Mesa

 We had the kids miss the last day of school so we could head to Mesa to begin our Grand Canyon Extravaganza Trip. :) We put in so much time planning this trip, and the plans kept changing over and over again, and by the time the trip actually happened, the plans ended up real close to the original plan we had started with. The weather this winter was just crazy, and so the trail to the North Rim of the Canyon, along with the Lodge there, were closed. There was some hope that the trail would be open the week after we had planned to hike it, and so we moved everything around and extended the trip to hopefully be able to hike Rim to Rim. Then the opening date was actually pushed further back into June, and so after a few more adjustments, we decided to just hike it the end of May like we had originally planned. We were all feeling the exhaustion of changing plans and dealing with the unknown, and were excited to actually start the fun that we had been trying to arrange for so so long. :)

We needed a 15 passenger van to be able to get all the hikers where they needed to be, and so we rented one in Utah and drove it out to Mesa. The kids loved all the space on the drive! Although I thought it was really cute that Tessa and Damon sat right next to each other the whole time. :)

We had an appointment at Feed My Starving Children and headed straight there and made it in perfect time.

We love going here and helping fill nutritious meal pouches to be delivered to people all over the world who need it.

It was a great way to start our trip!!

Then we headed over to Matt & Lori's house and got all settled in. We were all excited to see Maizy again. She's such a sweet dog!

The kids loved loved loved swimming and hanging out with their cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents all weekend.

We went to the Gilbert Temple to do baptisms on Saturday morning. 

The teenage boys were real excited about taking pictures there. ;)

I stayed back with Tessa and Damon and we enjoyed the pool.

We spent the rest of the day in the pool and it was fun when everyone got back home and joined us!

We had some good games of volleyball.

And we all enjoyed relaxing and visiting too!

We went to Organ Stop Pizza for dinner that night. The atmosphere is really cool with a gigantic organ playing songs that the audience requests while you're eating yummy pizza and salad.

Tessa loved the tiny slices. :)

Rockwell was starving from a day of swimming and ate his whole pizza and a few slices of his siblings' too.

On Sunday we went to church and then made a nice big lunch before we hit the road heading to Page, Arizona. It was so much fun to stay at Matt & Lori's and they are always amazing hosts!!

Tessa got some good naps every time we were in the van...

...and Grandpa did too. :)