Our vacation to Arizona was wonderful! We had such a great time. We had a week full of relaxing, shopping, eating, and visiting with friends and family. Unfortunately, my Grandma was sick for most of our stay, so we did not get to see her as much as we would have liked :( It gives us a reason to go out there again soon!
Ashlyn did a terrific job in the car on the ride down there. We were worried that she would get antsy or annoyed to be in her car seat for 12 hours. We did have a portable DVD player that was a lifesaver! Of course, the DVD player quit working 1/2 way through, but we managed to keep her entertained. I expected Ashlyn to sleep for a good portion of the trip, she always falls asleep in the car when we are out and about. Well, for some odd reason, she only slept for an hour or so. I think she was just having too much fun with her Mom, Auntie, Gram, and Papa. We were all very pleased with how well she did and I was proud of my girl!
Ashlyn got to see lots of kids when we were there. She got to see my cousins, Luke, Eliza, and Nathaniel. My friend Jen came over one day with her 3 kids. Ashlyn had a blast playing with them and being around other kids. Ashlyn also got to see her best friend, Nadia. Nadia seems to like Ashlyn a lot, and Ashlyn just adores Nadia. She loves tickling her feet and giving her kisses. The two of them are too cute together!
I have included two more posts below, but we did a lot on our vacation. We went to the zoo, swimming, and even to the train park. We took Ashlyn to the train park when we were down there last May. She was just 6 months old and did not show much interest of course. This time she loved the train. She just sat very still the whole ride and looked around. I definitely want to make it a tradition to go every time we are down there. We did a lot of eating out and Ashlyn discovered a love for frozen yogurt!
One of Ashlyn's favorite moments was when she got to push her own cart at Trader Joe's. Ashlyn has started to love "pushing" the cart when we are shopping. Well, Trader Joe's has special kid sized carts. We gave her one to push and she went crazy! She was running through the aisles just laughing and laughing. It was so cute!
We were very sad to see our vacation come to an end. We look forward to our next visit out there sometime in the near future. Ashlyn's next big trip will be to New York this summer. She can't wait to see all of her family out there and show them how much she has grown!
I return back to work this week. It will be hard to go back after 2 weeks of vacation. I only have 8 weeks left of school. I was hired on a temporary basis, so I am starting to look for positions for next year. Please pray that something comes my way. Teaching jobs are very hard to come by out here. In other news, we have started work on finishing our basement. Our living/family room space is very limited in this house, so we decided to finish the basement to give us lots of room to spread out. I will post pictures of the work in progress. We are hoping the project does not take too long!
Ashlyn wearing Auntie's cool shades!
Holding Auntie and Papa's hands at the park
Running around on the green grass
Sitting at Mom at a delicious German restaurant.
Such a big girl
Buckling in her new spider monkey into the stroller.
Feeding her very thirsty spider monkey milk.
She even let me put her hair into a ponytail. It is getting so long!
A picture with Auntie
A picture with Mom
The two of us being goofy
Ashlyn with her Uncle. She loves giving him kisses.
In my Grandma's backyard
She loved looking at all of the pretty flowers.
We discovered that Ashlyn is quite good at dribbling a soccer ball when we were out there. We think a soccer career may be in her future!
More soccer ball fun
What a big girl!
Ashlyn pushing her own cart.
Riding on the train.
She really enjoyed the ride.
Play time with Nadia 
Giving Nadia kisses
The last night we were there, we ate at a really neat restaurant that was adjacent to a farm. It was so beautiful. This is Ashlyn running down the farm road. 
