Summering in Arizona

It was July, so we decided to go to Arizona. We would be there three days for our McCombs family reunion, so we decided to drive four days to get there and back. It was a lot of heat and a lot of driving. Luckily, it was also a lot of fun!

Sometimes when I get with my whole family I feel this pressure to talk to everyone and bond with everyone and it's kind of stressful, that pressure. This time I decided to chill out and just talk to whoever came my way and just have a good time. I would like to report that it worked. I didn't have a one-on-one conversation with everyone, but the conversations I did have were very satisfying. There were 50 people there! So it was a good time to relax my former high-pressure policy.

These McCombses are awesome folks. I see this picture and feel wealthy. As RS president, I have worked with several people now who don't have any family they can turn to in times of need. I have all these people and more extended family and the Dennis side as well. It's truly an incredible network and such a blessing!  

I wasn't great at taking pictures, but we had a fun impromptu panel on the first night where three people sat up in the "hot seats" and answered questions from the interviewer who was mostly Phil. It was fun to get to hear some life experiences from lots of different ages. My parents also opened their sixth mission call--Salt Lake Headquarters mission! And there was table pool and swimming in the pool and fountain drinks on tap and two temple trips. And we got a full tour of Andrew's work at Shamrock Foods. We saw all the meat processing and the automation system and the expert fish filet-er guy. And everyone at Andrew's work spoke so highly of him. He's all grown up!

5:30 am baptism session!

Cousin time! And a bunch of grandkids!

The mission call:

We were in charge of a breakfast. We planned for and bought exactly double what we ended up needing. I was trying so hard to predict accurately! Better too much than not enough, but throwing food away bugs me! It was a really yummy breakfast though. Buttermilk pancakes with buttermilk syrup. Buttermilk is kind of a hero ingredient in my opinion.

Several families left on Saturday, but a few of us stayed until Sunday and had one more delicious meal made by Andrew and hung out at his house. There was singing, and I got a chance to talk to the newly returned missionary, Seth Hall. 

Driving was an adventure. I'm not sure what possessed me to drive four days for a three day trip, but that was the decision Past Me made, and we all suffered for it:) It did give Annie a chance to get in some driving hours. And she only almost killed us once as she was driving us out of Phoenix--an idea which I blame Darren for planting in Aaron's mind. 

On our way back, we encountered a dust storm.

And we slept under the stars.

It sounds lovely, doesn't it? It was stressful. There was fighting about the idea. We couldn't find a good spot. We argued about the definition of a good spot. We finally decided to give up and sleep in a hotel...then all of the hotels in Alamogordo, NM were completely full. So we slept in the car for one hour before, at 2 am, Aaron woke me up and said we could put our stuff out on the ground in an empty lot behind a storage container on the hotel's property. So that's what we did. There was beer bottle glass on the ground, but we slept and our family and marriage survived. I didn't take a picture. 

The next day we drive to White Sands National Park before heading home. It was cool, but after the night we had we wondered if it was cool enough to justify what we had suffered. Driving is suffering, but at least we had Twizzlers to get us through. The bread of the road. 

At White Sand National Park, you can sled on the sand. But the visitors' center where you can rent sleds didn't open until 9 am, and we wanted to be done by 9 am. So we bought random things at Walmart--a pizza pan, a cookie sheet, and a skateboard, hoping one of them would allow us to skim down the dunes. The only thing that worked well was the skateboard (wheels removed). The pizza pan worked a tiny bit. The cookie sheet was a total bust, but now we have extra big cookie sheets to use at home. The sand at this place is cool to the touch. So you could walk in it without shoes, even in the heat of the day. It felt a lot like kinetic sand.

When we came back to Austin, we were amazed by how lush and green everything seemed compared to Arizona and New Mexico. And I was glad to learn for myself that there is somewhere hotter than the place I live.