Summer Lovin' Had Me A Blast!

All right guys! Boy have these past few weeks been INSANE! I feel like we've squeezed about 3 months worth of experiences into one week, and Jaxon's been great the whole way. We'll take you back to where we left off, which was the Fourth of July.

We ended up going down to Thatcher for the 4th. I really wanted Ari to have the "Thatcher Experience" Barbara Staley and all. That means we woke up at 5:30am and lined up on 1st St. to see the early morning parade make it's way down to the Thatcher Middle School football field. True to Thatcher tradition, it was jam packed full of kids on homemade-decorated bikes (one of my favorite childhood memories) and firetrucks full of kids with the sirens blaring. We went down to the field and endured the patriotic program (WAY TOO LONG!) and then had our fill of watermelon and cantelope.

We enjoyed the rest of the day relaxing and taking Jaxon down to the new Safford pool to chill out. The two slideshows fill you in on all these moments. Jaxon really loves the water. Sometimes he's a little hesitant, but once he gets used to it, he splashes around a bit. (He's still a little too scaredy cat for my taste though, but that's just me, I'll just have to be patient.)

Next, I came back and finished out the potato harvest. It went a couple of weeks longer than expected, but Ari was very patient waiting for me to be all hers! We celebrated the beginning of my 3 week break by going to the waterpark, Sunsplash in Mesa. We took Bryce, Rhett, and Lacey along with us and had a blast! I wish we had pics, but the camera was suffering from low battery power. Jaxon was a champ at the waterpark, we stayed there for 6 hours, and he never complained and we were careful about not letting him get too much sun. I rode every slide there was to ride there, and Ari even impressed me by riding the Bonsai slides. (They're those two white slides that are side by side that pretty much go straight down.) My two chicken moments were with the cauldron, and slide that goes straight down and spits you into this big toilet bowl thing, and you wind your way around down through the hole. I was pretty scared, but it was way fun. Rhett and Bryce talked me into going on the Sidewinder, and I've never been so scared in my life. The only thing that pushed me to do it was that little 7 year old LACEY! was gung ho to do it. So, Rhett, Lacey, and I went on it, not once but TWICE! It's insanely crazy and SICK! You go straight down over this cliff thing, and your actually airborn for a while, then go straight up the other side like a half pipe, and slowly let gravity pull you back down to earth. It was pretty crazy though, cause we were ready to go over the edge and Lacey wasn't holding on to anything, so I stopped us, and got that taken care of. I don't even want to think about the what if's. . . .


This brings us to: North Carolina! Boy let me tell you, when Ari and I got the call that Mom and Dad Leinbach were wanting us to come out SO BAD, we were pretty stoked to have a chance to get away. Preceding the night of the trip (of course) our car brokedown and created ALL KINDS of problems for us. We were luckily able to drive it to Joanna and David's and have a shuttle pick us up and take us to the airport (at 3 in the morning!!!) It was crazy, our plane flew out at 6am. We flew into Atlanta and met up with Clay (who took the red eye out of Las Vegas, poor guy) and continued on to Murphy. It was a 2 hour drive through Georgia into the Smokey Mountains, we were pumped to see "the missionaries." Jax just loved seeing his grandparents and we had a good old time. We spent one night there, then early the next morning, Ari and I and of course Jax went on to Holden Beach to see Keith, Glenda and the kids. (Ari's uncle and aunt)

Now let me tell you, you haven't been to a beach until you've seen a North Carolina beach. It was INCREDIBLE! The humidity was high, but the water was in the upper 80's I've NEVER felt ocean water like that. The only bummer was that they're having the worst seaweed problem in 50 years or something like that, and the beach was covered. The drive there took EIGHT hours! Who knew that North Carolina was such a wide state? Mom and Dad are on the very end tail, so we had the whole width of the state to drive. And what a beautiful state North Carolina is, there's nothing like it. Now I see why Ari is so obsessed about it!

We stayed on the beach for another day and just had a blast. I turned lobster red though, once again, thinking one day I'm going to magically have my skin turn honey-brown tan. Hopefully in the next life! Jax was good as long as we were right by his side, the waves really scared him though, every time they'd come up and lap at his feet. We finally got smart and made him his own little swimming hole by the edge, and he was happy there. The kid loves to eat sand let me tell you! Made for some interesting diapers!!

We headed back towards Murphy through Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and went to Jimmy Buffet's restaurant, Margaritaville. Pretty interesting place. Every 45 minutes they have a big hurricane in the restaurant that comes down and fills a blender to make a gargantuous margarita. Nice "family environment" ha ha, Katelyn and Spencer thought it was a ketchup bottle, not tequila!:)

We drove back through South Carolina, it was about an hour faster, definitely not as pretty. And guess what, after all this traveling we decided that Murphy is the prettiest place in all 3 states we visited. The Smokey Mountains are just unreal. My favorite part of the drive was this little area called Nantahala River, it was so picturesque and beautiful, and all kinds of river raft rides were provided there.

Sunday morning we went to church and tried to get there early to practice the song we were to sing in sacrament meeting. We got there 15 minutes early, and it was PACKED, standing room only, definitey no place to practice so we just had to wing it. Ari and I sang "Come Follow Me" the version that my friend Dan Cahoon sang on last year's efy cd. It was great, and then we sang For Me He Died acapella in sunday school. Definitely brought the spirit and the investigators mom and dad are working with seemed to LOVE it. We loved meeting the members there and thought there was such a special spirit in that little branch. Everyone was SO FRIENDLY, we almost felt more at home than we have at our new ward we've been going to for the past three months here in Arizona (just kidding.)

After church I experienced one of the most painful couple of hours of my life. My back literally FREAKED OUT, and I started itching like crazy. Let's just say the lobster sunburn reached it's itchy phase. AY YI YI!!!! That night we ate at a member's house in Northern Georgia. They literally live in the trees, and they have full grown black bears that come and eat off their porch. Great people!

The next day we decided to go up and hit up one of those river rafting places in Nantahala. It was AWESOME! There were some class 3 rapids, not the biggest, but mighty fun for beginners. Jaxon stayed with mom, dad, and Clay, and Ari and I went on the raft for a couple of hours. Now, I was hoping this rafting trip would be eventful, but I had NO idea how eventful it'd be. After an hour of instruction and "what to do if's. . . " we finally got on the river. I enthusiastically volunteered to have Ari and I sit in the front of the raft, not having any idea the consequences this would have on me. We started down the river, a little family was with us, and a raft guide. About 30 minutes into the ride we reached a deep part, and the guide said if we were going to jump in and swim, this would be the place. Well, all the boys in the raft jumped out, so, not wanting to look like a wuss, I felt I had to jump in too and I FREAKED OUT! The water was below 50 degrees. I had to be pulled back into the raft because my muscles wouldn't cooperate. We joked that the kid had to save me there. Well. . .about 15 minutes later we hit a minor rapid, the boat swung around and hit a rock, and all the momentum went right TO MY SPOT ON THE RAFT! I flipped out backwards and looked like a complete idiot. It wasn't even that rough right there. It was at the bank. All I can remember is holding out my hand to Ari with my sunglasses saying "save my glasses!!" Everyone was laughing so hard, and the same kid had to save me yet again. I just remember thinking what the video said to do. . ."Look into your rescuer's eyes. . .let them pull you up. . .don't fight or struggle." (Let's remember this was in knee deep water.) Our group of 30 or so in all the rafts around us had quite a laugh at my expense! Good one Jordan, good one.

In trying to make the rest of the trip as uneventful as possible, I pulled yet another Jordanism. Bracing myself for the last rapid DETERMINED not to fall out this time, my swimsuit split right up the back. Now you all know in male swimsuits there's not much after that first layer. I had visions flipping out backwards again showing the whole world my life story!!:) Luckily we made it through and I just made Ari walk really close behind me so no one would see anything! Ari's lot during the rafting trip was getting stuck in the middle of all the water fights. She was always the one that got the brunt of the splashes. She was a good sport though. She laughed her booty off at my antics though!

So we made it back home. Jaxon for the most part was AN AMAZING traveler. We're so lucky to have such an angel boy, and rightfully so after the morning sickness Ari endured while carrying him. When we got home, the next day we had tickets to the American Idol tour and got to see Jordin Sparks and the gang do their thing. She's ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE, and when you saw them all together, you know America made the right decision.

Well. . .that's our month in a nutshell. Now we're just getting ready for the family reunion, I'm sure they'll be many more fun stories to come. Thanks for reading. Feel free to comment on the slideshow's and albums to let us know you've been here. And make sure you click on the album pictures to see the rest of our pictures from the trip.


LOVE TO YOU ALL!!!!