Trip to Tucson- Relatives

So this last week my mom and sister went on choir tour with the community college choir and so we decided to venture to Tucson. We stayed with my Aunt Sheri and Uncle Brent. It was a special treat because my cousin from Tennessee was visiting and had his five year old daughter with him. We also hung out with my sister (although I don't have any pictures of us with her, oops!) while we were there. We also got to go visit my Grandma. It would have been nice to see more of my aunts, uncles and cousins but I dropped the ball.

Me and my Grammy.
This is my mother's mom and at ninety something
looks amazing and is still so full of energy!
Love her!

Vance, me, and Grammy.
Vance was named after her husband, Vance.

The boys and I with Grammy.

This is my cousin Jason's little girl, Evy.
She's about a year older than Joel and they
had a fun time playing, torturing the dog, etc.

The kids cheesing it up.

Real Life Cowboys!

So the boys were getting tired of playing just at Monie's house so we thought we would brave the cold and go to the park. Well after about 2 minutes we decided we were too cold (come to find out it was like 42 degrees that morning, oops!) so I started thinking about what we could do. I wanted to get the boys a souvenir from Arizona and I thought what would be better than cowboy hats?! So we headed to the local cowboy outfitters. We walked in and the boys were in heaven! They showed us where the kids hats were and the boys each got to pick out their own hats (of course they picked the same hat). Then they have this REALLY old mechanical horse and so each of the boys rode that. Joel thought the bear head on the wall was great. It was really fun. They were so excited to go show PaPa their hats at work!

Vance riding the horse with his new hat.

Joel looks good in his hat.

Real life cowboys.

Snow, Mountain and Arizona

So Saturday my daddy took us up to the mountain. Both of my parents, the boys, my sister Jaron and I drove up near our cabin. For those of you surprised, yes Arizona does have snow. We built a snowman, wrecked a snowman, made snowballs, ate (non-yellow) snow and just enjoyed playing in the snow.

Us in front of our (teeny tiny) snowman.

The boys wrecking our (teeny tiny) snowman.

Vance making a snow angel.

Joel's turn for a snow angel.

Snow!

Vance liked eating the snow.

And you've gotta love those snow boots. lol

The boys with Auntie Jay Jay.
It had started raining/hailing so the boys
were anxious to get out of the snow/rain/hail.

Joel had a fun time!

A day on the ranch.

The boys and I went up to my daddy's ranch with him today. He had to do a few things and so we tagged along. Then he saddled up the horses and we went for a short ride on his horses. The boys had a fun time although the short ride was enough for them (and me too). :)

Joel and Vance with the cows PaPa was feeding.

Joel holding Salmon still.
(Can you see how excited he is?! LOVE it!)

Vance on top of Three Star.
He had such a fun time.

Joel atop Salmon.
He had such a fun time riding with PaPa.

Vance and I on our ride.
He's a good cowboy!

PaPa and Joel on our ride.

It was a beautiful day and a fun time.

A Backyard!

We've made it safely to Arizona. The boys were champs on the airplane. We've been staying with my parents. I don't know if any of you have ever had the chance to watch your kids play where you grew up. It's been so fun!

The weather here has been BEAUTIFUL! It's been mid-40's in the morning and then it warms up to the mid 70's. Lovely! Joel found the backyard the first day and has spent the majority of the week in there. The only way it could get any better was the day he found the trampoline. He's had a blast and Vance of course is never far behind.

Joel scaling and exploring the terrain.

Vance taking a break from the exploring.

This one is a bit blurry but you can see how
much fun they're having running around.

Hanging out in the grass.
They LOVE playing in a backyard.

The boys love jumping on the trampoline.
I'm surprised at how high Joel can jump.

This is the boys sleeping in the bunk bed-which is one of their
favorite things about Monie & PaPa's.
The cat on the end of the bed is Sobe. She doesn't like people
and spends most of the day running away from the boys-
but we found her on the end of the bed one night. lol