Guns 'n Roses: January and February

A few months ago a friend of ours that is a Southwest flight attendent posted on facebook that they were having an awesome sale on airfare for the new year, so I thought "hmmmm where could we go in January?" then I realized, o yeah Megan and Devyn live in Phoenix, its warm there and we haven't seen them forever, plus the boys are a great age to play together.... ha ha so little did Megan know when she posted that, she was inviting people to visit them :-) So plans were made to go for a week, which actually ended up being cut down to just the long weekend because Jeremy was so involved in the electrical on our house at that time, he needed the extra leave for that. The other part of the trip that changed was that we were able to snag a 3 bedroom suite at the timeshare in Tuscon, so it was a mini vacation for the Motleys as well! The highlight for Connor was by far the Prima Air and Space Museum, it was a VERY cool museum, but seeing in through his eyes: it was the most incredible museum on the planet!! :-)

The saying "a kid in a candy store.... yeah that was Connor! Little planes, big ones, real ones and ones for play, if we would have let him he may have stayed all day....

Cole is about 7 months older than Connor, they are still young enough, they really weren't interested in playing together, just watching to make sure the other didn't take their toys :-) They spent most of the time at the museum separately exploring, but we did manage to get them together for a few photo ops :-)

This is a pretend plane that was built for kids, the joystick moves the flaps in the front and back, again, Connor would have just stayed here :-)

Dad and Connor trying their hand at flying a very old plane :-) Connor touched most of the buttons knobs and handles, he is very curious, or thorough....

We asked him "where is the propeller?" this is where he pointed... thanks to his Papa, Connor knows most all of the parts of an airplane :-)

Because Nicole's Dad is rebuilding an airplane, and Connor has visited him at the hangar many times, and because they talk about and look at pictures together, he associates Papa with airplanes (the same way when he sees a deer, he says Dada)... you'll see on the video what I mean :-)

Here is another adorable video of him at the air museum, I finally caught his "excited

This smile is the same one we saw all day! He was SOOO happy :-)\

This is the smile we saw all day, he was happier than a I think i've seen him before.. and it was like this the WHOLE time we were at the museum!

Will he be a pilot like his papas, ground crew like uncle Braden was, or air traffic control like his Uncle Brian will be? hmmmm I have a feeling he'll do something in aviation :-) Here he's practicing for ground crew:

Again, the smile that lights up a room! If we had an air and space museum in Omak... we'd be "frequent flyers"!

A picture is worth a thousand words, this was after being in the car about 10 minutes :-) I'd say they had fun! We joked about how much they look alike, this picture shows why we say that:

Saturday Morning the guys went golfing, so Megan and I and the boys went for a walk.. It was so nice to have warm weather and sun on our skin!

While in Tuscon we also went to a Children's Museum, we hadn't every heard of them, but now we'll be looking for them anytime we travel somewhere!

Dress up clothes, he didn't like this part very much :-)

But driving a firetruck, that he could get into!

The inside of a pretend ambulance..

He really liked this lego table in the construction room...

OHhh and we can't forget the amazing floating ball~!

Fun with gears!

the shopping/cooking/food room was AMAZING!! He is grocery shopping here:

At the check register...

Washing the veggies, ready to make a smoothie :-) The pretend water is just strands of metal beads.... SUCH a cool idea!!

At the garden... This was also very cool... just 2x4's wrapped in carpet placed loosely inside of a wooden box, that way the food can squeeze in between the wood.... VERY fun idea :-)

Connor and Mom playing peekabo in a small plexiglass window in the amazing treehouse :-)

The veterinary room was also another favorite, he spotted this dog immediately because it resembles our Daisy. This is him giving her a bath :-)

Dad and Connor inside the submarine:

Climbing (or attempting) the squishy block pyramid to get a ball ..

I was seriously amazed at how incredible and creative the centers were at the
Childrens Museum, if I lived somewhere that would be able to sustain a business like that, I'd probably consider opening one! Connor had a great time there, but I am beginning to wonder if I didn't have as much fun or more than him!

This is a fun video I got at the end of January of our 2 dogs, Nancys new puppy and Connor reacting to a laser pen in the kitchen:

Before Nancy left for St Croix she wanted Connor to open her birthday present, this is them sitting together while he opened the tool set and card she got for him:

About 8 months ago I (Nicole) started having swelling in my finger knuckles and my eyes and mouth were uncomfortably dry. I didn't give the possibility of Rheumatoid Arthritis or Autoimmune Disease a thought until the occupational therapist I was seeing about 3 months ago mentioned it because of how stiff my hands were. I was going to wait until August when I see my family practice doctor, but the more research I started doing on autoimmune disorders, the more concerned I was becoming. So I saw my doctor and she ran some tests, two of which indicated that I did likely have Rheumatoid Arthritis, or at least some type of autoimmune disease, so she refereed me to a rheumatologist. I saw the rheumatologist in Wenatchee who within 5 minutes of talking to me and looking at my test results and hands diagnosed me with RA and something called Sjogrens (dryness). It hadn't really set in just what that meant, and luckily I was on my way to Seattle to spend a few days with my best friend Suzanne and her two little ones while her husband was away for work. It was the PERFECT distraction and "lifter upper" I needed. We had a great time watching the kids play and just catching up. We even had a few good laughs ourselves, like the good old days! I didn't get as many pictures during the week as I would have liked, but here are the few I did.

Connor and Kalia "clinking" their glasses during breakfast :-)

We went to a cafe' that is geared to people with kids, they had a great little play area that Connor and Kalia both thoroughly enjoyed

Playing peekabo in a net thing :-)

We had Uncle Brian and Suzannes cousin Taylor and his fiance' over for dessert one evening, Brian and Connors birthdays are within a few weeks of each other and because Brian won't be able to join us in Boise to celebrate Connors 2nd birthday we had them celebrate together in Seattle :-)

Connor and Kalia both agreed that the cupcakes were amazing!

YUMM Chocolate!

We are in Boise for a few reasons, the main one was to have a little birthday party for Conorr, but we were also picking up some material for the house, and Nicole had a few Norwex presentations. Before we left for Boise, we had another pre birthday party after Bible study for Alli who is turning 1 and Connor.

Connor, Lizzy (alli's sister) and Allison all waiting until we sang so they could dig in: