Summer is here in Houston. The heat, humidity and mosquitoes are all out in force. When most families decide to leave the summer heat and go to the cooler areas with beaches and such -- the McGarrs head for the triple digit oasis known as Phoenix in the summer. That's right, what better way to escape the heat of Houston then to go to Phoenix.
We had a nice family trip in June to see the in-laws, nieces and nephews. Brady and Cullen could not have been more excited about going to Phoenix as we loaded up the Beast (read: Toyota Sequoia) with -- and I am not kidding - 3 huge duffles, 2 back packs, 2 strollers, 2 kids, 2 parents, 1 car seat and a partridge in a pear tree! We laugh in the face of baggage fees! The best part was when we thought we forgot the kids' blankets. You know, the ones that they sleep with every single night without fail. The ones that they HAVE to have no matter what. Yeah, those blankets. Thank goodness for small favors that Brady found them in the back trenches of the cavernous Beast.
We are so proud to have attended our nephew Will's Bar Mitzvah. Brady and Cullen slept through the entire ceremony, but they were 110% in the game for the after party. The boys ate everything in site (cake, candy, pasta), danced and generally wore themselves out. They still think it was Will's birthday, but fun was had by all.
We stayed at the Desert Ridge Marriott which has a very cool lazy river and beautiful pools. The kids lathered up in SPF 5000 each day and went outside to enjoy 103, 105, and 107 degree weather. We are so glad that heat wave made it in time for our visit. I don't know how we would have managed temps below 100.
We all had a blast playing in the pool with Papa, Grammy, our cousins, Aunt Kathie and Uncle Jonathan. The boys got really cool pj's from Grammy and they wore them all day and all night. We also developed a new found appreciation for Toy Story's Woody the sheriff character (see June pics) since Brady had a little trouble understanding where his new gun holster was supposed to go. You probably need to see the America's Funniest Home Video to truly appreciate this one.
Next, we loaded up the family and flew to glorious Anaheim, California. Yes, the great home to one M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E! Disneyland was not in the original plans but when we heard that Phoenix was going to be hot and PHX to LAX on Southwest was $49 fun fares -- well Fun is our middle name!!!
Disneyland was a blast and I will probably not do it justice -- the boys saw Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and at the California Adventure (read: Marketing for Pixar) we saw Buzz, Woody, Lightning McQueen and Mater. We found several cool places to watch the parades from - note: Mommy and Daddy especially liked the restaurant along the parade route that served a nice bottle of wine.
Brady really enjoyed meeting Tinker Bell and Cullen gradually warmed up to the concept that while these characters had big noses, eyes and huge feet, they weren't going to eat him. When we first entered the park and Mickey started walking towards him we thought he was going to crawl under our skin. But after a few more interactions, he finally got into the groove of takng pictures with them. Check out the June pics!
When we finally boarded our return flight to Houston, the boys (all three of them) fell asleep before the plane even took off. The boys (all three of them) woke up about 20 minutes before landing in Houston. We gathered all of our stuff (everything made it home!) and headed home to recover. We had a fabulous time and can't wait to do it again.
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