i heart ... jennie and her family

i spent the last week in pima, az.

never heard of it?

me neither

(until jennie and wendi moved there, that is).

jennie and her husband joe went to

the outer banks in north carolina for a week

and i got to stay with their children -

the cutest, funniest children ever

(except for my own nieces and nephews of course!!!).

jacey, jaron, jayton and jackson

pima is about 2 1/2 hours east of mesa

so i had a nice little road trip.

i love road trips!

i get that from my dad.

good music.

that's what you need for a good road trip.

(no line on the horizon-the album, music for the masses-the album, ex-girlfriend-no doubt, song 2-blur, be there-unkle, this mess we're in-pj harvey, indefinitely-travis, simple kind of life-no doubt, glory box-portishead, road to mandalay-robbie williams, hella good-no doubt, numb-portishead, 5 years-bjork, joga-bjork, bedtime story-madonna [but written by bjork, and oh-so bjork!], blue orchid-the white stripes, we're going to be friends-the white stripes, millenium-robbie williams, a love supreme-robbie williams, trouble-coldplay, bleed american-jimmy eat world, a praise chorus-jimmy eat world, warning sign-coldplay, a rush of blood to the head-coldplay, the wanderer-U2 w/ johnny cash, some days are better than others-U2, die all right-the hives, someday-the strokes, mamma mia-abba, waterloo-abba)

you also need beautiful scenery:

during my week in pima:

we went for a nice sunday drive and stopped for this beautiful picture

(this must have been when the bee got into the car

because shortly after this

the bee flew down my shirt

and stung me 8 times!

didn't know they could do that.)

we went for walks.

on this particular walk jayton kept climbing all over

every electric box we passed along the way.

every time, i would tell him it was not wise to play on electric boxes

(what are they really called anyway?)

because they might be dangerous.

i think i was bugging him with all my warnings

because he finally said back to me,

"this is not electric!"

oh, really???

true story!

they buried each other in the backyard.

i had to put a stop to this

because i got tired of giving them baths

every night!

bryson (wendi's), jackson, jaron (in the ground), kayson (wendi's) and jayton.

we celebrated jackson's 8th birthday

with waffles and ice cream for breakfast!

and then we went to mcdonald's for dinner.

(jackson is in the back sitting on the ground.

that's where he wanted to sit,

not sure why.)

after 6 short days jennie and joe returned,

but the fun didn't stop

because joe turned right around

and took his boys on the fathers-and-sons outing.

(waiting to leave)

and jennie (very pregnant) and jacey

ran in the 5k "cotton pickin' race".

it was a great week thanks to jennie's great kids!

she has them very well trained!

i would do it again in a heartbeat,

and that's saying a lot!