The rest of AZ

Chillin' at Grandma and Grandpa's house for some much needed down time.

 Yatzhee and puzzles

One of the best things in Arizona (and Salt Lake) is Rubio's!  Their quesadillas are magical, or so my children say.  I love their shrimp tacos or salads or whatever.  It's just yum!

One of the nights we decided to go to a show.  Ryan and Dylan went to see the new Star Wars and I took the girls to go see The Greatest Showman.  I knew nothing about this movie at the time, but had heard good things. It had just opened, and it was sold out.  Bummer!!  Ryan and Dylan had already went in their movie so I had to be there later to pick them up.  The girls and I wandered around shopping for a minute and then stopped for gelato (another thing we end up getting every time we come.)  I didn't know then that we would fall in LOVE with the show The Greatest Showman.  Wish we would've seen it then, but it's all good.

And our last day we took a few pictures and got back on our plane!

We sure have a lot of fun visiting Grandma and Grandpa.  There was a lot more golf played that I didn't mention because I didn't take any other pictures.  We kept busy for sure.

AZ- Jesterz and Schnepf Farms

A couple other things we did while in Arizona were JesterZ, a comedy club.  And Schnepf Farms which I really only did because of the train ride :)

JesterZ has clean comedy during their early show at least.  It's all improv.  It was pretty funny.  We all enjoyed it.  Kaden got to stay home with Grandma and look for bunnies at the bunny park.

I read about Schnepf Farms but I was not totally clear on how the whole thing worked.  There was ice skating (weird, right?? In 70 degrees?) and live music later (James the Mormon, actually) and carnival type rides.  I can't remember what else.  But we didn't have a whole lot of time to spend there, and I didn't want to wait in lines a lot.  So we got there and parked and tried to find our way over to the train.  We made it in a round-about way.  I looked for a place to buy tickets but didn't see anywhere so we just waited for the train to come back.  Once it got back I asked the conductor and he said I could pay cash to him for the tickets, or buy them at the beginning (where we were supposed to pay our entrance fee...)  So I paid him cash and we got our ride.  We were the only ones on the train.

Afterwards we made our way towards the entrance, with a quick potty break, and I looked at the prices.  And I really had no desire to do anything other than the train we had just done.  I mean , seeing James the Mormon would've been cool but we weren't staying there that late.  So we decided to just head out instead of paying $20 or whatever it was a person to be there.  Perhaps that was not the honest thing to do.  Though I have a feeling they would've let us just ride the train if we would've asked them, but I'm not sure.  Anyway, we stopped for food for everyone on our way home and it worked out just fine.

AZ- Riparian Preserve and My Cousin

My cousin Nicole has lived in Arizona for quite a few years now.  Last time we were down there I had plans to meet up with her but she ended up sick so I didn't get to see her.  We were happy to make it happen this year.  I met her at the Riparian Preserve so we could walk around a bit and talk.  It was a fun little place, but the kids got bored rather quickly.  Luckily Dylan had Andrew to play with (they went and got his laser tag game from the car and played around.)  And Sadie had Rory to play with (they rode scooters around the sidewalk around the lake).  And Kylee likes to hang out with Kaden and just be patient. 

Nicole and I are the same age. She lived in California when we were growing up so I didn't get to see a lot of her but we were always really close when she would come to visit and we visited them in California once or twice too.  It was really nice getting to chat with her.

Phoenix Zoo Lights

I wanted to go to the zoo while we were in Arizona because last time we went it was roasting outside and we were all miserable.  I was looking forward to seeing the elephants (always my fav) and feeding the giraffes.  We heard about the zoo lights and that they were really impressive and we should go then.  Turns out the rest of the zoo is basically shut down during the night time light show.  So we couldn't even see the giraffes or elephants.  Bummer!  But the lights were quite impressive and it was fun.  They had light shows that went along with music too.

One thing they did have open was the camel rides so the kids got to do that!  Kaden was not interested in that.  He's a bit of a scaredy-cat.

 We also saw a 4D show, Rudolph.  It was really bizarre walking around looking at Christmas lights in such pleasant temperatures.  It's not something I've done for over 20 years!  I must say it was much more enjoyable at 65 degrees than 20!

AZ- Butterfly Sanctuary

The Butterfly Sanctuary was something fun and different than we've done.  It was really pretty with all the flowers and foliage and different colors of butterflies.  Everyone enjoyed it.  The butterflies really liked Dylan for some reason!  Sadie on the other hand, didn't get any butterflies landing on her so she got really sad.  That's part of what I was talking about with vacations and tired, cranky children.  Kaden seems to get more goofy when he gets tired though.  He's a good kid.

 We sat on this bench for awhile waiting for one to land on Sadie but it didn't happen.  I only had one land on my head for half a second.  She was very sad, "why don't the butterflies like me??"

 As long as he has a car, he's happy.

 Along with the butterflies, they had a few other animals in cages.