AZ at it's best

When Mike told me he really wanted to take a trip down to Phoenix to visit his family I was more then happy to cooperate fully and leave asap for some warmer weather. It ended up being a great trip. The kids are the only ones in their generation on that side of the family and they really enjoy that. That means they get all the attention and love.
The trip down there was an experience. We knew there was an accident in southern Utah and that the freeway was closed but we were hoping by the time we got down there it would be cleared up. Unfortunately no it wasn't, so we got to take a detour when we got to Beaver. It wasn't bad at all though, it only added an extra 15-30 mins to our trip. Then when we had just passed the Utah AZ boarder we were on the 89 and it was a split highway with two lanes each way. Mike was driving and he moved to the fast lane to pass a car then swerved back in to the slow lane just in time to miss a car coming the wrong way in the fast lane. Freaked us out and we had a bad feeling for who ever didn't see her coming.
Mike's grandparents planned some great activities for the kids. In the community Mike's grandparents live in they have a miniature trains display. It was huge. The size of a really really big room and the trains just went around and around on the tracks. They have 3 big tracks that loop and 3 trains that ride on each track. It was all put together and managed by retired men who would walk around the room with engineer hats and answer your questions. Christian loved it. Lorin and Mike's uncle would walk around and play the I Spy game using all the details that were in the cities.

There were different buttons the kids could press to make the trains horn blow, or to make the ice cream truck sing, or make the railroad crossing arms go up and down.
And of course they had Thomas and Annie and Claribel. Which made Christian's day.

Then back to the Grandparents house. They're backyard is a golf course and the kids loved to run around back and forth. The weather was great for it. The neighbors came out to play with the kids, you could tell this was a retirement community and not many kids. Grandpa took them on a ride on the golf car.

Then Christian tried to be sneaky and take off with the golf cart. Good think Grandpa took the keys out.

We picked the tangelo's off their tree for them. I think Mike had a little to much fun, he was dropping them down on the kids.

Then we went over to Mike's Aunt Sandy's house. She is so great with the kids. Mike has a cousin that is a junior in high school and Lorin loves to hang out with her. They also have a dog names Charlie. Last time we visited Christian was petrified of her, this time he loved running around the backyard with her.

And of course we had to stop at my friends house on the way home. She has a daughter that's older than Lorin but Lorin towers over her. Same goes with me and Barb though, so I'm not surprised. We told them all to smile and Kaki turned around.

The trip home was less exciting. Nothing happened and we made great timing. But it was so much fun to get away. I really can't wait till it gets warmer. It will save our bank account from taking these these trips.