az lovin

so the morning after we got home from our cruise,

we took a 10 hour journey down to warm(er) arizona to see my family!

ad we had an absolute blast with everyone!

my mummy made a late christmas dinner for everyone

(all my siblings {except kirky} and i were with our in-laws for christmas)

 then we all opened a few gifts gifts from my parents including new lunch boxes which we were very excited for since I we've been losing ours lately :)

they were so sweet to us all!

and it was so fun to have christmas again with them!

btw-this was my FIRST christmas away from my parents! crazy!

we took a little visit to an olive mill in queen creek, az

and it was actually really fun and interesting!

we took a tour where they taught us all about the process and their "farm" of olive trees.

apparently az is a really good climate for olive tree growing, cool huh?

they had so many different flavors of olive oil (chocolate olive oil) and other things they make with the olives!

we were going to get some but decided against it in the end.

my SIL uses some of it and says it's incredible though.

if you ever get the chance, try it out (and they have a cute little cafe inside and it hoppin!)

we also learned the WHY behind only buying extra-virgin olive oil,

all i can say is only buy extra-virgin olive oil no matter what another label says (even if it sounds healthier)

like usual, casey insisted we go to bahama bucks everyday possible.

luckily they constantly send out coupons for that place!

and we learned that annalee connects our visits to bahama bucks snow cones now (she orders hers by colors, not flavors:)...goodness.

kirky came with us one of the times too!

logan and blair invited us to go to the phoenix children's museum with them bc they had free passes that were going to expire,

so we went with and it was so fun!

they are so creative in that place and annalee had a blast!

phoebe was so cute to watch and play with in there too!

they had a GINORMOUS tree house, a noodle forest, a fort room, kitchen room, a fake car wash, and so many other cute things!

 

casey loved it too :)

last but not least,

we went to the dunes for new year's eve!

i was beyond excited bc i haven't gotten to go riding in over a year!

and casey learns more gets better/more comfortable every time we go which makes me an incredibly happy wife :)

although the dunes are more popular for quads i love riding a motorcycle out there, so fun.

my dad is also the best leader ever when it comes to riding as a group,

he always connects bowls perfectly to make for smooth, fun riding.

it was on the colder side when we went but one of kirk's friends was there with a trailer that we used for warmth :)

his friend also let us try out his rhino (like a golfcart/quad mix) which was such a blast surprisingly

my 2 little nieces did great out there and it was so fun to have them around!

oh yeah, and my bum hurt SO bad the next few days, ha!

the pic with the big fence behind us is the mexican border and your tax dollars at work.

and don't we all wear the best outfits when it's cold there? cough cough...yeah right:)

other awesome notables:

we got to see scott, megan, and new baby tristan a little bit too!

so cute!

(i kept forgetting to blog about his birth! but he's here and precious! looks exactly like scotty!)

 my mom also helped my SIL and me do a cute little craft.

she's so crafty, i love it :)

tradition continues and we went to IHOP/Dennys for new years day!

as long as i can remember, we've done this and it's always so fun :)

i think that's about all for az!

it was so fun being with family for the 2nd week off of school.

i love arizona.

we'll see you again soon az!

and thanks mom for all the fun!

and thanks blair for letting your kids get off their normal schedule so we could play with them more, aka 3 sleepovers with annalee. she a doll :)