The Vacation That Almost Wasn't

 *******DISCLAIMER- LOTS OF PICTURES(but SO worth it!)********

Our good friends Jake and Ali Dull from Australia followed us and moved to Arizona. They have been there for over 10 months and we had yet to see them. So we decided to make a family vacation out of it, and go visit them!  

Before the pictures you have to know the back story, so here it goes:

Jared works at Provo Airport where Frontier Airlines flies into(no, I am not promoting them, just keep reading you will understand why). With working for an airline comes buddy passes. FREE flights to Arizona, who could pass those up? We should have. Jared's co-workers looked at our flights and we had planned on leaving Friday June 1st, but it was looking really full so they put us on the stand-by list to fly out of Salt Lake to Denver on Thursday morning.  So I hurried and packed our little family, and Thursday morning headed to the airport. We easily got on that flight and made it to Denver. The "generous" customer service lady in Salt Lake put tags on our luggage to send it all the way to Phoenix.

We get to Denver with the intent on having a 9 hour layover. So with that we had a rental car waiting for us for the day and we would head downtown. When we got off the flight Jared asked a customer service person how full our flight was looking. She said that she could put us on the flight that would leave in 2 hours. GREAT! We got an early lunch and waited around for our flight to start boarding so we could get to Phoenix faster. A nap from P and a movie later the flight was............FULL. You read that right, FULL. 

So we went to the customer service lady and she rolled us over to the next flight that was in another 2 hours. R couldn't understand why the plane left us. She was SO sad.  The kid has been on many plane rides, but never on stand-by. So what do we do?  Hang around for another 2 hours to find out(very rudely I would say) that we would not be on that flight either. R had her hopes so high that when the sky bridge backed away from the plane she broke down. I tried my hardest not to breakdown myself.  She cried, and cried and would say things like "why can't we go on that plane?", "I just want to see Charlie". It BROKE my heart hearing this.  

The last flight of the day to Phoenix was the flight that we were actually scheduled for(on stand-by) 4 hours later. We AGAIN asked the customer service people what our chances were for getting on that flight.  She said that there are 4 open seats (as of now), but 11 people on stand-by. And you guessed it we were on the bottom of that list.  R had had enough, we had enough but we didn't know what to do. We had paid for our hotel and car rental in Arizona on Priceline, where we named our own price, therefore non-refundable. 

So we decided to leave the "secure" part of the airport and TRY to find our luggage. Over an hour later (waiting in the baggage claim) they found our luggage.  Our options that we had come up with: 

1- Give up on the whole idea and lose out on all that money we had paid

2-Get a rental car in Denver and do a one-way thing and drive to Phoenix.  Which would be 4 hours longer than if we had just driven it from our home, and SOOO expensive.

3- Stay in Denver and spend a WHOLE new day in the airport AGAIN hoping to maybe get on

4-Get on a flight to as close as we could then drive the rest of the way. 

 We were on our way out to the car rental places, when we decided to go for option #4. We went to the check-in counter and our options were Salt Lake City and Las Vegas. Vegas would be GREAT because its almost halfway from SLC to Phoenix. The bad thing, they were leaving at the same time.  Finally we found a customer service lady who actually cared for us and was GREAT. She gave us our "tickets" to get through security, but told us to try to take our luggage with us through security and then whatever flight we get on gate check-it there.  So we put our names on both lists, and headed for another meal in the airport.   When boarding time started Jared sat at the Vegas check-in counter and I waited at the Salt Lake check-in counter. Literally minutes before closing the doors on both flights, we found out that we had tickets to Salt Lake, and Vegas was full. Jared came RUNNING. We got on. Jared and R were sitting together while I had Mr. P. I couldn't believe our luck. 

We had left our house at 7:30 in the morning and came back the next morning at 1:30am. With spending most that time in Denver Airport with 2 kids. Not my idea of fun! After getting the kids in bed and checking one way tickets to Phoenix and realizing that they are SO expensive for our family I FINALLY broke down. Jared had gone to bed with the expectation of just leaving at 6am and driving. I was SO upset. I felt like I had let R down, and we were losing so much money. I tried to call Priceline, but they mean what they say with "non-refundable" on name your own price.  

The next morning we got up with only about 4 hours of sleep ready for the LONG drive. My parents came to us and said "we will loan you some money to help pay for R's ticket, just buy tickets and get down there". The idea was crazy, but it sounded SO good.  So we wake the kids up and AGAIN head up to Salt Lake City Airport, and boarded a direct flight to Phoenix. No, I am not joking. We FINALLY made it! The dry, barren dessert of Phoenix could have never looked so good. We got our rental car (which I ended up falling in love with). It was a Chevy Traverse.  Luckily we had called our hotel while in Denver and told them that we were still coming, and knew we couldn't get our money back for the first night that we missed. They checked us in, and we were good to check-in when we landed. We had MADE IT!!!!!

Now, on with the happiness

After getting settled in our beautiful hotel room, our friends Jake, Ali and their 3 kids Charlize(Charlie), Jonah, and baby Elle came by. I was a little worried about how R would act. R tends to act shy around people.  Even if  she knows them, but it had been awhile she will still act shy. All my worries were put to rest. Within a minute of walking in, they were playing and laughing together! I was SOOOO happy. 

Jake had to go back to work, but would meet up with us for dinner. Phoenix is VERY hot in the beginning of June, so we hit a popular splash pad. R doesn't really like being splashed in the face, but loved it.

 P and Elle. P is 4 months older than Elle.

 P was running around so much that he had lost his shorts. A good mother that I am, I took a picture before helping him pull his shorts up! :)

 BEST FRIENDS!!!

 Charlie couldn't keep her swim skirt up either. This was a normal sight for us the whole trip!!!! :)

 Before P was born, Jonah was my baby boy! He is such a cute kid!

 This picture explains one of the main reasons we came down here. I LOVE this picture of the 2 of them catching up!

 The next day in Phoenix the weather was far into the 100s. I think around 114F (45.6 C for my Aussie family). So what would you do on such a hot day? Why not go to the zoo?!?!?! :)

We went to the Phoenix Zoo, and had a great time. P never had a really good sun hat, so we found this AWESOME hat for him in the gift shop before we started.

 The giraffe exhibit was so cool. It really looked like Africa. Ok, Africa in my mind!

 Jared, R, Charlie, and Jonah

 This is such a cute picture of these 2 taking a break in the shade

 Luckily the Zoo realizes that it is in Phoenix and a splash pad IN the zoo would be a huge hit. We were VERY grateful for the refreshing cool water!

 After cooling off, we went to see more animals. P found the monkeys.

 R and Charlie found the elephant

 Towards the end P had about had enough and only found the energy to eat some popcorn.

 A quick pic with the sign

 

 and we headed out to the car. P was gone, the picture of him eating popcorn was taken maybe 5 minutes earlier.

 The Dulls went home while we headed back to our hotel for a quick nap by EVERYONE.  Then we hit the pool. The Dulls showed up and joined us for a swim.

 Then we went to dinner again. I REALLY like this picture taken outside the restaurant by R.

 Jared used his cunning ways and talked Jake and Ali into letting Charlie have a sleepover with R.

 The next day was Sunday. We went to church with them, then headed for a picnic at the Phoenix Temple.

 This picture was taken just before we left. Elle is 2 days old in this picture, P is 4 months old.

 Look at them now! They are so cute!

 Me and my kids! I love them so much!

 R got a hold of my camera and took the next 3 pictures:

She posed Jonah and Charlie there! :)

 Her father's daughter, for SURE

 not to bad!

 Fruit growing on trees on the Temple grounds. Cool!

 And a cactus garden

 The Dulls

 The McSweeneys

 We hit the visitor center, and the kids loved seeing the Christus

 Some beautiful flowers around the Temple

 Saying good-bye

 Love this picture too!

 Look at that face! She was SOOOOOO emotional saying goodbye to Charlie. We had to keep reminding her that she would be visiting us very soon!

 The next morning while Jared and I packed up R and P got their morning cuddles in!

 See R's arm in this picture. Keep an eye on my blog because I will post about that little arm, and what happened after we left the Dulls house and came back to the hotel.