Phoenix

the trip started off in phoenix where matt's brother steve and his wife kelly live. we had a good time, but dumb us only took pictures at the wildlife world zoo. so we have zero of steve and kelly, but we do have lots of pics of a bunch of animals. it's a very nice zoo with an open layout and tons of animals. it's certainly zoo i'd recommend visiting. we also went to the bodyworlds exhibit that was in town. that was pretty fascinating to say the least. it was like looking at the dissection drawings in an anatomy book, but these weren't drawings.

steve took us to old scottsdale where we visited lots of shops. i wish i had a ton of money to blow in the christmas shop. there were several ornaments that remind me of ones we always put on the tree when i was a kid, the exact same jumpy frog thing that grandma always had hanging in the doorway to the tv room in memphis, nutcrackers galore, smokers, and even the exact same salvation army nutcracker i have out of the bunch that mom painted. while we were there we got caught in a dust storm. luckily we were just about to stop for icecream so we waited it out inside. right after that there was a rare thunderstorm. i welcomed that since phoenix and scottsdale were SO hot. i swear we were closer to the sun there. in fact our first day there just the time i spent getting in and out of the car i got burned a bit.

so now for your viewing pleasure, here are the many pics from the zoo. and one or two of alice. don't forget to click on the pics for a better view.