Arizona

Last weekend we drove out to Arizona (Chandler, just outside Phoenix) to visit our friends and check on our rental property. It was nice that we got to take the car instead of towing the trailer the whole way. It was a long drive, but the girls did great.

Jeff & Heather were great hosts sharing their house. Austin shared his room with Bryce so Addisyn & Piper could stay in Bryce's room, Piper took the crib. Going to bed at 9pm in new surroundings was hard, but the next night was better. The kids loved playing together and the girls liked the change in toy selection. At 20 months, Bryce is just 1" shorter than Addisyn and 1 shoe size larger; we compared him to her at 30 months rather than Piper at 14 months because they were closer in size.

We spent much time at parks. It was great b/c the city put up giant shade screens over the playgrounds, so the equipment wasn't hot to touch and we had sun cover. The playgrounds are really nice and big with lots of slides. Addisyn was making laps up the steps--down the slide, up the steps--down the slide...probably over 20x in a row! Piper LOVED the slides too and even did the twisty slide all by herself. (She also tried to go down a slide head first the next day--out of pure excitement she didn't take the time to sit first!--good thing daddy caught her.) We loved being able to walk/bike/stroller to the park and picnic under the tree with the perfect weather.

We also took advantage of their hot tub. The adults sat in it socializing all three nights and the kids had a blast in the mini-swimming pool before dinner on Sunday. I tried to get Addisyn to stop drinking the water but you can see here that she persisted. Piper showed her pure joy being in the water and I'm looking forward to more pool time with her this summer.

The drive home took longer and Addisyn refused to nap or sleep the entire time. I can still brag that we've never used a DVD player in the car, although we did endure the kid songs CD for over an hour on the way home... and mommy had to sing--per Addisyn's request.