Valentine's Day in Arizona

Road trip woo woo!

I love roadtrips! And Kyle gave me the best gift by planning one for us. Most thoughtful thing ever and the perfect surprise. He even packed the kids and stocked the car with snacks. Oh how I love him.

A week or so before we left he told me we were going to Monticello (another roadtrip I have been wanting to go on!) but about the time we were passing signs for Page, AZ when we should have been to Moab I figured we were going to visit Josh and Marissa in Glendale! I'd been asking when we could go visit since we missed his white coat ceremony and a couple months ago Kyle planned the trip with them. Best husband ever!

So we were in the car for 9 hours and my kids only needed TWO bathroom breaks! Best roadtrippers ever! We looked at clouds and played eye spy while we drove and I even stayed awake with Kyle the whole time. Eye spy was my favorite though because whenever we guessed what the kids were spying or they guessed right they would both gasp and laugh hysterically.

My favorite part of the trip was trying to find the caramels for Kyle in my box of chocolates. Those papers they put in to show you what the different kinds look like are not helpful though! Two times in a row I ended up giving him the raspberry ones! Haha

 Josh and Marissa have the cutest little guest room that I've ever stayed in and the morning after we got there we got to go do a session at the Phoenix, AZ temple together!

Then we went to a park where Josh picked us some oranges right off a tree there at the park and they were so good. Like super good.

For dinner that night we went to Culinary Drop Out and one of my mission companions, Shannon Stapley, came to have dinner with us too.

 Friday was Valentine's Day so Marissa and Josh made some heart sugar cookies with Kasen and Tai and then decorated them with mount sprinkles!

Kasen calls these jungle trees :)

 Then we went to the pool! Which was by far the world's coldest pool that there ever was. So the kids just swam in the hot tub and played shark. Kasen jumped in the pool and could barely breathe trying to get back out. Surprisingly he jumped in a second time to let me film it, although I have no idea how anything could convince him to jump back in there!

 Tai had to go to the bathroom so we took her life jacket off, but Kyle had to run back to the chairs to grab his shoes to take her. While he was getting his shoes Tai decided to jump in the hot tub without her life jacket and Marissa noticed her underneath the water. Kyle ran over and pulled her out and I think it's the most scared he's ever been, even though nobody else would have ever been able to tell. He's been worried about dry drowning for the past few days with Tai's coughing and saying her throat hurts, but she hasn't had a fever or vomiting so no more worrying now that it's been 72 hours!

 Later we played a couple card games and after that Josh took Kyle fishing at the pond behind their condo. They weren't there long, but Kyle tried out his new pole and caught a bass for the first time!

 Saturday morning we packed a lunch and went to go hiking! First we stopped to see Montezuma Castle and the kids were having so much fun!

 It's a super short walk, but the rangers gave the kids a tic tac toe board to mark off the different things they saw, so they would get so excited to see something pictured on their board.

 They got a rangers badge for getting tic tac toe and I let them pick out a post card too. I think it will be a fun thing to collect for them and write on the back what we saw and did on different trips.

 Kasen requested a picture on this rock :)

Then we headed to Sedona to hike Bell Rock.

This is the pink rock Tai found the day before and carried with her the rest of the trip too.

We didn't hike very far, but I still wore my new hiking boots that Kyle got me for Christmas! And Kasen and Tai had fun playing on the rocks for a little while.

We ate our lunch after that and had Red Rock Gelato for dessert.

The good thing about the drive home is that we didn't listen to sports radio the whole way. Instead we listened to the Joseph Smith Papers, a great talk by John Bytheway and a few episodes of the Better Than Happy podcast by Jody Moore. So much good stuff! And sang to Moana of course.

Now that we're home Kasen is still asking me for a Google. He loved asking Google questions at Josh and Marissa's house! Like "Why are cactus pokey? Why do we have to eat? Why are farms big? Are hot dogs a vegetable?" etc...

I love roadtrips woo woo! Can't wait for the real Monticello one ;)