We headed to Mexico by first stopping in Arizona to visit our friends from Lubbock that now live in Queen Creek, the Hyde's. It was so good to see them and catch back up on life. It's nice to be around people that are comfortable and easy to get along with. The kids had so much fun together. They showed us around the Mesa temple and visitors center, that was completely different than when I was a kid and walked there all the time. The second evening the adults were able to go to Top Golf while the kids stayed at the house together. All of us had so much fun that night! The kids loved the freedom of staying home with no adults, and we had a great time 'golfing'. We didn't get to spend a whole lot of time with our friends, but I'm really glad we were able to see each other. We left Sunday morning and drove into Mexico! We actually went to church with them in our street clothes to take the sacrament. I'm really glad we made that effort. We also left one of the cheapest place to buy gas (Texas) to two of the most expensive places in the country (Arizona and California) while gas prices were higher than they have ever been (over $5/gallon). It was not a cheap trip!
We brought a lot of food with us to try and cut back on costs. We found our first rest stop and the kids were still excited about the trip that eating sandwiches didn't bother them. The novelty wore off pretty quickly, but $50 per fast food joint hits the bank hard, so we persisted much to their dismay.
Bentley can find a place to pose no matter where we go.
Arizona was beautiful. We drove through Tonto National Forest and it was so pretty. The temperature made a significant increase by the time we made it down to the Phoenix area, about 40 degrees difference.
There was also a mass exodus of the city heading towards the mountains, so we were really happy we were going the opposite direction and didn't have to deal with the traffic. The kids were all excited to see the large cactus. And we saw plenty!
This girl tried her hardest to stay up, but it was so late by the time we went to sleep.
Emily and Bentley had matching pj, so I had to find this picture of Damon and Connor matching too from the last time we saw the Hydes, 6 years ago.
Pretty girls!
The Temple and Visitors Center
This game was fun! You had to try and find as many of the temples as possible in a certain amount of time. Geography was super important. Maybe this is why Kyler learned all the countries of the world when we came home!
This was a cool mural, we all got to color it!
A quiet place for reflection or to yell as loud as you can and see if others outside can hear you. I'll let you guess how Damon used it!!
"I was a picture with Jesus Mom!"
Ice cream at the BYU creamery around the block.
I love this temple!
Top Golf
Kenney did awesome, as to be expected. He dusted off his retirement from his hole-in-one.
Such a fun night!
Pretty views and it was surprisingly not too hot outside (the fans and misters helped).
Love this guy!
Far off in the desert you can see the border 'wall'
This is what it looks like up close.
Not quite our best dress, but at least we went. I told Damon he blew our cover by wearing a BYU shirt because we couldn't pass for investigators.
The kids had a lot of fun playing this game at the visitors center. They tried to light all of them up.
I am no golfer, and these were my first swings, but it really was a blast!
Kenney never had any issues hitting the ball like me.
I got a little bit of air under the ball that time!
This is what the entire drive from Phoenix to the beach looked like, unless we were in a little town.
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