Baachan and Auntie's Trip to AZ

We were so lucky to have both my mom and sister visit us here in Arizona. My mom stayed for two weeks and my sister made it for the President's Day weekend.

First off, we have a tradition of going to Cracker Barrel every time that we see my family. I'm not sure why it's Cracker Barrel, but for some reason Emi loves this place because they have good comfort food but more importantly, she can get a toy and candy at the store. When she talks to my family she always ask her Baachan and Grandpa to take her to Cracker Barrel and it always works out because there's a Cracker Barrel in every state (I think?), especially in Tennessee.

Emi and Baachan posing at Cracker Barrel


Then we played countless hours in the sandbox. My mom loved the sandbox! I think she was living out her childhood in there , but the kids loved her being in the sandbox and playing with them.


My sister came out here from BYU and the next day we went to the zoo. And guess who we saw there??? Shawna and her kids!!! I was so excited. It kind of brought me back to the old days when I would get to see her and her family because she used to live less than a minute away. But it was so much fun to hang out with her and her kids for just a little bit. Miss you guys!

Emi with Sydney and Theron. I can't believe how big they have become.


It was a cool cloudy day and because of this, the animals were so alive. There were giraffes running all around. I was pretty excited, so I took a picture of a giraffe because I never get this close to them. My mom looked at me funny and said, "Aika, don't you come here all the time? Why are you so excited?" Ok, maybe it was not that cool.


My sister and I.


My crazy boy. All he really cared about was the kettle corn at the zoo. As soon as we went through the gates, he smelled it and wanted popcorn.


The Girls.


My boy has really long beautiful eyelashes, but if you look at his right eye, you'll see that he pulled them all off! He has a few on the sides, but if you look at him closely, you'll see that in the center of his eyes he has no eyelashes. GEEZ...


I thought that this was a good picture of everyone. We are all looking at the same direction and smiling. Pretty rare...


Emi's favorite person in the world.


While we were there, we decided to go on the paddle boat with Emi. She loved being out in the water and was trying to look for mermaids. Random, yes.


Brenden was jealous and had this face the whole time we were in the boat. Poor kid...


My cute sister!


Where's Emi?


Then the next day... we all got sick and stayed home for the next couple of days. My mom had the flu AND cold and Emi got an ear infection. So, my poor sister helped us all recover on her break. Sorry... :(

Emi's highlight of her Auntie's visit was that she got her first mani and pedi. She had so much fun getting her nails done. (I am in big trouble because she's only 3 years old.)


After we got better, we decided to take a trip to the Mesa Temple and just walk around the grounds.



We went to Freestone Park up in Gilbert to ride the train, but it was CLOSED. So again, we just walked around the park and took pictures.
Baachan trying to get a good picture with the kids, but again we failed. I thought the scenery was beautiful though.







Then later that night we played with some fire crackers. Hopefully that's legal here, I'm not sure. I think it was a little too early to bust out the firecrackers for Brenden because he kept on wanting to touch them. But for Emi, she loved them.


Popping some little ones with Dad.


We also went to a "Matsuri" Japanese Festival at the downtown ASU campus. It was fun to walk around and see all the exhibits, but most of the time it was interesting to see all the "Anime" people. They are for sure "different" kind of people. Very interesting...
I thought that this was a pretty bonsai tree and wanted to get it, but I thought I would kill it, so I decided not to and just let the professionals take care of it.

See how pretty it is? But I would kill it for sure.


Then on the last day we went to eat at Texas Roadhouse.
Us with our goofy kid.

Emi loves her Baachan!


Whew! I'm finally done, this was a long one. We had so much fun and miss you all already and can't wait to see you soon! Thank you so much Baachan and Auntie!