Fun times in Lakeland

It was wonderful to be able to spend a few days in Lakeland and see where they were living and what they were up to and what the weather was like. One of the highlights was getting to enjoy Lainey's wonderful cooking. Pictured here is the night we had homemade Pad Thai - even the sauce was homemade (see detail photo below). This was Saturday night and the girls were at a babysitting play group, so that's why it's just us. Sunday Lainy made a wonderful Lemon Chicken recipe from Cook's Magazine, and the girls and I set the table fancy. We closed the blinds and had a candlelight dinner :)
Earlier in the afternoon on Sunday while Lou was napping, Curly got dressed up in her Ariel's wedding dress costume and we went outside to take pictures for fun. (see picture below). Oh yes, the last picture here is from the garden center we went to Saturday. I couldn't help but take a picture because what was available there in the outdoor section of the garden center was so different from what's available at home in the snow right at the moment! Maybe this will give all of you out there in the snow hope that spring will come.
Here's a list of other things I got to do:
see Curly's preschool; play with the disney princess mat and figures with Curly; hear Lou recite part of "the proclamation on the family" from heart in her cute two-year old voice; sing songs in the car on the way home from the zoo; have both Curly and Lou come slip into the futon where I was sleeping in the early morning to get warm; dance in the family room with Curly and Lou; have Lainey help me with how to put photos on a blog; have Fisher take me to the airport and have that quality time to chat with him; help Lainey organize a cupboard (sucess! it all fit back in:); have a picnic on the family room floor with Lou; watch Curly draw a picture of her testimony after church on Sunday.

A visit to some friends

On Friday we took Curly to Pre-school, then Lainey, Lou and I went to a fun garage sale. After that I got to go to the "Trader Joe" grocery store that I've been hearing about from various friends for years (they did have lots of good stuff -including some of my favorite German and Dutch cookies.) After a couple other errands we picked up Curly and headed home for lunch and naps.
In the evening, I took the girls and Lainey and Fisher's car and we headed off on a little adventure. Pato and I have some good friends living in the Phonix area. It is about an hour drive from Lakeland. They have two little girls, so it seemed like a fun expedition to do with Curly and Lou. The girls played outside while I got a tour of thier awesome back yard, then we had a delicious dinner. After dinner the girls played with dress-ups and we had a little time to chat and catch up. In the photos here you can see (1) thier gorgeous tomato plants (2) three of the girls all dressed up - Curly is on the right. (3) Our friends' daughters, N and E. (4) the cool firepit area in their yard - when you are down in it it feels like you are out camping somewhere.
I had never used a GPS before and never driven in Phoenix before, so it was a little bit of an adventure to just take off, but everything went well and I think everyone had a good time.

The Zoo

When I was flying into Phoenix the man next to me pointed out the zoo. It was right by the airport and I had a great view of it from the right side of the plane as we were on our final approach. I was excited to see it since our plans were to go there as soon as I arrived. The zoo looked beautiful - lots of trees and lakes. Another thing I found interesting flying in is that the whole Phoenix area was dotted with small mountains - just a peak here and a peak there with houses or buildings nestled up to them. Near the zoo there were some blobby, southern Utah looking formations with arches in them.
Lainy and the girls arrived from Ikea to pick me up just as I reached the curb and we headed off to the zoo. It really was a neat zoo with very natural settings and some cool animals. We saw a komodo dragon, walked through a monkey area where squirrel monkeys roamed free in a natural setting and I saw a giant anteater. The zoo had a lot of interactive displays (including the giant shell in the picture and the tractor below) and had a very nice pettting zoo that included the pigmy Cebu (photo below.)
Traffic was really bad heading home, so I ended up dropping Lainy off at the elementary school for a meeting and took the car and the girls home. Between Curly, the GPS and the garage door opener, I managed to find the right house :)
For those of you who haven't been there, the house is all one level and has a really nice big kitchen/dining/family room. The girls' room was very cute with its new coat of bright pastel paint. Their newly planted garden was looking good with 9 tomato plants, 6 or so pepper plants and rows of corn, zucchini and onions all rapidly sprouting.
The weather the first day was sunny and nice, like a typical day in May where I live. Friday was the same and Saturday was hot - like a warm June day. By Saturday afternoon it was starting to get cloudy and there was a wonderful warm summer cloudburst. Sunday was cooler and it rained hard the whole day with thunder in the evening. Lainey commented that I had gotten to see the whole range of Phoenix weather except for the hot weather!