Building Roots, Growing Shoots: Arizona in a Nutshell

Not to make excuses or anything, but we've been sick and busy since January, so blogging has been a low priority. There have been some momentous events to blog about, though, so I'll just get down to business.

For Christmas, we traveled to Arizona to celebrate a very special 100th birthday ~ my grandmother's. We had a huge family gathering, consisting of a total of almost 30 aunts, uncles, cousins, and their kids. Most of the family that didn't make it that week were there on Granny's actual birthday, December 15th. Getting this much of the clan together is quite an accomplishment, given that we live as far east as Michigan and as far west as California.

In addition to celebrating Granny's birthday, we had the chance to see Grandpa T, who lives just a couple hours from Granny, and Uncle Derek and his girlfriend Candice. We also had a nice visit with them, having been nearly a year since we'd seen Grandpa T, Samuel's first visit with Uncle Derek, and the first time any of us had met Candice. Pretty exciting, really.

Aside from fun family time at Aunt Carolyn's and at Grandpa T's, we enjoyed a nice visit to the Out of Africa Wildlife Park and Montezuma Castle with my cousin Roslyn and her family; a visit to a really fun local park with cousins Addison, Emme, and Brennan; a stop in at the local train show; and a really cool holiday light show at the Phoenix Zoo. Samuel also decided that we need to have a xeriscaped yard here, because he loved playing in all the rocks at Aunt Carolyn's and Grandpa T's house.