We started out March with a trip down to Arizona to visit Daniel’s brother who was living at a ranch near Phoenix, and also to go to some Spring Training baseball games.
We spent a night in Vegas on the way down. Dinner at Cheesecake Factory at Caesar’s Palace:
And the Nike store. The kids thought it was fun to walk around and look at stuff and copy the mannequins’ poses. They weren’t very good at this, except for Rachel (you can’t tell from the angle of her picture, but she totally nailed it).
Henry decided to find an easier mannequin to copy, and things went a little better.
Then we watched the fountains at the Bellagio like we were at the end of the Ocean’s Eleven movie.
The next day we drove the rest of the way to Arizona and went straight to a Mariner’s Spring Training game. These five were happy to be there super early in their Mariners gear to get a bunch of autographs and talk to players and things.
I don’t remember exactly what was going on here (two years ago!), but I’m guessing from the looks of this that Cindy was feeling grumpy for some reason and opted to rest on this blanket in the shade with her Jonathan Lucroy bobblehead.
Watching players warm up, waiting for autographs:
Hanging out with cousins! One of Daniel’s sisters lived in the Phoenix area at the time, and his mom and another one of his brothers had come down from Utah to visit the ranch, too, so we all got to spend a lot of time with each other.
After the game we headed over to the ranch to hang out with Daniel’s brother.
He gave all the kids a tour, and they got to feed horses and check out the chicken coop he had built:
Then everyone got a turn riding horses, which made it about the best day ever.
At the end of the night we walked all around the ranch and he showed the kids some of the jobs he did, and one of them involved spraying off some gigantic pigs, and clearly something exciting was happening here, because Lizza’s face!
The next morning we went to Dunkin Donuts for breakfast, which was a pretty exciting start to our day. It’s funny how many specific food memories I have from all the different trips we’ve been on. Years ago, Daniel and I were in Boston for one of our couple trips, and even though we never eat doughnuts at home, for some reason we ended up eating breakfast at Dunkin Donuts kind of a lot (it seems like there is one on every corner there). Every time I see a Dunkin Donuts now, I think of Boston. And maybe now my kids will think of Arizona (until this summer, when we’re taking them on a trip back East, and we can all go eat doughnuts in Boston, and then they can think of Boston, too).
This actually reminds me of a fun game we like to play in our family, usually around the dinner table, or once in awhile when we’re all driving somewhere and kids are fighting and I need to distract them. Our kids call it “The Trip Game”, but really it’s just 20 questions, except the thing that they pick for everyone to guess has to be a moment from any one of the trips we’ve been on as a family (Example: Was it in 2013? Yes! Was it on our Canada road trip? Yes! Was it when we went to that one grilled cheese restaurant really late at night after we went to the roller coaster place in Ohio and Henry was so tired he fell asleep on the bench and never got to eat dinner? Yes! Your turn!)
After breakfast we stopped by Daniel’s sister’s house to do some quick Lego playing with cousins, and then we all headed over to another Spring Training game.
Here’s Rachel playing catch with Uncle Nic:
And Cynthia with her mitt on the ground, happily making a set-up and blowing a whistle:
Oliver getting autographs:
Hanging out:
Dinner in Scottsdale with everyone after the game:
Treats with Grandma at the Sugar store:
After dinner and treats we all headed over to Daniel’s sister’s house to hang out by the fire and do some wild dances.
There aren't really words to describe Henry's dance style.
Taking a break from the wild dancing to get some coloring done:
And to cuddle with the dog:
Cuddling with the dog was probably Cindy’s favorite part of the trip.
The next day we hung out some more, played some ball in the backyard, and then headed back home to Utah.
On the drive home we stopped at the Coral Pink Sand Dunes and Bryce Canyon.
Cynthia hustling to catch up:
Trekking across the sand dunes in her pajamas. For some reason everyone was in their pajamas, and I feel like it made sense at the time, but now I can’t remember why.
Six little Motts in a row:
Somersaulting down the dunes:
Beautiful Bryce Canyon:
It was a good trip.
Other March Things Besides Our Phoenix Trip:
Building a small fire out by the back garage just for fun:
Multi-tasking. My children inherited this ability directly from me (that's probably where they got their dancing skills, also)
Fly-fishing:
Hanging out with cousins at family dinners:
The Backyard Project. This actually was the coolest thing we did in March. There were lots of different stages. It started out with a plan to clear out a bunch of the dead wood/sticks/misc stuff out from behind our yard. This stage also included buying a fire pit that we put out behind our back garage. For seats we used a bunch of stumps that we had gotten off of our old lot.
Fire pits are so fun.
Eating dinner out by the fire. Things I love about these pictures: The deer and mountains in the background. Cindy’s outfit.
Lizza hard at work. We had to clear out a bunch of dead thorn bushes, and after we brought them all up to the pile, we started chopping them up into little pieces and burning them. I don’t know why she’s wearing snow boots. It’s hard to manage appropriate outdoor gear for six kids all at the same time.
Here is Oliver burning a whole bush:
Taking a break to roast some marshmallows:
Oliver and Henry might have stayed out by the fire pit for a week straight after we got it. It was constantly being used. I didn’t realize it was something that had been missing from our lives until we got one.
Here are some before and after pictures from the area we were clearing out. Before we cleared it out, we thought that between our grass and the hill behind it there was just a deep ditch; we didn’t realize until we started pulling out all the dead wood and junk that there was a nice flat area down there.
Once we got it all cleared out (it took a lot of work days with the kids to get it to this point), we decided to move the fire pit down there.
Stairs, and hard workers.
Grandma and some cousins came over to help us test out our new spot.
More March Things:
General Women’s Conference with my mom and grandma. I am happy for my kids that we live close to family again so we can do things like this.
And Easter! Family gathering with lots of holding babies, searching for treats, and hanging out.
That’s it for March.
