Trip to Phoenix- Part 1

Preston and I headed to Phoenix last Monday to spend a week with my family. I had been counting down the days and couldn't wait to be in the sunshine again!! We flew Allegiant Airlines for the first time which has a direct flight from Idaho Falls to the Mesa Gateway airport. They have great prices and we're so excited to not have to drive to Salt Lake to fly out. I was so excited to be back in AZ and the warm air felt AMAZING!
He did so good on the flight there, which was good since I was on my own!
We were also really happy to be home because my dad had been in the hospital, here's the story...

My dad got a kidney stone about 2 months ago. He's struggled with kidney stones in the past and since he only has one kidney it something they want to take care of quickly. He was about to have a procedure done to take care of it when they wanted to make sure his heart was ok to go ahead with it. He had a stress test and then an Angiogram done which revealed he needed a quintuple bypass surgery. He had the Angiogram performed on a Tuesday afternoon and was told this was too serious for him to go home and had the surgery Wednesday afternoon. Thankfully everything went really well and they only ended up needing to do a quadruple bypass. One of the arteries though was 99% blocked which means a heart attack could've been immanent. Pretty scary stuff and lots of prayers were said but we were so glad that this was caught when it was and that he is on the road to recovery. The interesting thing is that about 9 years ago he had a kidney stone that caused some tests to be done and led to the discovery of cancer on one of his kidneys. It was removed (which is why he only has one!) and he was fine. Who would've thought that we'd be grateful for kidney stones!?!

My dad came home from the hospital the day that Preston and I got there, just 5 days after his surgery. I know he was not excited to be so out of it, medicated, and not feeling good while family was visiting but at least he got to be at home and we can look forward to many Christmases to come with him.

My brother Mike, his wife Maile, and their kids Ellie and Benjamin arrived late that night. My brother Dan and his wife Aranne and their boy Blake got there Thursday evening. Steve got there Friday afternoon and my brother Nate and his wife Katie who live in Phoenix got to come over a bunch too. ...the jist: My whole entire family got to be together for Christmas! This is something that doesn't happen very often so it was great!! Lots of great memories were made and lots of fun was had. And if anyone knows my family, you know that it was a LOUD house! We have always been loud, but now there's 4 kids in the mix too!!

We played outside, did some shopping, made cookies, played with toys and cars, watched movies, played games, watched the little ones, and ate ourselves into oblivion. Good times were had by all!

So at the end of every gathering, we all hand over our camera memory cards to my dad and he makes a CD of all of the pics for everyone. It's so great to have so many pictures, but it makes it really hard to just pic a handful.

Love this pic! It's like their on a roller coaster ride... thanks to Grandma!
The firetruck and playing outside were favorites of the trip.
Ellie!
Benji is only 5 months older than Preston. Other than some sharing issues (they're both 2!!) these boys played really well together and played with cars nonstop!
Ellie and Blake were helping Steve play a game on his phone.
These boys were full of lots of energy!