Vacation Part 2

Saturday morning came quickly and it was already hot (have I mentioned that it gets really hot in Phoenix)...we had a nice, free continental breakfast at our hotel (they had make your own waffles - Joshua loved it!) got our stuff ready and went back over to the siblings Marriott and went swimming for an hour or so before it was time to head back to our hotel (they were only about 5 minute apart) to get ready for the wedding. We got to the Mesa Temple around 1:15 because Brian's dad had wanted him there early to help him...the wedding wasn't until 2:15 and the rest of the family was getting there at 1:45. Both boys were asleep in the car by the time we'd driven the fifteen minutes from our hotel to the temple. Nathaniel woke up and I fed him - while sitting in the air conditioned car. When he was finished I woke Joshua up and got out the stroller for Nathaniel and we walked around and looked at the temple for a few minutes...we saw Brian's brothers and sisters as they arrived and went in and then the boys and I went into the visitor's center. Joshua was thrilled because there was a large statue of the Christus just like at the Oakland Temple's visitor's center. He wanted me to take a picture of him in front of it...I did and was hoping it was a good one because I only took one, but it's a little blurry (thanks to Little Brother's help as I was juggling him and the camera). Joshua also was glad because they had the miniature layout of Jerusalem that you could push buttons on the display case and certain places would light up and then you would hear a brief narrative about the significance of that building or area during the time of Christ...he could do that over and over.

After being in the visitor's center for over an hour, we'd all finally had it and even though it was 140 outside (okay, that's probably a slight exaggeration...I think it was only about 107 or so) we went back outside and stood in the shade under a tree. It only felt like 103 there. Luckily, we saw everyone coming out within about 5-10 minutes of our being outside. We took a few pictures of our little family, found out that they weren't taking any wedding pictures (or so we heard), and left. We swung by Carl's Jr. and got milkshakes (because I demanded one...two hours of juggling the boys in the heat had not only made me hot, but had made me cranky) We went back to the hotel and crashed with our shakes (Brian found that drinking a whole milkshake does not do well with his digestive system right now) under the air conditioner vent and then went to the reception. It was nice to meet some of Brian's relatives that I never had before - some of them had only been name on family groups sheets as I worked on family history. We met his great-aunts Charlotte and Laura (who are both in their mid to early 80s) and his great-uncle Arden who also is in his 80s.

We took a picture of Val and Sue with all their children...it's a good thing that all the kids are grown and gone on both sides or they'd have a full house...there are 6 kids in each family - three boys and three girls. Once the reception was over and we'd helped clean up, we went back to the sibling's hotel and went swimming (Brian and Joshua did...Nathaniel was sleeping again). We got back to our hotel around midnight.

Father's Day was our day to travel to Yuma. We met Brian's siblings, Dad and Sue at Claim Jumper for brunch. We'd already eaten at our hotel (we stuck with our free breakfast) so just had lemonade and chatted. We left around 11 or 12 and headed to Yuma...not that far - but a pretty boring drive across the desert.