The Last 3 Weeks

Whoa, this is a long post!  We spent lots of time with my sister and her cute little Ellie and Henry.  Watched lots of "When Calls the Heart", swam in her apartment's pool, ate Sunday dinners together.  Man, I miss my sister!  And boy was Arizona hot!  About the only thing we did outside was swim.  My parents house was usually 78 degrees in the bedrooms and 84 in the living spaces.  My motto while we were there was, "I'd rather be sweating, than cold".  I really do hate being cold-cold is painful to me, sweaty is just uncomfortable.  

 Jane made this cute message out of marbles...till they ran out and she had to improvise with paper and pencils.  Grandma and Grandpa certainly took good care of us:)  Aaron got to join us for 9 days of our 5 week vacation.  Just before he flew back to Virginia, we were able to squeeze in some sealings at the new Phoenix temple.  It was a special treat to see my old stake president who is the temple president there.

 I also got to go out one evening with my 3 closest high school friends, three Mormons and a Catholic-20 kids between the four of us and lots of fun memories.  Can't believe it's been 20 years since we were in high school!

 We were thrilled to get to go back to California one Saturday for Lincoln's baptism, the only Smyth cousin we've been able to see get baptized.  Even tho there's 3 years difference, Lincoln and Adam really hit it off this visit, which was so cute to watch.

 Love this 94 year old woman so much!  She has taught me a lot through her loving ways and example of goodness.  And this little Ellie doll below was so sweet and snuggly, I could not resist holding her as much as possible!

 This was the favorite game at Grandma's-marbles.  Gotta make one of these boards!  Blow, we joined Emma for some fourth birthday cake.

 Cactus!!  I tried to tell Leo and Adam before we left for Arizona about cactus and how careful you have to be around them, but I think Adam got scared cause he wouldn't even get in any of our cactus photos.

 Truly one of the highlights was taking Porter to do family baptisms in both the new Phoenix and Gilbert temples.  He's been several times here but always with Aaron.  It was wonderful to watch and assist him as well as the feel and see the beauty within the temples.  We would have taken him tot he Mesa temple also (where we were married), but it was closed for the cleaning.  I also got to spend a morning doing initiatory with my Mom.  I felt so spoiled!

 Splashpad that got hot way too quickly!

 Jane had a blast using Grandma and Grandpa's recycle garbage to create a cash register, microwave and vending machine-they played a lot of store on those hot days inside.

 This was a fun trip the the Phoenix Science Museum.  THey had a whole section of outside water exhibits...

 ...but the funniest part was the stomach/intestine slide that made all kinds of digestive sounds.  I'll let you imagination run with that:)

 This room was also quite popular with the twist pole, bed of rising nails, and pull your weight seat.

 It was hard to get a good picture of but this was where you made paper airplanes and the little machine spit them out thru these rings really fast.

 More Henry, Ellie, and Rachel time!

 Grandma threw a cousins party one morning with an orange theme--if you couldn't tell.  Everything they ate was orange and we went swimming.

 The last weekend we were there, Spencer's family drove down and we all went to this cool, cheap community swim center.  Then we celebrated Julia's 7th birthday on Sunday at James' house before we all said goodbye.

 Also had to document this bedroom that Mom re-decorated.  This just sings Brenda Smyth!  She calls it her sitting room, but we pulled out the sofa-bed and messed it up with my five kids while we were there.

And if there wasn't any other success from this trip, we'll leave with this one.  Jane actually wearing a feminine dress up costume that was her idea to put on-I think this is a first!