Playing in Phoenix

We have finally gotten to the part in our two month vacation that brings us to Phoenix.  This is what happened.  For August, Cody and I first vacationed in D.C. for a week then came back to Milwaukee. Then me and Tal flew to Utah to hang out with my family for three weeks, while Cody stayed home in Milwaukee to work on school things; CV, resume, Personal Statement, studying for Step 2, getting letters, etc.  Even though it was hard for Cody to be away from us, he needed the time without  the distractions we could cause.  He was able to get a lot done before his away rotation for September in Phoenix.  A week before his rotation, Cody drove by himself, from Milwaukee to Monticello (about 26 hours), where he then would also have to come pick us up from Powell.  After our week in Monticello, we drove the 6 to 7 hours down to Phoenix.  Cody's older, and kind brother, Clay, his beautiful, and talented wife, Heather, and their cute, and smart son, Zane, were all there to greet us.  Clay is in his 3rd and last year of Pharmaceutical School at Mid Western University. Heather has a degree in business, taught preschool for many years and is good at a plethora of other things, including; photography, crafts, cooking, and she also works at a yoga studio (I told you she was talented).  Zane is close to two months younger then his cousin Talmage, about 20 months in this picture and he is a riot.  Our entire time in Phoenix, Heather cooked and fed all of us most of the nights, came up with fun outings for us girls and our babies to go do, gave me D5000 manual mode camera lessons, and even bathed Talmage several times. Clay of course was around only after school every night and Cody was around only when he wasn't on call (which wasn't often), but the two were able to get in some good game time, including Gears of War 3! 

After dinner and a visit, these guys showed us to the apartments that we would be staying at for the month. It worked out that this friend of theirs, Kevin, had an apartment he was living in for only another month and his wife and children had already moved to Utah. So we paid half his rent and had two rooms, bathroom and a kitchen basically all to ourselves the entire time.  We hardly ran into Kevin, only a few times, but he was very nice and generous to us. It worked out well, especially when you see the next several pictures of the place we stayed.  It is called..... 

San Lagos

They had gas barbeque grills by every apartment too.

And a beach!

The perfect pool

Lets just say we got a screaming deal.

The next day was Labor day.  Heather and Clay invited us over for a BBQ, it was hot, we are talking high 90's into the 100's of degrees or so, but we all swam afterwards to cool off.  The only picture I took that day was of Zane and Uncle Cody.

Every day there was always something to do.  Like I said, Heather planned so much, it was fun.  The next day we went to Playland Factory, an indoor jumping house.

Even I was a little scared of this slide...I would have made the same faces as Zane and Talmage.

This is Brea and Ashlyn?  They were so sweet and fun to be with too.

I died laughing when I saw what my nephew was doing here...

I couldn't decide which picture was funnier so I added both.

Talmage loved climbing all over this maze, obstacle thing.

He loved it so much in fact, he wouldn't even stop for a 1 second picture.  It was a good attempt though Heather. Even Zane was trying to escape.

The bouncy slide was crowded with bigger kids just zooming past Talmage, who was trying SO hard to get up.

Once he got up, he decided he didn't want to go down the slide after all, so he got even with the big kids by getting in their way, by going down the up.  hee hee hee

He is very much in to driving and cars these days.  The instant he saw this, he had to try it out of course.

That SAME DAY, at the SAME Mall, was an outdoor splash pad, so we headed there next.

Zane is such a goober!  I love him. Here he is EATING the water, not DRINKING it... but literally chewing on it.

Talmage did the smart thing and CHEWED on some real food.  

 It was a very long and very exciting day, which is why Tal zonked out the minute he laid on our air mattress when we got home.  (Ian and Franki, our dear friends who live in Phoenix, lent it to us for the entire month.  Life Savers).