Phoenix Fall 2016

October 2016

Life is so hectic, and seems to be flying by, so Nate and I decided to take a family vacation down to Phoenix while Landon could still fly for free. We planned our trip for when Mom and Dad were also going down to stay in their house in Maricopa, AZ.

Wednesday

Aunt Bette was nice enough to give us a ride to the airport, and with TSA PreCheck we were quickly through security and at our gate. We tried to let Landon run around as much as possible before boarding, hoping he would “sit still” on the plane. He loved the moving walkways in the airport, and just kept going down one way, and then back up the other. I think he liked going “fast.”

We were able to gate check our bags, which made it much nicer since we were going to change planes in Salt Lake City, UT. Before we took off our captain came over the intercom saying they had had an indication (not sure what that means), and just in case it was right they were going to add a couple hundred more gallons of fuel, so it was going to delay our take-off a few extra minutes. Luckily it didn’t take long, and we made up the time in the air.

Our Salt Lake City layover was only about 45 mins, and with loading and unloading we were only in the airport maybe 15 mins, and we were flying once again. Landon fell asleep as we were taking off, and slept for over half the flight, but when we started descending his ears started to hurt, I gave him some snacks to eat, and they must have popped.

By the time we got our rental car and hit the road, traffic was pretty bad, and for some reason our GPS tried to direct us in the wrong direction, so we had to exit and head back the other way. We decided to go on surface streets, since the freeway was so backed up, but it ended up taking the same amount of time as the GPS said the freeway would take, but at least we were moving.

Landon was getting really hungry, so I fed him some goldfish crackers until they were gone. Luckily my Dad had steaks fresh off the grill when we arrived, so we finally ate around 7:30 PM. Landon, who normally doesn’t really like meat, probably ate a good 3-4 oz of steak, which I figured was due to him being so hungry.

After a busy day of travel I was ready for bed!

Thursday

Around 3 AM I woke up to a huge boom, and I thought the bed was shaking too, so I jumped out of bed to see if it was an earthquake, but nothing. I thought maybe I dreamed the sound, as I wasn’t sure what it would be from. Later in the morning I was woken up again to the loudest, longest roll of thunder, leaving no doubt that time about what I must have heard earlier in the night.

We had planned on going to the zoo Thursday, but since there was a lightning storm, we decided to push it off to a different day. Dad wanted to do some work to their van, but he needed to get some supplies to do it. So we headed up towards Chandler.

First things first we went to lunch at In-N-Out Burger. Nate loves their food, and makes it a point to eat there at least once on trips if he’s near one. We ordered Landon a grilled cheese, which turns out to be basically just a burger without a patty. Comes with tomato, onion, lettuce, and sauce along with the cheese. Needless to say it was a little hard for Landon to get his mouth around it. He did eat some of it though, and loved the fries.

Later we noticed some really dark clouds to the south, and then we started to see a wall of dust form. Mom and I ran into a store, just as it was reaching our location and then it really started pouring rain shortly afterwards. In Maricopa where we were staying there were a couple of trees that got knocked over, and flooding over some of the roadways. They got almost an inch of rain.

Later in the evening Landon started getting a rash on his face, and it was raised and warm. The only thing I could figure was it must have been from the In-In-Out food, because everything else he had eaten that day was pretty normal for him. I went to the store to get some children's Benadryl just in case it got worse. Luckily it didn’t seem to itch, and the next morning it was gone.

Friday

After we ate breakfast we headed up to the Phoenix Zoo. Landon really loves animals (books, pictures, sounds) but had never been to the zoo before. This zoo is really big, and there were lots of animals that are not at our local zoo either.

There was a Lego exhibit going on at the zoo too, which was neat, several different large Lego animal statues.

Poor Landon got pooped on by a bird when we went over to look at the giraffes.

We brought our own lunch to the zoo, and so we found a table under an umbrella instead of under a tree, due to the bird poop experience.

One of the coolest exhibits at the zoo, was a squirrel monkey exhibit. You go into their cage, and they are just running on ropes and in the bushes and trees. They ask you to stay 3’ away from them, and there is zoo staff to answer questions and make sure the separation is maintained.

The zoo also offers camel rides. But you have to be 2 years old to ride, otherwise we would have let Landon go for a ride. So instead we let him ride the carousel.

Some of the animals we saw were: Anteater, Warthog, Mountain Lion, Mexican Wolf, Condor, Eagle, Elephant, Tiger, Baboon, Lion, Giraffe, Komodo Dragon, Jaguar, Gazelle, and much, much more.

We also saw this little boy at the zoo with his family wearing the same shirt Landon had on, and his name turned out to be Landon too, what are the odds?!

Saturday

Saturday the neighborhood where Mom and Dad’s house is, was putting on a block party. They had food catered from Famous Daves, and cotton candy, popcorn, bouncy houses, a rock climbing wall, games, and prizes.

We went and had lunch, and let Landon bounce for a bit on one of the less crowded bounce houses, but then Nate and I brought Landon back to the house for a nap, we were going to meet up with some friends for dinner, and didn’t want a cranky baby. After we left Mom won a bike in one of the raffles!

In the evening we met our friends Jesse & Charlene. They are from Tucson, but they drove up and met us around half way in Casa Grande. We met at Mimi’s Cafe, which is a restaurant we used to like when we lived in Phoenix. I ordered Landon their Mac & Cheese, and he loved it, he ate all of it, plus some of Nate’s too!

Landon was really shy when Jesse & Charlene first showed up, but by the end he was mooching fries  from Jesse, and taking Charlene’s hand and leading her around in the parking lot.

The visit was nice, but too short. Hard to catch up fully over an hour or two, but fun to reconnect.

Sunday

Sunday we got up and headed to church in Mesa, where we used to attend when we lived in Arizona. It was so nice to catch up and see dear friends.

Nate’s Uncle Paul and Aunt Julie Kandoll where there, and we ended up going out to eat with them, and then they invited us over to their house to visit.

Later in the afternoon we met up with Nate’s cousin Matt and his family at a restaurant. They have two little girls, and it was nice to meet them. Once Landon wasn’t so shy, we got him to say "hi", and Landon and Natalie had fun babbling back and forth a little bit.

Landon was so tired by the time we left the restaurant, because his nap was way overdue, luckily he fell asleep in the car ride home.

Monday

Nate drove Landon to the park after breakfast, and Mom & I walked down to the park to meet up with them. Then Dad also joined us. Nate and Dad decided to go golfing in the afternoon. T time for them was at 1:45 PM, and they didn’t get back till 5:30 PM and they didn’t even finish their game. Who knew golf could take so long!

Trying to get a family photo, but Landon just wanted to play!

We had been invited over to Kirk and Katy Somero’s house for dinner, and once again it was very nice to catch up with old friends. The last time we had seen them they had 1 boy, and another on the way. This time they had three boys. Landon had fun playing with them, and running around after them. Katy made some really yummy soup for dinner, and cookies and ice cream for dessert.

When it was time for their boys to go to bed, Kirk brought us out to his man cave to show Nate his 3D printer. Nate has really wanted one, but we don’t really have the room for one. Landon was getting antsy and trying to get into everything, so Nate picked him up to put him on his shoulders, but he didn’t see the ceiling fan, and it whacked Landon’s arm. Nate felt so bad, was an honest accident. I’m just glad it wasn’t his head. He did get a small bruise on his arm, poor baby.

Tuesday

Grandma got in the pool with Landon for a while. We had let him splash his toes in the pool a couple times before, but this time he got in waist deep. He really liked it and had a ton of fun, but I hadn’t put a swim diaper on him, he just had his regular diaper on him, so he eventually had the largest butt ever, and eventually he needed to get out so the diaper didn’t fall apart.

That evening my parents invited our family friends the Murphin’s over for steak and ribs, and this time Landon ate probably 8+ oz of steak, so I guess he decided he likes steak! Sharron made 4 different desserts, most of them Paleo. We tried them all, and then she told us what was in them. They were all pretty good, in their own way.

We then watched election coverage, which was a little odd since all the local stuff wasn’t about anything we voted on. We had to look online to find out our local results.

Needless to say we didn’t get to bed early.

Wednesday

We had to get up pretty early to finish packing, and do some final cleaning before heading to the airport for home.

We got really lucky on our flight home and had a whole row all to ourselves, so we were able to give Landon his own seat. Landon slept for about an hour of the flight, which was nice, and our flight got in 25 mins early.