This little guy graced us with his presence on the 9th of April. Well, graced Arizona with his presence. He is number four for my sister. The parentals, Kate, Riley, and I all headed down the first week of May for his blessing, and also for Noelle's baptism! It was the first time, probably since I got married, that the five of us were together for an extended period of time without John and Tom. And just like old times, the three of us shared the backseat. We flew out of Ogden, because we chose to fly Allegiant - much cheaper than any other airline. So we drove to Ogden and just left our car parked there. Smallest airport I've ever been in. Even smaller than the Long Beach airport, which I have always thought to be extremely small. Nope, Ogden wins. We flew out Friday night, missing as little work as possible.
We got there and we were starving. We had planned on eating before we went to the airport, but then we were worried about getting there on time, and so we figured we'd just eat airport food. Except, there is no airport food. Just a vending machine. So after getting the rental car, we immediately started searching for food. We're driving around, naming all these places that we see (Kneaders, Texas Roadhouse, Cafe Rio, Chick-Fil-A, etc.) and all of a sudden my mom goes, "There's a Wendy's" The car got silent and I said, "Ma, you think out of all the places we just named, we're going to choose Wendy's?" Laughter ensued. While we were driving around, I was trying to take selfies in the back seat to show the fact that my window was rolled down, on the freeway, and there was nothing I could do about it. Dad had all the windows locked, the whole trip, so he was the only one who could decide whether they should be down or up. In my attempts to take a "normal" selfie, I ended up taking the ugliest picture of myself I have ever seen. No lie. I'm not going to put it anywhere on the internet because it will haunt me for the rest of my life. But seriously, you can ask my siblings. Kati was dying of laughter, and randomly throughout the weekend would just start laughing because she was thinking about the picture. It was so bad.
We ended up eating at Cafe Rio. Who knew that it had only been open for a week and everyone and their dog wanted to eat there? Sheesh. It was craaazy, and it was like 9:30 PM. After we ate we went to the hotel, got everything settled it. Figured out where the five of us were going to sleep. Broozer took one for the team and ended up sleeping on the floor. There was no room to bring in a cot.
Saturday was the baptism and blessing. I was awake at 6:00. Everyone was actually, except Riley. That kid could sleep for days. I packed gym clothes because I had this bright idea that I was going to work out while I was there, just in the hotel's gym. Well, being with Kati, she held me to it, and we were working out by 6:30 Saturday morning. I did my cardio, and then she was like, okay, now we're going to do THIS! She gave me exercises to do, showed me how to do them, and then took a video of me doing them and posted it online. Okay, she only took a video of me doing burpees, but seriously, I had never done a burpee in my life, I wasn't sure I wanted that for everyone to see. She didn't care. After our workout, we went and got showered, and ready to head over the church. Rebekah had also traveled to AZ for the occasion, along with her mom and step dad, and Boo's parents, so there were quite a few people there from Utah. We all met by the font, like always; Boo's Mom gave a talk about baptism, and then my dad gave a talk about the Holy Ghost. It was all very nice. After everything was done with the baptism and confirmation, Boo blessed the baby.
This was the most tender moment of the day. Rach was crying during the blessing, so Noelle leaned over and was rubbing her back, and just kept getting closer to Rach. It was seriously the cutest thing I have ever seen, I had to get a picture, even though it was in the middle of the blessing.
I love this picture of their family, because I think it is explains them so well. Especially love Sis' hand. She has the funniest personality, and wouldn't be serious while they were taking pictures. But it's okay, because it's just who she is. Nicholas LOVES Grandpa and Riley. Seriously. Kati and I were joking how he won't speak two words to us, but it's true. The kid just adores them, and thinks we're chopped liver. It was so cute, afterward, we went to Rach's house for lunch, and my Dad, being the person he is, kept falling asleep on the couch. Nicholas runs up to him and wags his finger in Dad's face and says "No, no, no Grandpa! No sleeping! It's day time." It was so funny, and so cute.
Nicholas was trying to climb the gate, so Riley joined in. My mom said something to the affect of a scary future, and we said, what, Nicholas and Riley behind bars together? Wouldn't be too funny if you ask me!
The five of us haven't had a picture together that is decent in years, so, we all were pretty happy when we got one that turned out so well! Too bad we're missing people, huh? I guess family pictures are in order! Even though they are nearly impossible with so many people in your family.
After the lunch, we went and changed our clothes, and headed to Chandler to their outlet mall. Loved every second of that! I spent more money than I should have, definitely. We walked into the Coach store and they were offering an additional 50% off to all of their items, so Kate and Mom went crazy. Nothing really caught my eye, so I just helped them. Mom has been looking at the same red bag from Coach for probably a year, and so she finally got that, thanks to a little push from Dad. Happy Mother's Day! At one point Kate had three or four different bags in her hands, and couldn't decide which one she wanted. Mom offered to buy one for her birthday so that she could have two, but she just went with the one. I walked into Michael Kors, but their "sale" prices are still way too expensive, so I just looked. BUT. There was a Kate Spade store and I could have gotten in so much trouble in there. My Mom walked in with me, and had to leave because she was going to buy another purse, and had to stop herself. They had cute clothes in there, and earrings, bags, wallets, everything! Except shoes. But that is probably a good thing. I ended up leaving with a new purse, that is a bright blue color. I love it. And it was super on sale, so I 'm totally fine with it! Saturday night we went and ate at a place called Logan's Roadhosue. Essentially a Texas Roadhouse, minus the delicious cinnamon butter and rolls. It was actually really good food!
Kate left really early Sunday morning, so for Sunday and Monday it was just me Rye, and the parentals. Sunday we went over to the new Gilbert temple. Maybe it's because I haven't been to very many temples, or maybe it is kind of different, but their grounds are closed whenever the temple is closed. Can't walk around it within the fence. And it's not open on Mondays, so we had to settle with looking at through the fence. Which was totally fine. It was still gorgeous. We wanted to do a session, but, closed on Mondays, and we left Monday afternoon! Too bad. Guess we'll have to go back.
I sent this picture to John to show him how amazing this temple is. He wrote me back and told that it looked fake. Ha! It kind of does. It's just so perfectly put together with the palm trees and the water. All framing the Angel Moroni. So awesome!
After the temple we went to Walmart to get a new suitcase because we bought so much stuff, we had to have somewhere to stuff it. That morning we had breakfast at the hotel and Mom ate pork sausage that she thought was turkey sausage. She has been watching what she eats, and apparently eating the pork sausage did not sit well with her. Poor thing ended up getting sick at the Walmart and running outside only to throw up in the flower bed. On Mother's Day. She felt better after ralphing, but still. No matter how many times you go to a grocery store outside of Utah, you still get caught off guard when you see all the hard liquor that they have for sale. Just out in the open. Riley was really worried that I put this picture on Instagram, which I didn't, but now it's on the blog, so I hope he doesn't mind. For the record, he didn't buy either of those. It was just a picture to show how big they both were. We probably looked like fools, but, we are. We spent a couple hours at Rach's house Sunday afternoon, hanging out with everyone. Played Wii bowling, Nicholas had Dad outside playing with his airplane, Mom and Rach just chatted.
Monday was pretty low key. By the time we had breakfast, it was already like 85 degrees outside, so I decided I would go to the pool. I was reading
The Giver and it was a great place to finish the book. Mom joined me. It was so nice just to sit in the sun. The afternoon rolled around, so we made our way to the airport. This time we learned our lesson, and ate before we got the airport. It made things much smoother. We ended up running into Rach at the airport dropping off her in-laws, so that was nice to say one final goodbye. It was a great trip, but there is nothing better than your husband holding you, so I was really excited to see my J.
On the 1st of June, John and I went out to the South Valley Regional Airport with most of his family to see the Memphis Belle. The plane, that was used in the moving Memphis Belle, not the actual plane was in town just for the weekend, and being a huge part of history, we all figured it would be a kind of cool to go out and see it. We definitely weren't disappointed. I was a little hesitant to go at first, because I didn't think I would enjoy it, but I am so glad I went because it was worth it. For $450 dollars you could take a half hour ride in the plane, around the valley. We all told Mike that they next time it comes into town, he better be prepared to pay for all of us to go. ;)
They were behind on the flights because they had to postpone some from Saturday due to wind, so we ended up hanging out for a couple hours waiting for the flights to end before we could go up to the plane, and through the plane. Miss Olivia is fascinated by everything, and wanted to take pictures of the "plane that goes up in the sky", so I let her hold it (while I kept a hold of the strap) and we showed her where you could see through the camera, and where you can click to take a picture. I'm not sure the latter was a smart idea, seeing as I had over 100 blurry pictures of her feet. But she was so cute with it. 
After that last flight had landed, they started lining up people to walk through the plane, and gave everyone permission to pass the yellow tape, and we were all free to walk around the plane, take pictures, look at everything. We thought that the line to go through the plan would move more quickly than it did, so no one stood in line at the beginning. We were there for probably another hour or two before we got in the plane. I think we stood in line for 40 minutes, because after realizing that the line wasn't getting any smaller, John figured someone should go stand in it. I took more pictures than probably necessary, but it was just so cool, I wanted to see every part of it! 
We finally were able to get up into the plane. It is WAY smaller than you would think. But when you think about how the guys in these planes were 18 and 19 years old, and the average height was like 5'6, then it makes sense why it is so small, and why they needed smaller guys to do this job. We sat and took pictures in the very front, I want to say it's a lead gunner seat, but I could totally be making that up. After we got out of that part of the plane, to head back, the guy directing traffic asked us to put up the net, because people weren't supposed to go in there! Whoops! So, I'm glad we went in when we did, because we got to go in there! 
