Opposites Attract

The last 2 weekends were spent in opposite climates. A quick winter weekend trip to Okoboji to embrace all winter has to offer and a 5 day to Arizona to visit my inlaws. 

Backing up a smidge. The Friday we left for Boji was the kids Valentine's Day parties at school. Stella's last holiday class party since next year she will be upstairs in the middle school! Say what!?

Stella came home from school saying she wanted to make a Vday box. I was kinda surprised and had actually just gone to the dollar store that day and picked out Vday bags to put their Valentines in for both of them. Oh, well! She looked on Pinterest and decided she wanted a football field box, but wasn't too interested in doing the work herself. LOL! So since I was left in charge it certainly wasn't amazing, but she liked it. All P wanted was a gold box, so I bought some gold paper and wrapped a box. Easy and done!

Porters class had their field trip to the Science Center that same day, so they were at the SCI from 9:30-2, Vday party from 2:30-3 and school dismissed at 3:20. Pretty great day for him!

My group of boys. Andrew, Josh, Leo, Hank and P. These are the boys he hangs with the most in his class, so it was fun to spend the day with them and see them interact. 

We (moms and kids) left for Boji around 4:30 that afternoon. The guys actually all left around 10 that morning "to get everything ready" which means they wanted the snowmobiles for themselves before the kids got there. 

There was a lot more snow up there!

When the kids weren't outside they played iPads, Wii, tag upstairs, watched movies and built forts like this one. 

We celebrated Eric's birthday. 

Rosy red checks after playing in the frozen tundra. 

Jeff brought up his 3 snowmobiles. There are 2 big ones and a smaller kiddie one. This year Eric, Porter and Austin S. and Leo were old enough to drive the big ones on their own. They thought that was a big deal!

Safety first! Stella ready to drive one of the big ones. 

Grant, Stella and Averie. She will make a great babysitter in a few years. 

Tuesday evening found us on a plane bound for Phoenix! The kids didn't have school on Thurs or Fri, so they just missed Wednesday. Steve and Linda moved to Litchfield Park over the summer a western suburb and only a half mile from Chris and Kim. They are in the same neighborhood now so that was really fun! Hop on the golf cart and buzzed all over the place. I now realize I didn't get any pics of C&K!  It was great to see them and they are due with a baby boy the end of August! Kim looks beautiful!

Chilling in the pool, soaking up some much needed Vitamin D! His freckled really popped out from the sun. Love that!

iPads are more fun in the sun. Ha ha!

Splashing Grandpa 

Lots of pool time. Their house in on a golf course. I'm sure our crew didn't improve anyone's golf game with all our noise! 

Grandpa was so good getting in to swim and play with the kids. 

One day we toured the Arizona Cardinals stadium. It's HUGE! We got to tour the visitors locker rooms, suites and main level. It was very interesting. This was really fun especially since P became a big Cardinals fan a month or so ago. Steve and Linda live just 15-20 min from the stadium. 

They were setting up for a big motorcycle show on the main floor. 

Over 64,000 seats!

Maybe I'm the only who didn't know this, but the football field turf is on a bed that rolls in and out of the stadium, you can see it in the background. It's rolled in just for NFL games and takes about 75 minutes to roll all the way in. 

This is the courtyard you walk through to the front door. That door next to Stella isn't the front door, but a door for the "mother-in-law" suite. It's a beautiful house! This was a perfect place to play with some remote control cars. 

The same area, there a sitting area with outdoor fireplace. 

Looking out from the great room to the patio/pool. They have a wall of windows that push all the way into the wall and create a big indoor/outdoor space. 

Pool with the waterfall on. 

We completed a jigsaw puzzle! 

Went to a Wildlife zoo one day. Touching Stingrays! Eek!

We hiked the White Tank Mountains. Would love to go back and try a harder trail, we were limited on time that morning. 

At the end of our trail was a "waterfall", but really just a large puddle of water this trip. 

Last night we met up with Steve/Carolyn, Haney's, Casey's at Rawhide, a Wild West town in Chandler. There was a ton to do and we only got to see about half of it. Will definitely go back. I really wish I had a pic of the adults! The kids had so much fun together. They were a riot!! 

First (hopefully last!) time riding a mechanical bull!

Locked up! Connor was getting his pic taken with the actors from the gun show we had just gotten done watching so he's not in the pic. I kept teasing Matt that he wore that Iowa shirt just to make Mike and I mad! And he probably did! Hahaha!

Panning for gold!