's somewhat shy two-year-old plops down on your lap and starts chatting with you about all the interesting things in life (balloons and things like that). After five straight days together, she was right at home with me (though we were fairly chummy before this too) and I was happy to have these two little munchkins in my life.

Busy, Busy Month

This Month So Far:
- Definite decision to attend William & Mary (Virginia, here we come)
- Disneyland, California Adventure, and In and Out
- Phoenix (to see my parents, my brother, and my niece)
- Flagstaff (to see my parents, my grandparents, three uncles, two aunts, and five cousins)
- Decision to go to Wisconsin probably in July

This Month Yet to Come:
- FHE with our good friends Jay and Libby and their son tomorrow
- an overnight camping trip just for the heck of it
- Our three-year anniversary
- Patrick's twenty-fifth birthday (complete with a quarter-of-a-century party)

Progress (and sometimes not exactly progress) With Caleb:
- crawling forward without rocking back and forth
- clapping a lot and even when we say "clap your hands" or "good job"
- getting down from sitting up on his own (not gracefully, but I still don't move gracefully, so there may not be a lot of hope for him)
- lots of new foods including peanut butter, cheese, yogurt, bread, oranges, salmon, eggs, lemon and grapes
- copying sounds (our friends' daughter said "More water" and he mimicked her then and another time)
- loving his mama and daddy more than ever, but still enjoying other people a lot
- putting everything in his mouth that he can reach and especially things that he shouldn't
- increased mobility, but we've decided that his energy is really very fun so we're enjoying it