Phoenix trip

This weekend we took a trip up to Phoenix to go through the Phoenix Temple open house. Jacob took Friday off of work and Rachel left school early and we made a weekend of it, staying overnight at a hotel so Jake and I could attend the temple while we were up there since we hadn't been since a bit before Megan was born. We had planned on leaving around 10:00 to make it to our 1:15 reservation, knowing that we might need to stop to feed Megan and let the kids run around. But allotting 3 hours for a 2 hour trip was not enough. We got to Marana before I realized I had forgotten my wallet, which had my temple recommend in it, so we turned around to get it because out of our whole weekend the thing I was most looking forward to was going to the temple. An hour later we were back at Marana heading north again. We stopped to feed Megan and went on. My mom drove up separate to go with us to the open house. She called when we were about at highway 60 to say she was going to go through the tour and would be done before we got there, but when she heard where we were she changed her mind because it wouldn't take that long for us to arrive. And then we came to a stop. An accident on the freeway brought us to a standstill. When we finally got past the accident and to the temple it was 3pm. Which is about when I was planning on arriving at our hotel. 

The kids were amazingly wonderful on the trip, however. Megan slept twice for a half hour each time, and was pretty happy the rest of the time. Except for after the accident had us stopped for a half hour. It woke her up from her nap and she was not happy until we were driving at regular speed again.

But we made it to the temple. And it was beautiful.

 Megan had a change of clothes because she had a blowout promptly upon getting out of the car.

After the open house it was rush hour, so we just found a Chick Fil-A close by to eat dinner at before braving the freeways again. By the time we got back on the road it was dark and it was a very stressful drive over to the hotel with traffic that made me very thankful not to live in or around Phoenix. We got checked in and took the kids for a night swim to help wear them out so they would sleep well in the hotel. Grandma Knight stayed at the hotel, too, and Rachel slept in her room. The kids all slept really well, and we woke up Saturday to a much better day.

Since we hadn't had time to go to the temple on Friday like we had planned, we went first thing in the morning while Grandma Knight babysat for us. (THANK YOU!!!) It was so nice to get back to the temple after so long.

After we got back from the temple we packed up and headed to the Children's Museum of Phoenix before heading back home. Jacob and Annie had a blast on the big climbing structure. Ryan not so much.

 Ryan's favorite was the car wash.

 And the noodle forest. All the kids (including Jacob) really enjoyed this one. Hide and seek over and over and over.

 Annie really enjoyed grocery shopping.

 And painting the castle was a big hit with all the kids.

 The best part of the trip (besides the temples) was getting home. The kids played out in front of our house while we unloaded the car. And Annie took pictures of everyone.

The trip made me thankful that we have no immediate travel plans. 2 days was plenty for me.

Fall Break--The Second Half

We also went to the zoo over fall break. A new baby elephant was born in the last month or two and we wanted to see it.

The baby elephant is with her mom a little in the background here:

General Conference was very much enjoyed last weekend. I found a fabulous packet of activities that kept the kids occupied coloring and cutting and gluing and poking. Well, except for Ryan. He played with his cars for two hours straight both mornings and napped during the afternoon sessions. It was great. Cari came down Saturday night and spent Sunday with us.

Jacob took care of Megan (notice his awesome shirt).

They both felt the calm peace that comes with the spirit of general conference.

So peaceful that sleep was the only option.

We headed to Grandma and Grandpa Knight's house for lunch and the afternoon session of conference on Sunday.

Apparently Ryan didn't have quite enough hands to carry all his cars. But he's a problem solver and managed to bring them all anyway.

The next fun fall break activity was heading to the pumpkin patch. We went to the Marana Pumpkin Patch again and enjoyed the jumping pillows.

The kids always love to stick their faces in these things. And now we have just enough kids for this one. Megan was in a baby carrier, so if she was in the picture, I got to be, too.

Ryan enjoyed riding the tractor and has been asking to do it again ever since. He also prays "thankful we could go to the music" almost every time he prays. Music=museum for him. Sometimes he'll say something about the "Desert Music" and ask if we're going (or tell me we're going with grandma today).

Heading out to get the pumpkins....

It started raining on our way back from the pumpkin patch, so we called it a night and headed home.

And finally, yesterday, to wrap up our fall break full of adventures, we went to Disney on Ice.

Jake and I got to sit by each other for most of the time, so it was almost like a date. Except for when Ryan abandoned Grandma's lap and spent the rest of the show on mine.

It wasn't nearly as good of a show as last year's, but it was still pretty good. Rachel was super disappointed that they didn't have any Frozen characters in it, especially since that morning we had seen pictures on Disney on Ice's Facebook page of Elsa in skates. And Megan survived with flying colors staying with Grandpa Knight. She is so hit and miss with naps and isn't all that predicable with feeding, so I was a little nervous about how she would do, but she was great. It was a good way to wrap up our fall break. And now, back to school! Woohoo!

Fall Break-The First Half

With our modified year-round school schedule Rachel gets 3 weeks off for Fall Break. We stuck around Tucson, but have managed to cram a lot into 3 weeks. Rachel goes back to school tomorrow and Annie gets back into preschool on Tuesday. Yay for fall break, because it makes us all happy to go back to school and have a regular routine again. Though I have really enjoyed having a cleaner house. Normally the girls have one job that they do everyday--clean up their bedroom, the playroom, pick up and vacuum the front room. But over fall break they both got to choose 2 jobs each day to do. It was nice because they were doing their own jobs, so I didn't hear, "Annie's not cleaning! I'm doing everything!" and twice as much got done. Though I did often hear "I hate jobs!" or "I hate cleaning!" Such is life. So do I.

One of the places we visited was the Museum of Miniatures that had free admission for all of September. Because of the free admission it was pretty busy, but we enjoyed our visit. Jacob took a half day off of work and came with us, along with Grandma Knight, Peyton, McKenzie and Justin. They had all sorts of miniature houses, doll houses, models, etc.

 There was a fairy hunt in the museum, with 5 fairies hidden in the displays. Rachel got really into that part of the visit and kind of missed out on actually looking at the displays. But she found all 5, so she counted that as a success.

 The following week we went to the Desert Museum, which is actually more of a zoo than a museum.

 We got there just in time for Touch Time in the aquarium.

 It also happened to be feeding time, and these garden eels were the coolest. They'd come out of their little hole in the sand to snatch some food, then retract into the sand to hide from predators. It really looked like they were plants growing in the garden in time lapse.

 We're glad Grandma Knight got a pass and took us. We're hoping to make it back once more before her pass expires at the end of the year.

 Fall break brought a taste of fall. One morning it was in the 60s so I opened the windows to let in some cool air. Annie and Ryan were freezing and wrapped themselves up in blankets even though our thermostat inside never got cooler than 74. Annie went upstairs to get dressed and came down dressed like this:

 It got up into the 80s that day, so her outfit didn't last long. But we certainly are enjoying having the 80s as a high rather than temps being hovering around 100 like they have been since May.

Fall break also brought a lot of sibling time. There were lots of fights, but there were also periods of having fun together.

 We tried to capture some fun pictures, but never got any with everyone looking at the same time.

 Though this one of Megan was pretty awesome:

 And then the saddest face ever:

She's cute when she's happy, she's cute when she's sad. Babies are the best. Except if you like to sleep.

More on fall break to come...