Trip to Arizona

This summer Carter and I spent a week in Arizona. David joined us for the weekend to celebrate my brother's wedding.

Carter's car seat fit great on the airplane. Just like last year, we had a little mishap with the car seat. This time, I brought a spare cover. Carter got a hold of some Soft Scrub (out of the gift bag for my brother and his new wife) and squirted it ALL OVER. The rental car seat was destroyed, I had to get a new harness for the car seat, 2 hats, shirt, pants, shoes.... His clothes were completely destroyed. We had to throw them away. He had it in his hair and all over his face. It was a disaster!! On the bright side, I had a spare cover and the rental car company did not charge us for the bleaching of their seat (the renters before me spilled red juice all over the back seat and it was pretty well stained from that, so the damage we did was looked over because of their previous damage.)

We did SO MANY fun things. We went to story times and playgroups. I kept Carter pretty busy. I tried to make it home in time for naps, but he didn't stay down. I settled for timing naps in the car.

I don't know if you can tell from this picture, but he has fallen asleep with a french fry in his mouth, mostly eaten. He was exhausted!!

Daddy called every day on his lunch break and we always stopped to talk to him.

His favorite stops were the temples. We stopped at the Arizona Temple in Mesa. He wanted to stay for hours.

In the Visitor's Center they had this little room with Prophet and the 12 Apostles. Carter spent almost an hour in this spot alone. He wanted to find them on the screen and hear what they were saying. The older couple who were serving a mission there had their mouths drop open when they heard this boy who hadn't even been 3 for a week identify almost all of the men in the pictures.

Then we went to find the Gilbert Temple and discovered that it isn't finished. They had a visitor's center (a construction trailer that had pictures and videos), and we spent quite a bit of time there too - twice.

Carter now thinks that all construction guys do is go to the bathroom. The first day we went, they were just leaving for the day - so the line started forming at the port-a-potties. Then the second day we went (I thought we left Carter's sunglasses there, but it turned out they had just fallen underneath his car seat.) they were just leaving for lunch, and that led to another line in the same place.

My mother threw Carter a birthday party - since it was so close to his birthday. She ordered a gluten-free/Dairy-free cake from a local bakery. She also got him dairy-free ice cream. It wasn't bad. I know I ate more than Carter did. Who knew you could find Gluten-free/Dairy-free Cookie Dough Ice Cream?????

Carter had been BEGGING my mother for a catcher's mask. Where he got the idea, I will never know. But, she got him one. Getting it home was another story!! He loves it. It is one of his favorite things!!

At the party, Carter got a lot of presents. He opened every one of them and showed the crowd. He was so proud and thankful for every gift. It was really cute to watch.

My mother also took us to the aquarium. It was a really neat place.

We got to visit with my grandmother also:

We went to visit my friend Erik from college. He is a fireman and took us on a tour of the fire station. Carter loved it. But, he was more excited that Erik played football. We went to Erik's house and watched football. Carter even got to try a real football helmet on! I don't know where this obsession with helmets comes from.

We saw a lot of cactus:

And got to spend some time just hanging out:

At my brother's wedding, Carter was in charge of carrying this sign instead of a ring. I love it!

He fell in love with the flower girl Felicity. You may remember her from last year's trip: Click Here 

When Felicity went home Carter cried. He didn't want to leave his friend. He still talks about her.

We had such a fun trip. Despite being pretty pregnant, and summer time in Arizona, we really enjoyed ourselves. Carter was a very big help, even in the airport.