Phoenix for my sisters wedding (Part 1)

So I am not sure where to start, but we just got back from heading to Phoenix for about five days for my sisters wedding down there.  I just downloaded the pictures from the trip and have about 900 pictures totaling about 8gigs of memory and it does not seem like I took enough.  We had a blast and the weather down there was perfect for what we did and a great relief from the snow and rain we had back here while we were gone.

 

We flew down there on Wednesday and had a direct f;light, so only about 2.5hrs after leaving the NW, we were down in the sun and fun of the desert southwest.  the first day was spent trying to get our bearings and then we were off to the races.

By races I mean we were off to the church to fold paper circles for the decorations for the wedding.  All of these circles were cut out of paper and sewn together to make a pretty cool looking effect.  I figured they had purchased these from China or something, but later it was learned they actually cut and sewed all of the circles together...totally amazing.  I figured that was something you would pay like 3 bucks for from China, but not the case in this wedding.  When you have specific colors you want, I guess you have to make it from scratch.  A lot of time went into it and it did have a cool effect in the end, but it looked like it took forever and I am not sure I would have had the patience.

 

Here I am throwing James up in the air at the hotel pool. 

We also had a lot of time down there to play in the pool.  The highs were about 80-85 and the pool was heated and ran 75 or so, so it was absolutely perfect.  I could have sat there for a long time before it would get old.  Both of our kids loved it and we had a lot

 o

f fun.

We also had a chance to go to the zoo.  There were so many thing we had a chance to go do it was hard to try and narrow it down for this post so I thin I will break it into two posts.  Here James was having a ball riding on the Carousel.  He was yelling hi to me and mom at the top of his lungs and it was such a cute thing to watch.

 

Of course this time of year is also spring training down in AZ.  Since we were down there and all I figured we had to got o a game.  It took a lot to get there, but once we got to the game we had a blast.

Here is the family getting ready for the Angels and Dodgers.  We did not care for either team, but it was the only ballpark the hotel would give us a free ride to and it was pretty close so we thought why not.

It was a bit overcast that day and we were actually quite thankful for that.  The stadium did not have any shade so it was nice that the only day where we had clouds was the day we were at the game.

Nachos are a must for any gluten free menu and how else could they be had.  We had these served in a plastic baseball helmet that after they were eaten the helmet was big on me so it must have been about a 8 or 8.5.  Brenda ate almost all of them, but I did manage to snap this picture of James getting a bite. 

Of course we were a bit scarred of staying in the hotel with one room and two kids, but it all seemed to work out well.  James had the only few days he has ever gone without a nap and held up pretty well.  Matthew was relegated to the closet and we put a blanket over the door to try and give him a break from up.  He managed to peek out a few times.

 

 

Here are the kids trying to kill some time.

Dinner time and the one and only time they are allowed to eat on the counter.

Some more pictures from the rehearsal.  Those circle sure look good in the background of the church.

The rehearsal dinner was at this cool western BBQ place on the hills in south Phoenix.  The place would seat a lot of people, but we had the whole patio to ourselves.  Matthew ate his weight in food and as you can see, was a very happy boy.

James laved the idea of free lemonade.  This is the first time I gave his a bottle all to himself...he was running around like a animal soon after downing 60grams of sugar.

Here is the great view we got to look at as the sun set.

 

with the new camera I had to try and take alot of shots at night and see what it could do with the city scape...not bad.

Using the HDR function on the camera can work out well at night, but it kind of makes some of the images that move a little fuzzy.  Here were all of the wedding party opening their gifts.  Brenda and I got new camelback backpacks and were pretty stoked.

 

That is all for now, but will update it with the wedding stuff soon.