Spreading Our Wings
After much thought and desire to return to Arizona for a visit, it was settled that yes indeed, both kiddos needed to make the trip. The ultimate question then was how long do we stay. Since I would be traveling alone with two children, one who still needing two naps a day, I chose an extended stay of 10 days in Arizona with two travel days to make sure we had plenty of time for visiting, swimming, napping, and everything else we do in Arizona too.
We were able to make a big round circle of the Valley as we headed to Peoria to visit Great Auntie Carol who greeted us with a warm smile, a big hug, some lemon-aid and cookies. It was wonderful to see her again and yet a bit of sadness lingered as we shared memories of Uncle Raymond who had recently passed away only a few months earlier.
Our next stop was all the way up in North Scottsdale for a sleep over party at the new Furnish residence. We were able to stay two nights over the weekend and took in a lacrosse game, a bit of swimming, great food, played at the park, saw a snake and even flew a kite in the rain. It was a bit cooler, which everyone down there loved as much as we love a 70 degree day in the spring.
Even though we did quite a bit of the same things this trip such as swimming, trips to the park, shopping, eating, napping and then eating some more, there were also a few new adventures. We took a trip to the Butterfly House, Ellie and Sherri went to see Cinderella the movie, and on our last day before heading home, we found this great little splash park not very far from Auntie Sherri’s house. Of course, Jackson loved the simple joys of opening cupboards and going in and out of the patio door.
In all honesty, it was a long time to be away from home and we did experience a few bumps in the road but as you can see, for the most part we had a great time. It turns out traveling alone with two children isn’t too bad and I expect it will get easier from here on out. Ellie did mention though, that it was time for her dad to visit Arizona with us next time. As always, we love to visit our family in the desert and we wholeheartedly thank them for everything.
A few videos:
More shots from our travels:
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