so like i said before, we didn’t go out much while on vacation in arizona.  no need to when the house kept us plenty entertained. except for one little outing.  some might call it a field trip.  others would have it on their bucket list.  we figured we might as well since we were in the state and all… it involved a train. and it was headed to the… and we tsais were on it! daddy bought us seats in the part of the train that included complimentary refreshments for the two-hour ride.  the kids thought these were chocolate muffins.  they were bran.  they ate half of ’em anyway.  and…

lest you think it was all play and no work on our vacation, i’ll have you know that i did pack up our school stuff and we did do schoolwork there at the house, too.  two whole times! see? additionally, phil had brought back this highly educational item back for mikey from salt lake city.  they learned all about excavation from this fossilized dino egg.  they pretended to be archeologists while practicing the life skills of cooperation and teamwork. throw in patience and forbearance when the other little sister wanted to “help”. ok, so their efforts lasted all of five minutes before they called in the big guy for help.…

so right after phil returned home from his big test (we just heard three days ago that he passed! praise the Lord!) we packed up and hit the open road for our much-anticipated family vacation. eight-ish hours later… we ended up in a vacation house in scottsdale, arizona! i originally wanted to do an rv trip, but phil decided it’d be too much work at this stage in our lives.  (and i kinda have to agree.) then i suggested a cabin in a forest somewhere.  phil didn’t think that would feel like much of a vacation, what with ‘roughing it with the mosquitoes’ and all.  (he did have a point…

hello hi, i’m still here!  thank you guys for praying for phil and his test and i’m sorry to have left ya hanging there for a bit.  we just got back this past weekend from a family vacation and it takes a good week to recover and get back into a more normal routine.  or maybe that’s just me. so yes, phil got home safe and sound after his test and said it went about as well as he could hope for and now we have to wait another month before the results come out.  the thing is that it’s graded on a curve, so there’s no telling how it…

phil’s been in salt lake city this week.  he’s there to take the oral board exam tomorrow morning but went a few days early in order to take a review course and get some undistracted study time in.  he’s pretty nervous.  just before he left, the kids and i slipped a little surprise for him into his suitcase.  i told the kids to keep it a secret so that daddy would find the surprise when he got to the hotel.  it went down something like this:  mikey stage-whispering to me within phil’s earshot, “mommy, did you put THE SURPRISE into daddy’s suitcase yet?”  and a few minutes later, allie happily…