Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving we all went to Suzy's daughters house. She lives in Mesa, which is about a two hour drive from here.

It was pretty nice not to cook the big feast for everyone.  Mike smoked a turkey and Nikki prepared all the fixin's. It was delish!

We hung out in the backyard. Of course in Phoenix, it was warm enough for shorts!

Here's sweet Aunt Nikki with my three kids.

My Dad and Nikki's son, Brett.

My lovely niece and her boyfriend.

On the left is Amanda, Nikki's daughter. Then, Mike's Mom and sister came too. They were so sweet. It was great to meet them.

My Mom took this photo of the five of us.

I took two pictures the whole time. Bad of me, but I didn't have my phone out.  

Unlike these three on the sofa.  My dad and Emily were texting each other.  HA!  :)

And here's the whole crazy bunch.  My lovely mom is there on the left, and all the rest of us. Talk about one big blended family. The crazy part is we all get along and love each other. We genuinely do!  And that is a lot to be thankful for.

Sedona

I can't believe I haven't blogged in a month. I've just been busy and uninspired to write I guess.  We took a day trip to Sedona for our 15th anniversary.

The kids loved the sand. It's silky smooth and red. They would've been fine to just stay there and play in the sand all day.

Someone drew a cool sun in the sand. Sedona is very hippy, earthy, free spirit, that kind of place.

We started off on the hike. I had read about the hike so I knew it wasn't too hard for the kids. And I found a side hike that made it a little more challenging.

The scenery was awesome.

This part was straight up to that arch. The rest of us stayed back. This was the side hike and there wasn't really a trail, just rock and cactus.  David went all the way to the arch.

We tried to get a picture of us, but it was way to shaded.

At the end of the trail, you hike up again and it's got a great view.

Here's our other attempt.

It really was just gorgeous around every turn.

Then, we had a yummy lunch at Wildflower. It was a 3 day weekend, so Sedona was packed. I mean BUSY. It's awful when it gets that bad. Next time, I'll bring a picnic and we will forgo the main area.

All in all, it was a nice trip.

And look at these two. I never thought I'd see the day.