American Girl....

Keri's birthday. I'm a bit behind on my posting so let me catch you up. Keri's birthday was at the end of May but because of our trip to Arizona/Nevada we celebrated her birthday after our vacation. She turned 9.

She reminded me several months ago that when Katie turned 9 that I took her on the train to Chicago and bought her an American Girl doll. She decided that this was what she wanted me to do for her as well.

Train tickets $21.50, brunch at American Girl Cafe $76, American Girl doll $90, the day with my daughter....priceless!!!

If you're a Mom and you've never done this with your daughter you really need to do it sometime. It's a girl's fantasy land! All dolls, all pink, all girl! Even Katie still enjoys going to American Girl and she's getting a little old to be playing with dolls. I seriously saw adult women buying dolls for themselves and having lunch with their doll in the cafe. It's completely crazy! Keri had asked her relatives to give her money for her birthday so she could buy clothes and accessories for her doll and she spent every bit of it at this store.

We rode the South Shore into Chicago in the morning and we walked the 5 or so blocks to the store and spent the entire day shopping and eating. We got back into South Bend from the train around 7pm and we were exhausted!

Happy Birthday Keri! I'm glad that you wanted to spend a day with me doing "girl" things!

Arizona/Nevada

We recently took a trip to Arizona and Nevada to see relatives and just have some fun family vacation time. This was the first time that my daughters had ever flown. They were really excited and nervous about it.



We landed in Phoenix, rented a car and followed our Mapquest directions to Jon & Brandie's apartment. We stayed at Jon & Brandie Yoder's while we were in Arizona. They moved to Scottsdale a year or so ago and we had never been out to see them. They were planning on moving home next spring/summer but Jon was offered a job back in Indiana and he took it so he wasn't even in Arizona when we went. Thankfully Brandie was still there otherwise we would have been looking for a hotel!

We did the normal touristy things while we were in Arizona. We went shopping, drove go karts, rode bumper boats, and played mini golf. The kids were in heaven. I have another cousin, Barry Anglemyer, that lives in Chandler, Arizona so the second day there we went over to his house to visit with him and his family. They have a pool so the kids spent the day swimming and we had a great time just being together and catching up. Barry's kids are so cute and growing so fast! We had a cookout for dinner and then we all went out for ice cream.

We really enjoyed our short stay in Arizona and we would love to go back and spend more time there.

On Memorial Day we made the drive from Arizona to the Grand Canyon and then on to Las Vegas. The drive to the canyon was really scenic. We drove through Sedona to see the Red Rock Mountains and the girls were really impressed by them. Again, if we would have had more time it would have been nice to spend the day there and see the sites!

Once we got to the canyon we were all ready to be out of the car and stretch our legs! The canyon was really spectacular. I honestly didn't think that I would react to it the way that I did. It really amazed me that God had created something so amazing! It was so much more breathtaking than I had imagined it would be. If you haven't seen the canyon in person you need to add it to your list of things to do. (your bucket list)

Onward to Vegas! What an exhausting day of riding in the car! This is something that I would not really want to do again. Although it was beautiful scenery I was getting tired of looking at mountains and the winding roads were making me car sick.

We spent three nights in Vegas (but we didn't get there unti after 9pm the first night) and crammed in as much sightseeing as we could during our two days there. The kids were exhausted, we were exhausted, and by the time we got home we needed a vacation from our vacation! Ever felt like that? Now I'm looking forward to our next adventure with the kids. It really is fun to see their reactions to things.