It's about time...

Wade and I have had an eventful seven months!!!  Even though I haven't been blogging about it regularly.

I know this is a big step into the past but I told Megan in December I would post this super cute Nativity scene that she gave me for Christmas.  It's so cute and I love it!!!!

On to the New Year in January Wade and I took a quick trip to Sunny Arizona.  We went to Tucson Arizona and had so much fun!!!

I had no idea that these Saguaros are so huge!  I've only seen them in Road Runner and Wiley Coyote cartoons.  Since Road Runners are only about 12 inches tall I think the cactus are Slightly miss represented in those cartoons.   See this is Wade next to a not really big Saguaro.

 

This is me in the Saguaro National Park.  I was completely fascinated by the skeletons of these guys.  The cactus right next to/behind me is a dead skeleton of a Saguaro.  When they die they fall a part and have these stick and twig skelitons that are just crazy looking. The other ones are all quite old. These things live 100 years before they even get their first arm.  There is one that died and isn't there anymore, but we saw pictures, it was more than 40 feet tall and had 52 arms,  and was probably more than 300 years old.  We went hunting for the current "big one" but never found it.  But these puppies are huge even if you don't find the biggest one!

One day while we were there we drove a couple hours south down to Tombstone Arizona... The town too tough to die!  Tombstone is where Wyatt Earp had the famous shootout at the OK corral.  We saw a shootout show and walked through a hundred shops...There were scorpions every where in this town... not living ones, ones you take home as souvenirs... as a matter of fact the whole state had this problem.  In a gas station in Flagstaff and in Tombstone I saw the most horrible thing I've ever seen! A stuffed animal in the shape of a scorpion! WHO THINKS THAT IS CUTE?!?!!? Scorpions are horrible grose crawly things that kill people!!! Why would you make stuffed one???? How does that make any sense?
We also went to the Bird Cage Saloon.  It is supposedly haunted and the crazy thing was is that you could see litterally10's of bullet holes in the walls just standing in the entrance way.  It was a fun town and it was cool to see what was there to see and how they have preserved this old mining town.  I regret a little that we didn't see a few more things while we were there.  We should have spent more time in Tombstone. 

Now if you look at a map you'll notice that Tombstone is a mere 30 miles from the Mexico Border.  So we had the fun opportunity of going through...

Border Patrol and yes we were stopped by border patrol on our way back to Tucson.  That was an adventure!!  But no big deal they let us go quickly.... It might have been the Pink Subaru that got us through?...

When we decided to go to Tucson we decided to look up restaurants that had been on food network on

our favorite shows like Man vs. Food and Diners Drive in's and Dives and tried some of those restaurants.  I don't have any pictures of these events and sadly we missed the cardiac arrest burger in Chandler AZ (Southern part of Phoenix)... but we aggree that of the restaurants that we made it to the Sonoran Hot dog was our favorite!  It was a hot dog wrapped in bacon and then covered in pinto beans, salsa, onions, SOOO Yummy!

We went to church in Tuscan too and I just want to say we can all take a page out of the books of these people!  I have visited plenty of wards in my life but I have never been so welcomed in a ward as I was in this one. They introduced themselves and talked to us and helped us with our classes and were completely genuine in their interest in us.  They were awesome!

So after a few days in the sun in the south we decided we should head for home.  We made a few stops on the way home... we picked an off the beaten path to come home by... we went to Snowflake AZ to go to the temple and spent the night in Holbrook on the actual Rout 66.  We stayed in a Wigwam.....  

Yes this was our hotel room at the Wigwam Motel.  I swear these are what the Kozy Kones are based on in the movie Cars.  the room was round and was complete with a small bathroom.  It was much colder here than it was in Tucson but it was still fun and worth visiting. 

We went looking for breakfast after this and found our all time favorite restaurant ever.  Jo and Aggies Cafe Just down the street on the old Rout 66.  It was started in 1943 and is still run by the 3rd generation of the same family.  It was so good!

After that we went through the Petrified Forest and up through the reservation to Monticello where we spent a few days with my Grandparents.  We had a wonderful time spending a couple days with them.

Then we headed for home but we made one last stop in....

 

Arches National Park In January! It was so cool to see the arches covered in snow. We only stayed for a few hours but it was the nicest time I ever spent in Arches nice and cool!

It was a fantastic trip and we had so much fun!!!!

Since we got home we have been working on our living room.  This is a picture of our new couch in our new living room. We painted and sanded the floor down and really Wade did most of it because I was always studding and not helping as much but it is beautiful and I love it.