.day.13.and.4TEEN.

These next two days we spent swimming in Aunt Rose Marie's pool, seeing a bit of Phoenix and spending time relaxing. It was all a great time! :) Grandma especially enjoyed seeing her sister face to face instead of via text! Lol

Kevin and I also had the opportunity to take G & T to go see the movie God's Not Dead, while Grandma and her sister watched the littles. It was so fun to be able to just take them and we had a great time the four of us. And the movie was awesome, so we'd highly recommend it if you haven't seen it!

On our way out of town we stopped at a Sprouts Farmers Market grocery store. It's kind of like a Whole Foods but the two we've gone to so far seemed larger, maybe it's just my imagination!?! lol I wish we had one in Central Oregon! :)



My aunt was dying to take me to see Hobby Lobby! I walked in the door and bypassed the shopping carts purposefully thinking...

A) I don't really have anything specific I'm looking for

B) If I have a shopping cart to use, I'll use it

C) If I came back to the chauffeur with any more stuff to pack away in the tin can, he might have to leave me out! lol

And let's just say, it's a good thing I listened to myself - for once! lol Hobby Lobby is like Michaels and JoAnns, put together and on steroids! Man oh man!!! They had cute home decorations, of course, craft supplies up the wazoo and adorable fabric!!! :) It was fun walking around and looking at all the ideas and even worked out my self control a little, okay a lot! lol



We also had the privilege of visiting my aunt's church, Christ's Church of the Valley. Let's just say this has been the trip for mega-churches! We went to the first of 5 weekend services! And there was probably 5 million people in our service alone {ok - so maybe I'm not so great at estimating numbers, but let's just say it was a LOT!}. It was a great service and we sure loved seeing such an important part of my aunt's life. The other earth shattering thing was that we took both Reed and Esther to their nursery. Normally we'd take Reed, but Esther isn't so fond of new experiences and especially new experiences on her own!!! And in a church this size, not only would they not be in the same class, they weren't even in the same building! They even have numerous classes just for the 2 year olds. But we signed them in and away we went to yet a different building where the main service was held. Reed did awesome, as usual and won everyone's hearts with his smile and laugh! He probably could've even have stayed another couple hours having fun. And Esther made it through the entire service! We totally expected to be contacted to come get her, but one super sweet lady made it her mission to help Esther get through the service. I don't know if it's because we were first time attenders there, but they even sent us a TEXT of each of them in their classes! 

Now that was awesome to get while we were in service and know they were both doing great, okay.... Reed was doing great, Esther was holding on by a thread! lol

{Okay, this picture just cracks me up! I can so read her mind here! It goes something like this... "okay lady, whoever you are, you are NOT family, and this isn't funny anymore and no amount of cheerios is going to solve this crisis! Get my family and get them NOW or there will be serious consequences to pay!" There ya go, that pretty much sums up this look! lol :p}











And as soon as we walked in to get Esther, she lost it! lol They tried so hard in the nursery to help her through, they really did! Poor thing is not used to being by herself in ANY situation. Have you heard that statement that every child in a family is born into a different family with different parents? (NO - it's not some weird new religion!) Well that's certainly the case in our family, to say the least!!! :)

While taking this first picture I forgot to turn my flash off! Lol Oops! I stood up and pointed at Kevin during the middle of the service and the speaker looked right at him and said, "please no flash photography!" 

{ok - truth be known I might have been pulling your leg above, not about the flash part but the Kevin part. Lol}

After church, we got the privilege of taking my mom and aunt out to dinner for an early Mother's Day celebration. It was an Italian restaurant where they serve the food family style. Everything we ordered was delicious and we all had a great time!

Believe it or not, this is Reed's 'smile' face. He's in THAT stage! Lol But we'll take what we can get. :)

I guess that shot was supposed to be a 'funny face' shot that I missed the memo on! Or Prince Charming forgot who he was with.... road weary? Lol

Now we are on the same page! Usually it takes a take or two to accomplish that - figuratively and literally! Lol ❤️

I just had to include this shot above for it's shear hilarity! I don't know what scared the begeebys out of Reed, but apparently it was something serious! Perhaps someone was threatening to clear his plate before he was done? :p

And on our way out, the boys wanted to hug the Arizona State Plant/Tree/Shrub (?) to show their appreciation for the state.

My aunt fed us wonderfully the entire time we were there and she even cranked the AC for those of us from the NW that aren't used to her level of heat! lol Plus it wasn't even all that sweltering hot while we were there but she was gracious anyway and a wonderful hostess with the mostess! She let us run her washer and dryer practically 24/7, made us grape juice, sweet sweet sweet tea and even a batch of cookies for the kids. :) We even had s'mores on our last night.

Oh my, I almost forgot to mention that there was a priority #1 just 3 minutes from her house! And guess what we found at one of our excursions there...

YEP! OPERATION ARIZONA MUG... success! :)













Did I mention we swam in her pool and used her pool toys and sat and relaxed by her pool? It was glorious! :)

This is the happiest lil Essie was in Aunties pool! Lol It was not quite up to her temperature requirement so most of the time she spent wrapped up in a towel on the edge sitting in one of our laps. That's why you'll see her wrapped in her towel even in the middle of the pool in the little baby floatie! Lol I know.... WOW! I'm right there with ya! Essie has us all wrapped around her little finger! :p

The boys were having lots of fun with some action shots!

And here's the way his face is supposed to look! ❤️

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Aunt Rose Marie's baby! ❤️

.........tomorrow we get to take off early and hit the Grand Canyon plus look for our secret hidden treasure in two national parks! We are all excited! :)

PS. Here is our injury update...

Grants fingers are doing outstanding! You can hardly even tell they were squished in the door, like stepping on an orange. 

My toe has a nice blue stripe on it and only sensitive when someone steps right on it {which actually happens more often than you'd think in the spacious and roomy tin can}.