Off to the Land of Sunshine

I won't be able to recreate the entire trip in detail, so you're mostly going to get pictures with some descriptions :) However, this trip originated back in late January-ish? Buck was still on leave from his back surgery and we all needed some sunshine and warmth after a really hard seven months of cancelled vacations, expenses, and physical recovery. My dad found out about our plans, and said, "Come see me instead!" I'm am so incredibly thankful that we flew north instead of south in February. I would have forever regretted not honoring dad's constant request to come see his CA home, his CA church, and his CA people.

But in the meantime, we kind of got Buck's family--who we'd been skipping out on seeing, going on four years now--excited that we'd at last come see them--even if it was in a different state than we normally visited. My friend Jen offered her "guest wing" to our family (it was a bedroom and bathroom on the main level, the kids slept in the two upstairs lofts which attached the bedrooms of her kids). Anyway, when we discovered that his aunt, his uncle, his other aunt, his cousin, his other cousin, his mom, his step-dad, his sister, and his aunt and uncle from the east coast all planned to meet us in Arizona if we came--we started searching the inter-nets for a good flight deal or six :)

Amazingly, we ALL made it through security with zero hang-ups . . . no weird lotion swabs, no pocket knives lost in purse linings (on the way back, not so much, eye roll), but hey, we're getting there!






I should mention that I did almost zero planning for this trip. I simply did not have time. Graysen and I looked at his national park service map at some point to see what was around for Junior Ranger badges, and that was it. I knew I'd like to go to Old Tucson because I remember that being fun when I was kid on spring break vacations to visit my grandparents, but that was about it. Oh, Buck and I agreed we did not want to climb Squaw Peak or do anything in the Superstitions. His aunt booked us a hotel for the last night (that got tricky too), and we made and cancelled a van reservation like three times (so much more expensive at the airport, but also so much more convenient!!) A wee bit less thorough than my usual notebooks full of details :)

So, we picked up the van--a 35-second walk from the tiny Mesa airport--which was decorated for Christmas--which was about how long it felt like it took for the luggage to arrive. Oh man! We had no breakfast, no lunch (because you had to buy all the snacks, even water! on the plane--they were even charging people to print boarding passes if they didn't have them on their phones already, seriously?!) So, at luggage claim, I handed out the cash I'd stashed in my wallet, and Buck and the boys went to the vending machine and bought a stack of candy bars to sustain us. The joys of traveling :) We drove to Buck's aunt's house, which was only about 20 minutes away. His mom texted the gate code at just the right minute, and we soon found ourselves soaking up some afternoon sun in her backyard.


My friends had made us dinner reservations for 5 p.m., so we munched some ginger cookies, visited with Buck's mom, his cousin stopped by with her dog, and then we headed to meet Mark and Jen . . . at possibly the strangest restaurant on the planet :) 

As we waited for our meal, the kids were all given small panda ornaments and told they could come up on stage and dance when the panda dancers were announced--our kids all adamantly refused this offer to share the spotlight. The former Vegas entertainer had a whole array of sparkly costumes and awkward props, from Elvis to Kermit. Buck was extremely uncomfortable sitting as close to the glittering stage and man as he was seated. Ha! We joked about the Singing Panda for the remainder of the trip, and very likely will continue to joke about the Singing Panda for the rest of our lives ;) But the food was good, and we were so ready for food!



After dinner, we drove the hour plus to our friends' home and settled in for the night. We exchanged kids, which started a trend and some funny conversations about them being switched at birth and we moms just now realizing that something might be amiss. An Asian with blue eyes? And our unexpectedly tan kids so good at math and science? When you've been friends for 20 years, you can joke like that. All of us were highly entertained by ourselves, ha!