The best vacation ever.......- Roman

Just last weekend, we went out to Az to visit the WHOLE family. Papi was visiting from Chicago for the week, so we were all together for the first time since Adrian's wedding... almost 8 years ago.

The boys are at a great age, where they remember their cousins and get excited to see them. The timing was rough though, because all the kids were in school. But, we decided to let the kids miss school on Friday, and we went out Thursday straight from school.

We stayed with Adrian and Nichole and family, who are always so good to us. Poor Martin got kicked out of his room, again. Which I think he is used to by now, he's such a sweet "kid", if I can call him that any more!!

We arrived at about 830 at night, and the kids were exhausted and begging for bed. I guess they weren't too tired though, because they were up before SIX the next morning, watching cartoons with Sighris. I blame that AZ sun! I swear it came up at 5 am.

Nichole and Adrian went to work, and the boys went to school, and it was just us. Papi was half an hour away at Julie's house. I tried to get Ben to call his dad earlier that week and let him know that we were coming out TO SEE HIM and that we would be there ON FRIDAY. But Ben was working so much to get ready for the long weekend, that plans never got made.

So we had some breakfast and lounged around a little bit. Then we decided to get some lunch and then put the boys down for a nap and go to Julie's after Martin and Sighris got home from school.

So there we were, at 430 in the afternoon, heading to Julie's. Ben could have worked a full day Thursday, the kids could have gone to school Friday morning, and we could have STILL gotten to Julie's at the same time as we did. I've said it, I'm not going to dwell on it.

We got to Julie's and tried to make plans of where we were going to go and what we were going to do. I had mentioned Golf Land to Ben, who mentioned it to Adrian, who said that Fiddlesticks was closer. I was thinking we could do something like that with Papi while the other kids were in school. But we decided to do it as a big old group on Friday night. We hemmed and hawed for an hour
about where to go, when we found a good coupon to Amazing Jakes. An indoor family fun center.

Amazing Jake's was pretty awesome, but not cheap. They had go-karts, and fair rides, and laser tag (the older kids loved that, my boys didn't do it), mini-golf, bowling, and a pizza and salad buffet. The boys had a BLAST. The hard part was that Aaron couldn't do too much, but by the end he got to go on a few rides and things ended on a good note. Speaking of "ending"... we totally closed that place down!! We were there until TEN THIRTY at night!! Then we had to drive 45 mins to Maricopa! We got home about 1115, and moved the kids beds into our room, so that Papi could have Sighris's room. By time Roman got into bed, he had a 2nd wind. He started talking about how this was the best vacation ever, and he wanted to know if it was midnight yet.

The next morning, the boys slept past 8! Is that all it takes?? We had a nice breakfast, and then started making plans for the family bbq that afternoon. Nichole and I went to WalMart to get the supplies, and came home with a little extra something for the boys... Squirt guns :) I had brought some water balloons, so we filled those, and the kids had a little water fight. The kids all got into it, and I ended up in the crosshairs somehow. Fortunately, every one dried off pretty quickly, thanks to that good old AZ dry heat.

The bbq was fun. The cousins all played really well together. Isaac and Adrianna were thick as theives, it was so cute. The food was good. Ben got to do the grilling, because poor Adrian had some kind of stomach flu and din't want to contaminate the rest of us! The food was good, Roman had about 12 helpings of soda, what can I say? We were on vacation :P

I told Nichole that if she made Aaron a pink cake, that she would be his favorite forever. She did even better than that, she let him help! He LOVES to help in the kitchen, and I don't let him do it nearly enough. They made the cake Saturday night, after the bbq, but the boys all went to bed before it was cooled and frosted.

Sunday morning, the first thing Aaron asked was where his birfday cake was. I told him, but also informed him he couldn't have any until after lunch. He went down stairs and ate some lucky charms for breakfast, and then asked if he could have some cake now. He still doesn't differentiate between breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Nichole let him frost it while she made another delicious breakfast, and then she found 4 packs of sprinkles and let Aaron, Adrianna and Sighris decorate the cake. Aaron didn't really get it, and just dumpled his sprinkles all in one spot. It was adorable, and scary :) Then Nichole wrote on the cake with pink icing (because Martin would not let her get strawberry frosting!).

We went to Sacrament meeting, and then came home for some lunch before hitting the road. And of course cake. One of the best boxed cakes I have had in a long time.

We made it home without stopping for food, and Aaron got a much needed 3 hour nap. I had made dentist appts for the boys for Monday, so when they were asleep at 745, I decided to just let them sleep in and go to school after their appts. THAT is the way to end a vacation!! Usually we get home and just jump into the rush. It was nice to just sleep in :)