It was a crazy few days in Texas, getting everything ready for our trip. We had to do a whole summer's worth of errands and cleaning in a few days. While we were going to pick up our car from the shop, we had to wait for these geese to cross the road. Ava asked me what their names were. I told her I don't know, because I don't speak goose. She told me, "Dad will know."
Sure enough, when we showed dad the picture and she asked him what their names were, he started rattling off all sorts of random names and that satisfied Ava. It's good she has a mom AND a dad, because dad has special talents like making up geese names, that mom just doesn't have.
We had some crazy rain before we left. Check out this video.
As I mentioned in the last post, our friend Ami stayed with us for a few days with her baby. Ava hesitantly gave them her room, and in exchange, Brent let her choose some movies to "watch over her while she slept." She was so excited about this. She and Brent are just on the same wave length.
I was thinking about creating a post titled "I have an older sister" or something like that ;) This would go under it (that is a jewel on his forehead)
Packing for Utah. It was so hard to pack for two months, four people, a baby that will be changing sizes, and have it not take up all the room in the car. I gained a new appreciation for the pioneers as silly as my situation sounds.
Coen loving his dragonfly. It soon turned to tears though.
The night before we left, Brent had some friends from his program over for grilled cheese sandwiches and they each brought a clip of something that they wanted to show each other. I like how Coen is looking at me in this picture.
We left on a Thursday morning at about 8 or 9am.
We drove nine hours and made it to Albuquerque. This first day, neither one of the kids cried once. I couldn't believe it! Coen slept, played with various toys I would hand him, ate, and then would sleep again. In Albuquerque we went to this restaurant that is typical New Mexican food. It was yummy and fun.
At the hotel we swam, and then this is where Brent put Coen to sleep:
The next day we drove about 6 hours to Phoenix. The kids were so good again. Here is Ava shading herself to see her i-Pad.
I had to document how lucky we were to have happy kids on our drive.
File this one under "I have an older sister."
We stopped in Gallup NM. Don't tell anyone, but I do not really like New Mexico. Bleh.
We made it to Ken and Sara's house around 4 pm. It was so fun to see their place and be with them. We went out to dinner the first night to a place called "Tom's thumb" - hence our thumbs. (Ava's finger is close, hehe).
We swam in the Reinstein's pool a whole lot in the couple days we were there because Phoenix was having record-breaking heat. It was 118! It actually didn't feel hotter than St. George does every summer. We mostly stayed indoors or at the pool though.
On Saturday we went to Chuck E Cheese because the Reinsteins had tokens to give Ava. It was Ava's first time and she loved it!
That evening Brent and Ken went to a play at Don Bluth's theater. Brent was super excited to meet him. (He's an animator and did Land Before Time, Anastasia, etc).
Brent also got to meet his producer, Gary Goldman.
I stayed home with the kids and Sara.
Coen liked all the extra attention!
On Sunday, after we went to church, we went to see the Mesa temple with the Reinsteins. It was so beautiful! I absolutely loved the grounds.
Video at the temple:
Lexi was nice enough to take some pictures of us:
After that we went to visit my friend from high school, Kathy, and her family. We had a lot of fun with them. I only got this picture of Ava and the girl her age:
After that, we went to the Gilbert temple, which was so beautiful too.
Sorry, about half of this trip is just us in front of temples :)
Hanging out with Lexi
It was so dang hot that on SUNDAY, they got in the pool. Sara and I, we stayed in our church clothes....
OK, Confession, I got in too. My mom said there has to be an exception when it's over 115 ;)
Playing around on Lexi's phone
Ava loved their dog Tally.
On Monday morning we had to say goodbye. (Side note, see the cactus behind me and to my right? They bought it 20 years ago and it was about a couple inches tall. It takes that long to grow that tall!)
On our way out we stopped at the Phoenix temple. It had cool spires.
The babies slept a lot of the way to Las Vegas, which I was grateful for.
On our way, we went to this delicious Italian restaurant that the Reinstein's recommended to us. It's in Kingman and they home make all of their pasta and sauces. Yummy! Ava devoured it all and it looks like Coen would have loved to.
We got to the Worldmark in Vegas and this was our view. Ahhhh.
We were hungry late at night so Brent decided we needed Steak 'n Shake. We were all in our PJ's and were going to go through the drive-through. It turned out that the restaurant was in the middle of a casino! I didn't want to go in, so Brent and Ava went in their jammies and got our food.
Selfie at the hotel.
The Bellagio is my favorite casino on the strip. So almost all of my pictures are from there, even though we went to quite a few of the casinos.
Ava really liked the fountains too.
But Ava's absolute favorite was the castle casino of course!
She was really disappointed that Rapunzel didn't come out.
It was so, so hot and I was carrying Coen in the wrap, that we had to go back to the hotel in the afternoon. We bought stuff at the grocery store and grilled chicken on the BBQ by the pool.
That evening we wanted to go see mermaids swim at a casino but we had the wrong show time, so that was sad for Ava. Luckily she saw a picture of a mermaid through the tank where they swim and Brent told her that Arial was putting her daughter to bed. :)
The second day we went to Las Vegas we went to the Coca Cola store. Ava was really nervous about the bear.
Neither of the kids likes the free M&M show.
We tried Shake Shack at the New York New York casino. It was so so yummy!
We went to the Flamingo to try to find some wildlife.
I had an embarrassing experience with this picture...
Ava of course wanted to see Anna, so I let her go see her. We took a picture and then the Anna held up this sign that she had hidden, that said "TIPS!" and she pointed to it. I had no cash on me, whatsoever. I told her, "I'm sorry!" as I showed her that I had nothing in my pockets. And then I basically ran away. Sorry fake Anna.
We saw that Kristi was in Vegas that same week, so we met up with her for just about an hour, which was fun!
While with Kristi we rode this tram/monorail thing, and at one of the stops, a man on the tram told us, "she has her hand on the door!" He said that as the sliding door was opening and Ava's hand slid with it and her hand got squished really bad. She started screaming and it was kind of scary, but the man held the sliding door so it didn't go all the way in, and Brent pulled her hand out. Ava got this fan as a consolation prize. We were worried her hand might be broken but she started using it after just a little bit. Phew! Thank goodness for nice strangers who help us out along the path of parenthood.
On our way out of Las Vegas we went to the temple. If you're counting, this was #4 on our trip. Ava was always very excited to see the temples and she would request that we sing the "temple song." I hope that she will remember the peaceful feeling you can feel on the grounds.
Ava has been cracking us up with how she poses for pictures. Brent took this video of her doing her poses:
In St. George we stayed at my Grandma's condo, which is one of my favorite places on earth. I just love St. George!
Here are some of Ava's poses:
We had to go swimming suit shopping in St. George because in Vegas the Worldmark hotel threw out our whole family's swimming suits :( We checked out and remembered right away that we left them drying on the balcony. Brent called the receptionist to tell her since we were on our way to the strip. When we got back to the hotel they told us that they never found any swimming suits :(
We didn't end up buying this one, but I loved Ava's face checking herself out.
Swimming in St. George!
One of Ava's new suits- the watermelon swimming suit! She kills me in these pictures.
We went to the St. George temple at sunset. It was so beautiful!
Ava was walking around the temple saying, "Jesus, are you?" (where are you?) because she had seen the Christus statue as we drove up. It was the sweetest thing. Here is a video of it.
When we got to the Christus statue we talked about how that is not the real Jesus, that the real Jesus is alive. As I told this to Ava, the Spirit burned in me. Having children and getting to teach them about the gospel is so sweet.
After lots of swimming and playing in St. George we drove up to Salt Lake City in time to go to see Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat. Ava LOVES the music and so we were excited to take her to the play that my friend Will was acting as Joseph in. Ava got very into the play and was super nervous when the brothers were being "mean" to Joseph.
After, when we went to talk to Will, Ava was starstruck and thought he was the real Joseph. She was a little freaked out to take a picture :)
And that was the end of our road trip! We had such a fun time making it from Denton to SLC in 8 days!
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