Our trip to Arizona

At the end of June, our family had the wonderful privilege to visit our families in Arizona. Our main reason was to celebrate my grandparent's 60th anniversary. While there, though, we were also able to see a lot of Josh's family as well.

These pictures are in backwards order of our trip, but that is okay. At the end of our trip we went to Flagstaff to visit Josh's grandparents, aunt and uncle, and cousins. The kids enjoyed seeing their bird and going to the park. Josh's grandpa thought Hallie was as cute as can be! I agree! We got together with all the cousins and such, but I did not get a picture...sorry. One afternoon Katelyn went to the "hair parlor" with Grandma Potter. She wore dress up clothes, a wig, and an old fashioned hat. The ladies at the parlor thought she was just adorable. Katelyn was not so fond of all of the attention though after they went to several stores. She looked like a little old fashioned girl. She took it all off, though, before I could get a picture.




My family with my grandparents. I am so honored to call these people my grandparents. They are amazing people...two of my favorites. It was so wonderful to share this time with them. The anniversary celebration was fantastic. My aunt and cousin did most everything. We made homemade lasagna, salad, and breadsticks for about 100 people. We made scrapbook pages to use as centerpieces. The best part was the presentation. There were a few specials and then we put together a video slideshow. It was so great. There were tons of pictures of my grandparents growing up and then our parents, and then of us cousins. At the end during pictures of each of us grandkids, we did an audio tribute to our grandparents. It was so cool...a real tear jerker!

We visited an aquarium and ate at the Rainforest Cafe.

My grandma made me this dress when I was about 8 or 9. It was one of my favorites. I kept it for my own daughters. Katelyn wanted to wear it to the celebration!

We had a big BBQ and swim party while all the family was in town. Family members ranged from 6 months to in their 80's. It was fun.

One of my cousins...we spent most of the time together! This is one of her boys, David. He is a doll! My cousin and her husband are praying that we move to Phoenix someday.


Also while we were in Phoenix, Josh's sister was also down visiting their grandparents. We stopped in to see Jami, her girls, and Josh's grandma (on his mom's side).



We stayed with my aunt and uncle during our visit. My cousin and her family were also staying there...as well as my two brothers. It was a full house, but we had fun. My other cousin worked during the day, but her children came over to play each day. These are all of the young children that ran around together all week. My cousins also have several other children that are 9, 10, 10, and 13. One was at camp for most of the trip and the other three were busy during the day. We had hoped to get a great grandchildren picture (minus Chris' kids) and a whole group shot...but, if you can believe it, it never was able to happen. You see, the flu bug visited our trip. Over the two weeks that we were gone, 9 of the 14 staying with us got the flu, and 4 other family members staying elsewhere. It was crazy. I was one of the lucky ones who did not get sick, as well as Makenna. All of my other family members had it at one time. Katelyn got it on the way down and Brenden had it on the way back...but they were troopers. Besides that the trip was fabulous! We stayed indoors most of the time so the heat was not too bad. Plus, coming from cold weather here, it felt nice!

Our trip was very wonderful. We ate at many favorite restaurants and even had Tiner tacos thanks to Chris! It was a great joy to see all of my family again and I am so proud of my grandparents for celebrating their 60th anniversary! While growing up my grandma would line us up on her piano bench and take our picture. At the end of the slide show it showed the different pictures of us grandkids lined up...this was the last one!