A Trip to Remember

On June 9th, Morgan, David, and I headed to Phoenix. My sister Chrissy and her family were flying in from TN on the 10th. Since the 9th was my niece, Lindsey's birthday we went up early so we could celebrate with her. Then early on the 10th we headed down to Sky Harbor to pick up Chrissy and her family.

We were all very anxious to see them as it had been two years to the day since we had last gotten together. Then it had been Morgan and I meeting up with Jen, Caity, and Lindsey in Nashville. We had then spent a week down at Chrissy's house. This time it was their turn to come visit. Words can not accurately explain how great it was to see them and to just spend a whole week playing.

We sat waiting for them to arrive expecting a phone call to tell us they were off the plane. Instead we noticed them walking down the pathway and then Chrissy and Abigail started sprinting towards us. Morgan was so excited to see her cousins.

Morgan showing off her big blue wheelchair to her cousin Abigail. This was the first time they had seen her chair. In fact, while we were in TN two years ago is when we first learned that Morgan had been approved to receive her chair.

After getting off the plane Trey and Keith's first request was to stop at In and Out burger for lunch on the way home from the airport. They don't have any in TN and had been craving them. We decided to split up. David, Morgan, Chrissy, Abigail and I took off in the van and headed to my dad's house to get settled while the rest went to the drive thru of In and Out. After enjoying some yummy lunch Jen and the girls came over to see everyone. Once all the kids were busy playing Jen, Chrissy, and I took off for a busy afternoon grocery shopping. We had a giant list complete with all the things needed for 5 dinners fit to feed 14 people. We needed to go to three stores and since it was well into the high 90's we grabbed a cooler. After the first store the cooler was completely full. Luckily we found a great deal at Costco on some cooler bags and were able to fill them with our loot from Costco. After one more stop and 2 1/2 hours later we were heading back to my dads. You should have seen the look on my dad and JoAnne's face when we arrived with all that food. I don't think they have ever had that much food in their fridge. They were worried it wouldn't all fit, but we made it work. The rest of the day was spent just hanging out playing. The kids had a blast catching up; it was like no time had past since they had seen each other last. Of course the main difference was that this time Morgan and Abigail were right in the mix of things with all the big kids.

That first night the kids stayed up pretty late. That was the only night that Morgan was not the first to crash....while playing the Left, Right, Center game with some pennies Elijiah wandered away from the table. Chrissy, Keith, and I were busy setting up the air mattress in the guest bedroom when David came running in telling us we needed to go out to the living room to see Elijiah. This is what we found when we walked in:

He was so tuckered out. He and the rest of the family had been up since about 3 am TN time, which was midnight our time. 20 hours later he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer. He curled up in Morgan's tiny green chair and passed out. Too cute!

Not long after we all followed suit. By nine all the kids were in bed. That was the earliest bedtime all week!

The next morning all the kids were up bright and early. Morgan was the last one to wake up and she was up by 6:15 shouting in the Casita "My cousins are here!" We looked out the door to see if it looked like anyone was up and noticed a blind in the guest bedroom was up, that was Chrissy's way of indicating the kids were awake and we could come in the house (since Morgan isn't a quiet kid we thought it was best to wait until everyone was up before going in the house). Right away the kids were ready to play. They quickly found all the Nerf guns and spent the next hour or so having one huge Nerf gun war. Poor JoAnne is probably still finding darts around her house.

After a little Nerf gun war and some breakfast Morgan and Abigail decided they wanted to go to the park to play. They had a blast on the teeter-totter, slides, and swings. Morgan's favorite part was on the swings when Abigail kept saying, "Hello, Goodbye." Morgan was cracking up so hard. It was hilarious.

As Morgan kept saying after the trip "Abigail's my best buddy." The girls really were great friends on this visit. They insisted on holding hands together everywhere we went.

After the park it was back to my dad's house for a little Wii time. Morgan and Abigail broke out the High School Musical game and had a blast trying to sing a long.

Jen and the girls then came over from some lunch and then we all took off to my dad and JoAnne's friends house Tess and Rich. They have a pool that they very kindly said we could use at anytime while we were all visiting. The kids all had a blast swimming for about 2 hours.

Morgan loves getting tosses.

After swimming we headed back to my dad's house to clean up and get ready to go to the mall. Abigail didn't even make it around the corner to my dad's house before crashing out. Morgan made it through a bath and getting all dressed, but as David put on her braces and shoes she crashed out too. We actually were able to transfer her from the couch to the carseat and she slept the whole way to the mall. Trey and Elijiah wanted to go to the mall to check out the new Lego store and Abigail wanted to go to Build-a-Bear to get the new Hello Kitty doll.

That night was the first of many very late nights playing. I think the kids all made it to bed around 10 that night. The next day was filled with a lot more playtime around my dad's house. Chrissy and her family took off for a bit in the morning so David and I were able to enjoy some quiet time and get some of Morgan's therapy done. We then took off with Chrissy and her family to her brother-in-law Paul's house for some more swimming. That evening we had dinner back at my dad and JoAnne's house and the kids put together a "movie" for us all to enjoy. Caity wrote the screen play and each of the kids had a role. It was very cute.

Morgan and Abigail always get matching pjs during our visits.

The next day we went over to Jen's house for the day to play. Morgan and Abigail found all of Lindsey's Barbie dolls and Morgan found the Barbie's horses. She was in heaven playing with the horses all day.

Chrissy picked up some glow in the dark chalk for the kids to test out. After dinner they had to first make the chalk.
While the chalk was setting we all took off to Lindsey's favorite dessert shop, Yogurtology. When we got back to Jen's the chalk was set so the kids headed out back to graffiti the walls. It was really hard to photograph, but the chalk really did glow. It was a lot of fun.

Caity then wanted to show everyone her card trick she had learned from Pa.

Since it was Monday evening Jen and I attempted to watch our favorite show, the Bachlorette (I got her addicted to it during our trip to TN two years ago). I say we attempted because while we were trying to watch the show the rest of the family was in the front room playing Apples to Apples. They were SO loud that even with the tv on almost full volume we could hardly hear it. Don't ask me how Keith and Abigail managed to fall asleep through all that, but they did:

Around 9:45 Morgan had finally had it. Chrissy brought her in to me and she fell alseep in my lap. Around 10 the rest of the family agreed that it was getting late and headed back to Dad and JoAnne's. Since Morgan was out and I had therapy to do still I stayed behind so Jen and I could finish watching our show without interruption. Thank goodness for DVR.


The next morning Chrissy and the family took off to visit with some friends in the morning while Morgan and Caity hung out around Dad and JoAnne's. Caity was into a new fad with making everything out of duct tape. Her favorite was making flowers. Morgan helped out and even made me a flower pen (her own version) all on her own.

That evening before dinner we headed to the front of Triology to take some family pictures while we had all the kids together. We had done one four years ago when Morgan was one month old and thought it was about time we updated the photos. Since JoAnne has a great camera we decided to ask her just to take the pictures rather than going somewhere to get them done. The girls all decided to get matching shirts. The pictures came out great!!!! Thank you JoAnne for taking them!

Trey 11, Elijiah 7, Abigail 4, Lindsey 10, Morgan 4, Caity 12

A little brotherly love.

I love this picture! Caity is such a great big cousin to Morgan. We are hoping to have her come stay in Tucson again for a few days this summer.

Pa and Nanny with their grandkids.

The cousins: Trey, Elijiah, Lindsey, Tyler (my step brother Nolan's son), Morgan, Abigail, and Caity.

The Conner girls and their girls

The Conner girls and all their kiddos.

As I said before, it is hard to explain in words how incredibly wonderful it was to spend so much time with my sisters and their families. We miss them already! Thanks Dad and JoAnne for making this family reunion possible!