week with reynolds

The day after Christmas, we loaded up the car and headed for Arizona to spend the week with the Reynolds side of the family! This was our first time seeing mom and dad's new home. It's beautiful! We also really enjoyed spending lots of time with the Curtis family (Gerald's sister) who live just down the street!

We made lots of fun memories, including:

• Spending lots of time outside, as the weather was beautiful! Katelee loved jumping on the trampoline, running around with her cousins, and walking to the park to play.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

• Visiting the Mesa Temple to see their fabulous light display. It was stunning, as always!

Warm and snug. :)

• Visiting the Mesa Temple visitors center, where we got to see nativity sets from around the world. Beautiful! This made me really want to start a nativity collection...

We loved this one from Kenya made from soda cans.

• Blake got to meet his Grandma and Grandpa Reynolds for the first time, as well as Aunt LaVon, Uncle Kelly, on all the cousins. :) Naturally, everyone loves him to pieces!

• Going to Grandma and Grandpa's favorite restaurant, Organ Stop Pizza. It was really fun! They have a show and music while you eat, featuring a professional organist with all the stops and whistles. Think bubbles, dancing animals, drums, cymbals, lights, flags, etc. He takes and plays requests all evening, and he played my request of Phantom of the Opera. We all think this would be the perfect job for grandpa someday. :)

Katelee loved the show!

Like father, like son. ;)

Blake slept right through the whole performance. :) We'll have to go again someday when he is older and can enjoy it more.

• Visiting the sight where the new Gilbert temple is being built. If you know Gerald, the design and construction of temples is his passion! He really enjoyed the presentation they have there where you can learn all about the temple, it's design, and even see the floor plans, etc.

• Being silly! Katelee loved playing with her cousins. :) And their toys.
  

• Swimming! Yes, swimming in December! Gotta love Arizona winters. :) This was Katelee's dream come true!

• Watching It's a Wonderful Life and snuggling with grandma. :)

• Making gingerbread houses - a Reynolds' family tradition and always a ton of fun!

Creating . . . or eating?

• Playing Just Dance on the Wii! With additional singing provided by Katelee. Love it! :)
  

• Celebrating a Happy New Year! We enjoyed delicious hawaiian haystacks for dinner and our traditional fruit slush - YUM! Then we played games, including Chutes and Ladders and pool. We counted down and hollered and were just generally silly! What a fun New Years' Eve with grandma and grandpa!

• On New Years Day, Gerald sang a duet with his mom at church. Then we loaded up the car and started our LONG road trip home.

We were sad to leave our family, we had such a wonderful time making memories and spending time together! But we had been gone for 17 long days, and were also ready to get back home and back to normal. It took two days to get home, we stayed a night in Santa Fe, New Mexico. But the road trip went smoothly, the kiddos being GREAT travelers as always. :) We took this picture of Blake in his car seat around the time we crossed the New Mexico / Colorado border.