Then he decided he wanted to move to his dad's.
During the very small window of time between his visit to Missouri and his actual move there, I told him about the cruise and asked if he wanted to move forward with that plan, knowing he would already be in Missouri by then, or to try to do something while he was here ... before he left. I offered suggestions like San Diego, or Jackson, or visiting is cousins in Phoenix, AZ as an alternative to the cruise, and he jumped at the opportunity to spend time with his cousins before he moved.
So ... I cancelled our cruise the very day my final decision had to be made in order to receive my money back with no penalties. It was sad, but also somewhat of a relief because it would have been really difficult to plan and change airfare, etc. with Rylan in Missouri.
Scott and Melissa ("Aunt Sissa") gave us the dates that worked for them and off we went. To Arizona. In the middle of July. (What WERE we thinking?!)
Here are some of our memories...
Swimming
One of the only ways to cool down is to swim, so thank goodness Scott and Melissa have a pool. We played "Colors" and "Marco Polo" and "Dive for as many things as you can find." Even Aunt Kathy played. It felt SO good to jump in after being hot. Rylan is a fish, and if he could have, he would have been in the pool 24/7.
Game Night
One night we played a game called Telestrations. It's a combination of Pictionary and Telephone. But that's not the point of this post. The point of this post is Melissa's incredibly compelling artwork. Check out this...Zebra?
I'm Going On A Trip
One night while we were just finishing up the dishes after dinner, crazy Aunt Kathy started a game of "I'm Going On A Trip, and I'm Gonna Take...." Everyone played along. Cute Haylee wrote it all down!
We ate well. We made some really good meals while we were there. For one of our dinners we made sweet pork in the crock pot. It was delicious! We made nummy meatloaf for Sunday dinner. Mmmmm. I taught the girls how to make German Pancakes, and Ry made nummy brownies.
Kuzzins
Rylan was such a cute big cousin. He played Legos with Haylee for hours on end. He was quite proud of his treehouse!
Good Sport
Ry was a good sport too. One night I was painting the girls' nails and they said he should get his painted too. So he did! We did a lovely sparkly polish with pink French tips. Ashley made him promise he would keep it on for 24 hours. So when we were at breakfast the next morning he was holding his menu asking the server questions, when he remembered he had sparkly nail polish on!
Haylee wanted to do Rylan's hair. She got out pretty much every clippie and barrette she had and found a place to put each one!
Water Park
One of our favorite activities was the day we went to Wet and Wild...
One day we drove to Cave Creek, AZ and walked around some little shops. We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant named El Encanto. It was really good. Outside they had a pond with TURTLES. That's not something you see every day.
The night before we left Phoenix, there was a Monsoon. I had waited ALL week for a nice big rain storm. Almost every evening we heard there would be one but it would pass by us, and hit every other town nearby. Well, the last night was finally my turn. We didn't even know it was happening - the girls were all home chillin' and the boys had gone to the store for a few groceries. When they got home from the store they said we had to go outside - a storm was coming! I was so excited. I ran outside and faced the wind and just stood there smelling the coming rain and anticipating what it might be like. Before long, it was POURING and we all had to run inside to keep from being soaked. But I still couldn't get enough. I watched out every window and even sat in the back yard right by the house for a few minutes in the middle of the storm - feeling it and loving every minute. The girls were very nervous about it, but I talked with them and hopefully helped them to not be so afraid. One of Haylee's favorite memories was "the storm with Aunt Kathy!"
On the way home from Arizona we stopped for the night in Henderson, Nevada (which is about halfway). Our hotel was okay, but one of the reasons I booked it was because it had a pool. Well - the pool turned out to be ice cold. And I don't mean just chilly. I mean ICE cold. But my fish was VERY brave and did a little swimming. He amazes me. And the hot tub was about a gazillion degrees. It was all I could to go put my feet in!
Tricia had told us about a really good buffet she and Kerrie had stopped at on their way home a few weeks before so we thought we'd check it out. The food was all right - my favorites were the prime rib and the ice-cream. When we bought our tickets for the buffet, I was given a one-time card to swipe at any of the slot machines with the possibility of winning $500. Ry snapped a shot of his mom "gambling" from a distance because he wasn't allowed on the floor - being under 21.
Afterwards, we started hearing people talking about how bad it was raining outside. Well - it had been FLOODING. As in rivers down the streets. But we braved it. My hair was nothing to brag about anyway, so no harm. We had planned to go back to our hotel, but I had this wild hair (no pun intended) to take Ry to see the Las Vegas Strip since he had never seen it at night all lit up. For the first few freeway entrances, the water was running so deep and so fast I couldn't even tell where I should drive, so we stayed on the same road until we found a place we could turn. Rylan took videos out his window of us car surfing! The water was nearly up to the bottom of the car doors and when we drove through it we made the coolest waves. It was crazy and fun all at the same time! Once we were actually able to maneuver the roads to get ON the freeway, it was smooth sailin'. (Thank goodness for my GPS!)
Change of Plans
The next morning we were supposed to head home, and wanted to get an early start after eating our free breakfast. The breakfast part went fine; the leaving part... not s'much. Just after I jumped out of the shower, the fire alarms went off and everyone had to evacuate the hotel. Um. Yah. Towel on my head. No make-up whatsoever. And out we go. All I grabbed was my purse. No car keys. No phone. I thought we might be outside for a few minutes and then get the all clear. It smelled NASTY as we came down the stairs so we knew something was up. We pulled up a curb and sat down and here came trucks from two fire departments. The firemen started pulling out their hoses and going in.
Apparently a towel had caught fire in one of the dryers in the laundry. There were families with little ones - in their diapers, people in their jammies, one lady in a crazy rug/moo-moo, and one lady with the most awful toenails I've ever seen in my life. They were longer than my finger nails. Ew. Disgusting! (Meanwhile, they're all talking about the lady with the towel on her head.) I've gotta say a few of those firefighters weren't too bad to look at. And with that, I'll move on. (Hey! It's okay for me to look.)
Ry and I finally got so bored we wandered over the Dollar Tree and went up and down the aisles trying to pass time. Finally, when we went back they were letting people in.
On The Road Again
It was after 12 noon when we FINALLY pulled out of the parking lot...we were delayed about four hours which was not our idea of fun. The drive seemed longer because of the LONG morning, but we finally made it home about 9:00 p.m. Sunday evening.
Home, Sweet Home!
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