Saying Goodbye to Arizona

The way our move worked out, we got back from Minnesota and had a whole month to live out of suitcases and say goodbye to family and loved ones.  It was great to have lots of time to be able to try and squeeze in most of our AZ favorites before being gone for the next 3 years.

I decided to split the last month pretty evenly between friends & family in Thatcher (my hometown) and the Phoenix valley.

The girls & I spent the first 2.5 weeks without Matt in Thatcher.  We missed him, but we sure stayed busy and had LOTS of fun!

 We spent lots of time visiting a couple different parks, a few times each, sometimes with just us, sometimes with cousins and friends

 Aunt Beth works at an ice cream/snow cone place, and she brings home all the left over soft serve at the end of the night, these girls sure didn't mind!  Mommy didn't either, though I am still trying to lose the 8 lbs that I gained over the last 1/2 of the summer!  Lots of good food & treats/moving eating, but NO time to exercise...

 We also fed the ducks a couple times, which was one of my favorite things to do as a kid, and now is one of my girls favorites.

 We also spent a lot of time out a GG's house.  We played a lot in her backyard, and I taught the girls some baseball.  Lily eventually learned how to hit a pitch almost every time!

It's harder to hit balls pitched to you by  kids under the age of 10 than you might think, but I did my best to let all the kids practice pitching, and managed to hit most of them.

 We went out to visit Auntie Em's (my sister) horses and ride her pony, "Little Lady".  Kate is obsessed with animals and has no fear.  She'll run up to Em's big dogs who are 2x's her height, let them lick and tackle her, let the horses eat hay right out of her hand (which made me WAY more nervous that her fingers might get nipped by those big horse teeth than she was), all without flinching.  Actually while smiling and giggling.

 The girl's had a great time riding Little Lady, and it is so fun that Emily has her, it was the first time I'd gotten to see her.

 We took lots of baths in Grandma's super-sized tub (mommy's favorite too)

 Helped make bread at GG's

 Since I am a fun Aunt, we had an impromptu sprinkler party with both my sister's kids.  Though one of them wasn't too happy that their kids got their clothes soaked, we still had lots of fun!!

 More park time!

 One of the times we were at the park, there were some kids there with their pet, a 7 week old bunny.  It was so adorable, and the girls LOVED it.  So that was fun!

 This day, one of my best friends, Cindy, drove down to spend the day with me, we did lunch at the park with all our kiddos in tow.  It is hard to believe that in the past 5 years we have pushed out 6 kids between the 2 of us!

 I love Miss Cindy (and her little family) so much.  It will be a TRAGEDY if we never live in the same city again.  I love this girl way too much.

 All of Kate's life we have called her our "Cindy Savage Baby" (which is Cindy's maiden name), because with her blond  curly hair and bright blue eyes she looks like she came down the wrong chute.  So I love these pics of them together.

 We (and by we I mean my mom) also baked brownies, and then we headed up the mountain to spend the morning up there.  I love Mt Graham so much.  It is one of my top 5 places in the whole world.  It makes me happy that my kids love it too.  I just wish we could've spent a week or 2 up there instead only 1/2 a day.

 My sweet mom (the best grandma ever!) let Katie lead her up and down and all over the place for a long time, just like this.  I am sure it was a workout!  But Kate was in Heaven!

 Emily (my sis who is done having babies), is in love with Katie.  She always tries to kidnap her and spoil her rotten.  Really Em is just a crazy baby lover and I am sure next time we have one, she won't be able to keep her hands off that one either!

 Auntie Em of course brought over all her fancy gel nail stuff and painted every one's piggies.  Even Miss Katie, who was VERY insistent that hers get done.

 We went to the pioneer day celebrations, including a family rodeo, Lily got to participate in the stick horse race, she had lots of fun!

 They had 5 or 6 impromptu events for kids at the beginning, before the traditional rodeo stuff started, including a greased pig race for the different age groups.  Whoever caught it got to keep the pig.  You can see them holding the pig, about to let him run wild for all the kids to try and catch.  Needless to say, my dainty Lily didn't want to participate in this one!

 Later in the night, Emily showed up with Carter and Ava, and Lily was happy to have some friends to watch the rest of the rodeo with.  We got rained on, off & on, so the kiddos huddled under a blanket.

 Here is Lily, sitting on the wall at GG's, feeding neighbor's chickens from over the wall.  Another favorite past time of the girls.

 Sure do love my GG.  These pictures choke me up.

 GG made cupcake cones one of the days we came out, Katie wasn't sure why the ice cream was so hard to lick, but she sure tried.  Eventually she even tried to bite off the bottom, and suck it out that way.  Can you tell she had been eating lots of ice cream cones from Aunt Beth?

 The night before I left, there were more Pioneer Day celebrations.  The whole family went to the parade.

 Of course the kids loved waving, seeing lots of horses, and catching candy!

 My sisters

 Katie wanted to run to all the horses during the parade, but she settled for getting to ride one afterward

 They put on a big play/pageant after the parade and dinner

 Then we went over to Mike and Emily's to watch the fireworks from their yard, where it wasn't quite so noisy, or too crowded.  They only live about 2 blocks away, so we just walked over.  It was great.

Kate LOVES Emily's brother in law, Nelson.  I am not sure how this came about, but every time she sees him, she wants him and no one else.  We had to pry her from his arms to leave.  She didn't even want grandma and that is saying something.  She has only met him 4 or 5 times, but every time, she heads straight for him.  Its pretty funny.  Luckily he is a great guy, and loves being best buddies with her.

(NOTE: for some reason I took no pictures of my visit with Tavia (and her kiddos), a dear, lifelong friend, one of the sweetest people I know and one of my all time favorites.  I am super sad that I was a total loser and missed the opportunity to get pics of our kids at this age together, and also to get a sprink-ee eyed picture of us together.  But I did get to see her, and I do love her with all my heart, and that is what matters!  So, I am documenting it here, since I failed to photo-doc it!)

At the end of my 2.5 weeks, my sweet mother-in-law met up with my mom halfway to "hand us off".  We had been car-less since Matt took our family car back to work in Glendale after we got back from MN.  So we got passed off to Nana (Matt's mom) and drove home to see Daddy exactly 2 weeks before our departure date.  While in Phoenix Matt still had to work for those 2 weeks, but we all tried to make the most of our last little bit of time in AZ.

Our first Friday night back we had a slumber party @ Matt's sister Heather's.  Matt was working, but the girls & I had lots of fun we of course had Barros pizza for dinner, and the grown-ups had a late night custard run. 

 

 "K" and Izzie have become quite the pair over the last year.  I love seeing the older cousins latch onto and take good care of my girlies.

 Reading before bed.

 

My girls are totally in love with Heather's dog, "Sneakers".  When we skype now-a-days, it is always mandatory that Sneakers makes an appearance as well.

 Miss "J" always takes such good care of Kate.  They are best buddies, and I sure am sad to leave her behind.  I have told her that anytime her parents want to send her to visit, and be my baby sitting slave, I would love to have her!  :)

 We took another trip to the Phx Zoo.

 

(NOTE: We also went out to dinner on a double date with Barry & Janeal. We went to Chinese food, then they used movie passes to take us all to see The Dark Night Rises. For some reason, we didn't photo-document this either. I slacked off, but it was lots of fun, and I am glad that we got to do something with them before we left)

 Our last Friday night in town, Matt worked, of course, but I really wanted to take the girls to the Phoenix Children's Museum.  I had heard such great things, and the museum is free the first Friday night of the month, so I really wanted to check it out before we left.  Its also REALLY crowded the free night, big surprise right?  So I was nervous about taking the girls by myself.  Heather and Tom's family volunteered to go with me, their older kids are old enough to be LOADS of help!  I am sure glad they came with us, it was a blast, and it would've been really stressful keeping an eye on all 3, with it so packed, by myself.

 Our last night in town we had a big family dinner.  Clearly, I hadn't thought through the fact that lots of people were probably going to want to take pictures with us, other wise I probably would have done something with my hair. Or make-up. Or maybe not wear paint splattered, boys, jersey shorts and a Tshirt, and no shoes.  Oh well.

 My dear friend Sara brought us goodies for our early morning road trip (and we even managed to share one or two with the kids along the way).  She is just the kindest, most thoughtful friend I've ever had!  Her stopping by got the sprinks going for me and then I cried off and on the rest of the night.

 

We took some photos with families, and had lots of snuggle time, getting in our last hugs for a long time!