Mesa, Arizona

To celebrate Mark completing his thesis, we decided to take a vacation. This was actually the first time it was just our family vacationing since Matthew was born. I've always wanted to visit San Francisco, but after a bit of research I realized that San Diego was a better fit for us. It was cheapest to rent our San Diego hotel from Sunday to Thursday, but Mark had the Friday before that off. The perfect solution: go visit my old roommate Sheredith Haws for the weekend. Thus, on to Mesa, Arizona, we went.

The drive down was long, but the kids did great. Matthew watched Toy Story on my tablet over and over and over again. We arrived at Sheredith's house late in the evening, and had fun catching up with her. She lives in her parents' house while they are serving a mission. It was really fun to see where she grew up in comparison to my hometown. The whole Phoenix valley was one large city. One interesting thing that stuck out about Sheredith's neighborhood was that all the houses where one-story with large basements. Which makes sense given Arizona's brutal summers. It was November and 80 degrees outside.

While Sheredith was at school, we went to a park and let the kids play. Then in the evening, Sheredith took us to the Mesa Temple, which had tons of citrus trees on its grounds. For dinner we went to a restaurant called Organ Stop Pizza. It's a pizza place with a large dining hall where you watch organ performances. They had a large organ with all kinds of crazy attachments - pianos, drums, bells, lights, puppets, a bubble machine. The performance was amazing. And you could request songs, and he could play basically everything. If you are ever in Mesa, it's a must-see.

On Saturday, we went hiking at Usery Mountain Regional Park, part of the Sonoran Desert. Out of all the sections of desert we saw on our vacation - which would be a lot since we drove along the US - Mexico border in southern Arizona - the Sonoran Desert was one of the prettiest. The saguaros cactus were amazing. There were some gigantic ones at the park which most have been ancient. It takes 70 years to grow an arm, and there were some with six arms. After our hike, we watched Les Miserables while the kids napped. We capped it off with cooking marshmallows over a fire, and it was a wonderful trip.

Matthew swinging

Hannah swinging

At the Mesa Temple

At Usery Mountain Regional Park

With a saguaro

Sheredith and I

Matthew