Texas Trip 2009

Sophia and I just returned from a trip to Texas to see my parents and sister Amie. My niece Carly flew from Utah and met us at the Phoenix airport so we could travel together to Austin. As you can see Sophia was super excited to fly. It was fun because she's finally old enough to realize what going on an airplane means. Carly stayed busy with her gossip magazines, OK they may have been mine...what differnce does it make?

Sophia is REALLY shy and I thought it would take her a while to warm up since it had been almost a year since she'd seen them...not the case. As soon as she spotted them in the airport she started waving and smiling at them. She waisted no time being shy. My mom bought her a beautiful Christmas dress that she wore to church.

Dad was the brownie maker, this is their home which sits next door to Amie's. They own a 3 acre parcel together. It was very cozy and comfortable. I love sleeping with my kids and Sophia enjoyed our big attic room we shared. She'd sneak up there all the time to watch television. It was pretty funny.

My niece Kalina had several parts in The Christmas Carol play. She did a fabulous job and pulled off her English accent just perfect. Someone should have brought Amie flowers for driving the girls to Austin each week for their practices...she's pretty much super mom. She also made us delicious dinners. We went and saw the movie Blind Side and had to laugh at how similar Sandra Bullocks character is to my sister Amie. She's recently taken in a teenage girl who's parents have passed away. For that, and her 'say it like it is' personality...too funny!
What a great movie though, has me thinking about the years ahead when we can possibly get some 'live ins' of our own. That's how I was raised. I can think of 5 (not including family) that my parents took in when I was a kid. 3 Indians, 1 Mexican and an Australian. Sounds kind of crazy considering my parents had 7 children of their own.

This is Amie's house, the deer like to eat all their flowers. Sophia loved looking for deer and exploring all the wide open space.

My parents are currently serving an LDS (Mormon) mission at the Austin Bishop's Storehouse. They are really busy right now with the food orders for those struggling but they made the time to be gracious hosts to us. The boys (especially Kade) were sad they couldn't come, but they had some fun guy time with Kimball.

We had a nice trip and we look forward to the next. Thanks Mom, Dad and Amie for having us and Jason, thanks for the memorable night of family Christmas carols.