I went to Phoenix, what did you do?

This weekend was the girls first trip to Phoenix.
I'd been once before with ElCid but we flew and stayed at a fancy hotel for CPE.

Wickenberg AZ McDonald's - take 1

The bypass bridge - take 1

We got to Phoenix and the monkeys ran wild with their cousins for a few hours.

Saturday morning was the baptism at 9:30 - ouch!
But we managed to be on time!

Twin A was baptized by her mom's dad &
Twin H was baptized by his dad's dad.

13 of the 14 cousins all together, it will be 15 in May!


Baby #6 was also blessed Saturday morning, the 3 darling sisters!


We had a nice lunch and then the fun began!!





This is how much fun we had ...

ok, not really, it's just a funny picture.

It was fun to hang out, chat, shop, play cards and let my girls run wild.

Then after church on Sunday we got back in the car and drove for hours and hours through this.


We stopped in Wickenberg AZ again and had lunch. Where George decided to throw the BIGGEST kicking, screaming, humiliate your mother in front of 35 people she'd really rather never meet again kind of fit. It ended with her huddled under a table for 15 minutes and when she finally came out she was all sorts of mad it was time to get back in the car.


The kids kept themselves busy doing things like this ...


They also had 2 DS, movies, toys, books, snacks and drinks. I think they had a very good time considering they were locked up in a car for 8 hours.

I think Kathy and I did well considering we were locked up with the kids in a car for 8 hours!


We made great time until we got to this point -



your Arizona tax dollars at work,


and then we drove 14 miles over a 3 hour period

and we ALL had to pee!!

There were lots of opportunities to take pictures of the cool scenery, if only I was a better photographer.


To take our minds off our painful problems we laughed at the man in front of us. His plate was from NV but he must have lived in a box for the last few years because he kept driving erratically to try and see up ahead, he'd wave his arm around aggravated and when we finally made it to the "check your car for bombs" point he asked what the hold up was.

Hello! Bypass bridge construction!


After many contemplations if the sagebrush really could hide our hineys and just as many decisions that they wouldn't we came over the last hill and found the nastiest porta potties on the planet that had been cooking in the sun - but we all used them!

Ahhh! Empty bladders at last!


Bypass bridge take 2 - notice all the cars?


Kathy also took some great pictures. I love this one!




After that last hill we actually got close to doing the speed limit and things picked up greatly.

We stopped at another McDonald's in BoulderCity to find "real" food for the kids we were smart enough to just use the drive through and everything went fine until George looked at her toy. It was a magic meatball (think talking magic 8 Ball). Sha already has 2 magic meatballs and did not want another. Nobody else was willing to trade, I wasn't going to force anyone to give up their toy and she decided she did not want it, so I threw it away.

For the next 15 minutes all we could hear was George whine/cry/screaming I-want-my-magic-meatball -I-want-my-magic-meatball -I-want-my-magic-meatball - I-want-my-magic-meatball - I-want-my-magic-meatball - I-want-my-magic-meatball - I-want-my-magic-meatball - I-want-my-magic-meatball - I-want-my-magic-meatball - I-want-my-magic-meatball - I-want-my-magic-meatball - I-want-my-magic-meatball - I-want-my-magic-meatball - I-want-my-magic-meatball - I-want-my-magic-meatball - I-want-my-magic-meatball - I-want-my-magic-meatball over and over and over again. She continued until Kathy called her sister to share the awesome noise she was making. Sadly Shayni was not around but it made her stop!

We finally made it home about 7pm, we left Phoenix at 9:30 am and for now they are in our same time zone! It made for one long day but we had a great time and it was probably the last time we'll be able to road trip with Kathy and her kids!