Arizona Trip

Guess who got to take a break from the snow and cold weather for a weekend? That's right, this girl! A few weekends ago the Willis clan decided it was time to go visit Grandmother and Granddad in Arizona.  So, Ryan, Meredith, Connor and I rented a car and drove the 10 hour drive from Provo to Candler Arizona, where their grandparents live.  Morgan was going to come, but he ended up having a lot of things that weekend that he couldn't really leave for.  He was greatly missed, but we had a lot of fun visiting and for me, getting to know Connor's grandparents. 

Throughout the weekend we did a lot of visiting, going out to eat, checking out the town Dan grew up in, seeing the tumble weed Christmas tree that Dan told us all about, looking at wedding pictures and old home videos and playing a lot of bang.  Granddad is a true lover of anything cowboy or guns, so playing bang with him was a lot of fun! He thought some of the cards were just hilarious, like how the beer card got you an extra life.  Every time he would just crack up at the thought that drinking the beer kept you alive.

We tried setting the camera up on a timer to get a good one of all of us! I thought it came out really nice!

It was really fun getting to know Connor's grandparents.  They were so cute and so sweet to all of us.  One of my favorites was when we went to the cemetery to visit some family members that had passed, Grandmother was being so silly and at one point couldn't stop laughing! Not to mention a funeral was going on at the same time, so she was trying really hard to keep quiet, covering her mouth up to hold her laughter in. It was really cute to see her laugh about the silly things we were talking about.

So, the morning that we went on our road trip I woke up really early to go to the store and get some food for our road trip.  It was a TEN hour drive! And if any of you know a Limb girl, they know that none of us are good going without food for a while.  So, I brought everything with me to be as happy and pleasant as I could.  I brought my snacks, Gatorade, pillow, and ipad.  I was good to go!!!! I am pretty sure Connor was pretty glad that I did, cause lets face it, he's seen what happens when I get hungry or bored.  Lets just say, we were prepared to avoid that!

While playing Bang I was the Sheriff so Dan let me barrow one of his old cowboy hats to play the part.  

On the way back from Arizona, we decided to go check out the Grand Canyon along the way.  Everyone had already seen it once in their life but me, so they were all sooooo nice to stop there again for me. We got in the park and were probably about a mile from the viewing spots when all of a sudden a guy came to our car and told us that the roads have been closed and that it might be a while longer and have already been closed for 2 hours.  What had happened was there was a really bad wreck ahead, so we all decided to give our legs a little break from sitting and go check it out.  So just a little up ahead we came across a HORRIBLE wreck! A truck was flipped upside down in the middle of the road, and another car was next to the road and WAY smooshed.  There were a lot of paramedics and policeman at the scene trying really hard to get someone out of the car.  We watched for a while but decided we had better get back on the road when they were getting ready to cut the car open.  It would have been interesting to see, but I knew if I saw anything too much more graphic I would have regretted it.  So, needless to say, we didn't get to go see the true grand canyon.

We did get pictures by the signs though!!

So what we did was drive a little ways back toward the entrance of the park and take pictures at a part of it. It was still miraculous, I don't think it was as cool as the actual viewing spots, but I was glad they at least stopped for me to get a couple of these pictures. 

And the road trip back started to feel really long and there was one point that Connor had picked up the camera and started taking pictures without me knowing it.  I had THOUGHT that the flashes I was seeing were lightning and I was so excited to watch the storm. 

No, I was not posing for this picture.  I was actually "watching the lightning" hahah right after this picture is when I turned around and realized it was a camera the entire time.  He got me, he got me good.  

Christmas at the Willises

I got to go to the Willis house for Christmas this year and it was a BLAST!!! It was my first Christmas away from my family, but, besides just missing my family members, this Christmas was awesome!! My work was so nice and let me get a few days off from work, so Connor and I flew to Seattle Thursday after my shift and later that night, we had a party to celebrate Morgan's birthday! 

Annette has some serious skill on making some of the most DELICIOUS cupcakes known to man.  

He was pretty excited about his bike shoes! Can't you tell?

I wanta take a second and write a little bit about the birthday boy Morgan.  He has ALWAYS been so nice to me.  Growing up there would be some days when Connor wasn't so talkative so I would end up talking to Morgan more during church activities or other events. A fun memory that I have of Morgan that I will never forget, was after I had asked Connor to the Sadie Hawkins dance, and had all of those policeman and fireman show up (If you don't know that story, you'll have to ask me, its prettttttty hilarious), how when I would see him in the hallways at school or at church, he couldn't stop himself from laughing and just shaking his head back and forth and laughing so hard he couldn't even get a word out. That lasted a good while after the fireman incident.  Morgan has always treated me like a friend and has been so nice and good to me. I loved the online chats we'd have while Connor was on his mission where he'd tell me not to worry, that Connor would still like me when he got back. :) and how he'd tell me about his dating life or other events going on in his life.  Morgan is so stinkin funny.  Something that I love about this kid, is his ability to quote movies.  He has such a good memory and is sooo good at it! I also love how hard working he is and so caring.  I liked how growing up I would hear about Morgan making his mom breakfast in bed or something on Mother's day.  Also, one of my most favorite things about this last trip to their house, was watching Connor and Morgan duel in some sporting events on Kinnect.  I loved how much they got into that. And how he'd get excited with me to try out the dancing games on kinnect. That kid knows how to shake his hinney! I am so thankful to have such a great brother in law like Morgan and to feel like he is not only family, but my friend.  Happy Birthday Morgan! 

Friday morning we drove to one of the coolest towns ever! It had some of the coolest shops ever.  We spent the entire day walking around and enjoying each others company and checking out all the fun shops.  It was also all decorated and lit up for Christmas so it looked like the cutest little Christmas village ever.  

We found a shop that had some of the coolest hats EVERRRRRR! 

See! Look how cute that town is! 

This is one of the best groups of people to hang out with! We had SO much fun! 

Christmas Eve the ladies spent the morning in the kitchen getting the food all chopped up and ready for the nice dinner we had that night.  Annette even pulled out some SUPER cute aprons for us to wear! Aren't we just adorable?

At the Willis house, it is a tradition to have this YUMMY soup for the Christmas Eve dinner.  I had always grown up having the mashed potato and ham dinner, but let me tell ya what! That soup was NOT a let down! It was sooooooo tasty! And something that I love about Annette is how nice everything looks.  You guys should have seen how cute that table was set up.  The dinner was so nice, we listened to Christmas music and talked and ate and ate and ate.

After dinner, we did a little cookie decorating!!! It was so fun to have everyone around the kitchen decorating cookies and laughing and having a good time.    

We had a really nice Christmas program.  A couple of weeks before Christmas Dan and Annette had asked me some traditions that I love from my house that they could maybe implement into their families to make me feel more at home.  (Yes, I really do have the coolest in laws in the entire world.) I had told them that I love listening to the Forgotten Carols music.  So not only did we get to hear a few songs, but they put it in the program to read a couple of chapters from the Forgotten Carols story! I felt truly loved for all that they did to make me feel more welcome. The rest of the program included, reading the Christmas story from the scriptures, listening to Dan and Meredith's duet, sang Christmas songs to Connor's wonderful piano music, reflected on our 12 days of service, and played some "Minute to Win It" games that Connor and I were in charge of.  It was a BLAST!  And after that, we had the Christmas Auction! This is one of my all time favorite traditions that MY family does too!! I was so happy that both our families do this fun fun fun tradition. 

Morgan scored some pretty rockin glasses from the auction.

All of our winnings! The big present that everyone wants is the money that is usually hidden in a present, and this year Connor got it! He was so proud of himself.  Annette did a a good job at hiding it in a little chocolate box.  

Christmas morning was a little different because it was on a Sunday.  We all woke up and got ready then went to Church.  It was really nice.  They had picked some people to get up and bare their testimonies of the Savior for Sacrament meeting.  And I thought it was really nice.  At first I wasn't sure how I felt about having Christmas on Sunday, but I ended up LOVING it! I loved going to church and feeling the spirit and having that with us the entire day of Christmas.  It helped remind me of what Christmas is really all about.  

So, this year Santa did a GOOD job at filling our stockings! We got a lot of fun things in there: Candy, gloves, facial masks, foot scrubs, fruit, gum, and even CINNAMON hot chocolate! Santa must have really done his research to find out that I recently have learned that I LOVE cinnamon hot chocolate! I of course had it with my wonderful Christmas breakfast that morning.  Another fun tradition that the Willis family does is, everyone gets a different fruit in their stocking and then for breakfast everyone donates that fruit for a really yummy fruit salad. 

 

That evening Ron, Elizabeth, Eva and Ian came to have Christmas dinner with us! The dinner again was to diiiie for! And the company couldn't have gotten better.  It was a fun night full of visiting and playing Dan's new game "Blokus" and eating lots of yummy food. 

I felt so extremely lucky to have been able to get a few days off from work and go to my in laws for Christmas.  I am so blessed to be so loved and have so much fun with my in laws.  They are some of the most incredible people that I know, and I get to call them family!  They sure know how to have some fun!! Christmas this year was a blast and I will never forget the fun memories we made.