Arizona Fun

I love road trips! I have been trying to have a girls' trip for the last couple of years and something always conflicts. When I found out that my favorite band was having a concert close by I decided to try again. My friend that lives in AZ also added another foster baby into their home so it was time to make this trip happen. I talked my friend Christin into coming along and worked out child care for the kids and away we went. The first group of pictures was of our adventures on the way there. I love minute marts. You can find the craziest stuff there! I just had to try out the beverage that sounded so promising! Yea, not so much! I love turtles and this little native store we stopped at had a huge one. I like turtles and all, but come on! Who would buy that? We saw plenty of interesting billboards, as evidence by the pic. So..... when this 100 calorie pack of strawberry cupcakes was made, did anyone look at them and think hmmmmm.... does that look like what I think it looks like?????? Hello!!!! We also found a fun looking country store with an equally fun name. We just had to stop and check it out. Apparently one of the price tags from the hat took up residence in C's hair. Good times!!!!
Our next set of lovely pictures occurred when Christin got all excited about seeing the cactus. We took a little pit stop to hike along the freeway to this tall prickly barrel of love. We just had to get an up close view and investigate the smell and texture. In case you are wondering.... there is no real smell and trying to carve your initials in one is no easy task. Even though they all have scars in them from lack of water or animal damage, they are still beautiful. I love it when I can spot one that looks like a person. So Fun!

It was so good to see my friend Jolene and all the babies. Jolene is a foster Mom and in the process of adopting the twins and just recently got their sibling as well. These babies' biological mother is 19 and those are babies 3,4 and 5 and were born addicted to meth!!!! So sad! But so lucky that they get to go to someone as wonderful as Jo! I just had to see my little buddies and enjoyed every minute of it.

After we loved on the babies for awhile we headed on over to the Mesa Temple. I am working on quite a collection of Temples that I have been in. It has been awhile since I have been in a session with so many people. It was packed and I also loved seeing all the old architecture. Very enjoyable and a great start to the day!

I forgot to include some of the shopping pics that were taken. That was another reason to go. We don't have that much good shopping here in good 'ole abq. We took Nate's truck so we could get some big things that C needed,but it ended up not being enough room to get everything home. Some of the boxes were just too long so we had to rent a trailer after spending an hour in the 105 degree weather with the most kind man ever that insisted on helping us. When we finally excepted our defeat we got the trailer and had to move everything yet again and then the air conditioning in the truck stopped working! This sent me into a twinkie and soda consuming pity party! We took the truck to an auto repair shop and C prayed fervently for a miracle! After sitting in the air conditioned waiting room for about 15 minutes they reported that all was well and there was nothing wrong. It miraculously healed itself. And no we aren't dumb blonds that didn't know how to work the a/c! It absolutely was not working!!!!

Anyway, back to lovely pictures above of the concert that brought us to AZ. It was amazing and fun and I may have drooled....just a little. I got to touch the arm of Jon from switchfoot and stare longingly into John's eyes from the ggdolls. We were in the 7th row right in the isle. AAHHHH! Such good times. I even almost had to kick some girls behind, so it was really awesome. The story is much too long, but she will forever be referred to as "Seriously B----" simply because those were apparently the only 2 words in her vocabulary. The more I ignored this girl the more it upset her and all my attempts at waving "bye bye" to her and then finally pulling out the big guns....."Do you want me to get security?" Didn't seem to phase her, so I was left with getting security and she was left with getting kicked out (or at least back to her ticketed seat- which she was not in). Awww, too bad! Seriously! haha Drunk people are so annoying!

So, there you have it. All the glorious fun that I had with 2 of my favorite people in the world in one of my favorite places of all time to visit!