ARIZONA!

I got to go spend this past week in Arizona with Camille's family. How much fun!

I have never flown alone before so I was kind of nervous, but everything went just fine. I was waiting for it to be time to board the plane and sat next to a older man and woman who were tending to a young boy (probably about 6 or 7) in a stroller type of thing that was very physically handicapped. They were trying to get some sort of fluid into him through a hose hooked to his stomach because they wouldn't let them take the fluid on the plane. Seriously? I felt silly for being worried about getting my own self on the plane after watching them patiently handle the circumstances they were in.

Camille and Olivia were there to meet me when I got off the plane and totally spoiled me for the rest of the time I was there.

The weather there was just perfect. We went to a park there in Gilbert and had fun riding the train, feeding the ducks, and swinging.

We played with Olivia's animals and I made her a new one! Snake! She called it her worm though. Now she wants a caterpillar or calipater in her words.
Saturday morning we woke up early. Race today!

It was a beautiful morning, but quite cool and windy.

This was after we got registered for the run. Looking around I was pretty intimidated. Most of the people there were pretty serious runners. Camille runs quite a bit so she was pretty prepared for this. Me, not so much. I have been trying to run on the treadmill at the gym instead of doing the bike or elliptical machine but the farthest I had ran was about two and a half miles. I don't know what I was thinking! A 10 K ???

I felt good that morning though and really had a desire to accomplish this, so I just made up my mind that I would just do the best I could...I was mostly worried about holding Camille back. I told her I wanted her to just run at her own speed and not wait for me and she was just like, "OK, but you will be surprised to see what your body can do!" And I was! I'm sure it had a lot to do with the adrenalin of being in a big group of people, all excited to be running for a great cause. We started out running in the middle of this big herd of people, so we weren't going very fast, then the crowd thinned down...the speedy ones took the lead, the slower ones fell behind, and we were just kind of in the middle, going at a pretty decent pace. I didn't really feel too tired or out of breath, and before we knew it we had gone two miles!

The race was out in the farm lands of Queens Creek, so they had us running on dirt roads, which I think really saved me. It had rained a lot the past week, so the roads were still soft and even muddy in some places. You could really feel the difference when we had to go on the paved road for parts of the race.

We were able to run pretty much the whole race, only walking when we passed the places they were giving out drinks. Camille was great to encourage me and set little goals that kept me going. When we got to the last mile, you could hear people cheering and that was really encouraging. As we got closer, there were lots of people standing on the sides of the road cheering and clapping for us. Kellen and Olivia were there at the finish line waving at us too. Wow that was a great moment for me...I couldn't believe I had made it!

My face stayed this shade of crimson for about 3 hours. HA!

Camille had scheduled to get their family pictures taken Saturday afternoon. Auburn got some good shots of them.

How cute is my little bug?

O.K. she's had enough

We baked some favorites...sugar cookies, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, corn dip, and yummy fajitas!

Sunday we went to their church. They have a real big ward... very friendly people. It was fun to watch Camille and Kellen teach their sunbeam class. They have just recently been called to teach Olivia's class. They take turns teaching and it was Kellen's turn. (Camille was holding a little boy that would not stop crying) He was really cute with the kids...head shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes....He had thought of a cute story about Nemo to get the point across that our Heavenly Father loves us and is always there for us.

Olivia goes to this little music class that was really a hoot! It was in this ladies house and there were four or five other kids there with their moms. The teacher was adorable. She "sang" us into the living room where she had everyone sit in a circle and do all these fun things with music and rhythm. (Puppets, instruments, parachute, sticks, and silky scarves for dancing and twirling!) Olivia loves it!

There was the cutest little boy there...he looked just like K.C. when he was that age!
(remember when we thought K.C. looked like Mikie on that commercial?) I thought maybe it was just me, but Camille noticed how much he looked like him too.

We went to this place called Rancho Market and bought some strawberries...super cheap fruit and vegetables! That was an adventure in itself...so many people all speaking Spanish and very excited about the fruits and vegetables! Then we came home and made some strawberry jam.

Camille bought a plain bed ruffle for Olivia's bed and we busted out her new sewing machine and she sewed rick rack all around the bottom of it! Very cute! I'm afraid I started something bad by having Olivia sit on my lap while I sewed. Now she thinks that's just how it should be. " I will help you sew!" She is the kind of kid that you can trust to not get her fingers by the needle though, (you know how with some kids you would just say NO Way!) so it's just challenging reaching around her to try to sew straight. Camille did really well though. I hope she will keep using her sewing machine and learn to love it like I do.

Liv liked the snake I made her. She played with it all day!

Camille and I tried to do one of the P90X work outs every day. Big mistake doing back and legs after just abusing them like we did on Saturday. We were both walking like 90 year old's after that one! I kind of like the workouts though, really tough, and I only do about half of it, but I can feel myself getting stronger.

These are her Christmas jammies I finally got done last week.
We went out to lunch with Beverly Thursday before I had to leave. We went shopping with her too earlier in the week and had a real nice time. She is really good to Camille and I'm so glad she is there for her. She is always planning something fun for them to do or invites them over to their house for dinner or to watch a game. So even though I'm pretty envious that she gets to do all the fun everyday things with her, I'm glad that she has a good mother and father in law to love them and support them when we are so far away.

Olivia is pretty aware of what's going on around her. Wednesday, she started saying "Grandma, I want you to stay a while longer..." then she would pull my face up to hers and whisper like she was telling me a secret "promise you won't leave for a while grandma" This was not to mention the times when we would just be sitting together and she would pat my hand and say

" I love it when you stay at our house grandma!"

That makes it pretty tough to say goodbye. So I told her that I had to go home to take care of grampa and feed Lizzy. After she thought about that for a while, she said, "ok grandma, you better go home and feed Lizzy."

I sure had a nice time. Camille and Kellen really took good care of me and made me feel welcome and at home there.

It's always nice to be home though. Candice took off of work early to pick me up from the airport and came over and visited for a while. She is a peach! Thanks for keeping dad company and playing with Lizzy while I was gone!

Came home to a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a nice clean house. Feel so lucky to have this good man to come home to. I don't like to be away from him for that long...next time, we'll both go!.. Chewey too!