Tucson: part 4

by far the coolest place we went in tucson was the arizona-sonora desert museum. matt, alice, and i spent the better part of a day there and we still didn't see everything. it's kind of like a zoo mixed with a botanical garden and it's certainly a must see when in tucson.

the ride there is almost better than the whole museum.


some sort of snake.


some friendly iguanas.


a cactus skeleton. when the wind blows this makes sounds like a wind chime.


the coolest part of the cave.


there is a guest book of sorts at the end of the cave. here is what we wrote.


this kid's laugh is so infectious that people actually stopped to gawk at her and talk with us.

Tucson: part 3

at the beginning of our time in tucson, little miss kaylee came down with a bug. a bug that made for some nasty diapers and one unhappy baby. i was hoping that she wouldn't share her bug with the rest of us, but by the next day mike, rae, and i were sick. i was miserable but at least i didn't have to wash poo from behind my ears in the middle of the night like another person i know (was it mike? was it rach?). we were still hopeful that the bug had run it's course, but the following day matt got sick and i think he and kay had it the worst. our last full day had come and alice was the lone healthy person of our clan. so we decided to pack up the children and drive up mt. lemmon.

i decided to sit in back with alice since she was a bit fussy and she needed to eat. big mistake. after our first stop the kid projectile vomited on me not once, but twice. and in the brand new rental car too. well we couldn't just turn around so we cleaned it up as best we could and continued up the mountain. luckily it was cool up there so the car didn't start to reak of warm, spoiled cheese. thankfully mike and rae have a spot carpet cleaner and matt was able to get the car clean for the most part. we ran into more issues on the way to the grand canyon, but that's another post.

needless to say it was certainly a car ride i will never forget.

the day started out so nicely.


gee, do you think she has something brewing??


no that's not racheal's car, it's mike's.


yes, we left the babes in the car. who wants to hold a cheesy baby or wake one from a deep sleep every couple of miles or so?

Tucson: part 2

our first full day there matt and i took the girls to the tucson botanical gardens. it was a nice short trip which was good since kay wasn't feeling too great. besides the kid had a poo splosion while we were there so the less time we spent out the better. i wouldn't want to bore you with lots of pics of flowers and cacti, so i'll just share a few.

hedgehog cactus

is this what rae's mystery lizard looked like?


the coolest saguaro cactus we saw on our trip.


some other kind of cacti (or maybe it's a saguaro too??), two really cute kids, and a random chick who wanted to take a picture with them. :)


THE cutest baby in the world.


and the infamous fountain. for the record there were only 5 pics of it and there were that many because i was playing with the settings on the camera. :)

Tucson: part 1

so after a long car ride and getting lost once we finally made it to tucson.

mike was there to greet us.


but we had to wait for rae and kaylee to get home.


the girls had fun playing...


but every now and then they'd have a spat.


the girls are quite different in nearly every way.


yet they are both incredibly cute.

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.

yeah, i know

we've been back for nearly two weeks now and i still haven't updated. between being sick, cleaning house, car shopping, being sick, unpacking, internet issues, getting ready for the baptism, being sick, and dealing with a sick baby i haven't had much time to get online lately let alone update this thing. so now that i've gone through the pictures, uploaded them to photobucket (because i STILL can't upload them directly to blogger) i'll catch you all up on our vacation.

vacation

i probably won't get to do a real update until matt and i get back to illinois, but i thought i'd let you all know that we are alive and well. we arrived safely in phoenix last friday and we made it to mike and racheal's on sunday. get ready for a ton of pics when we get back!