It's tem-PE, not TEM-pe.

We started in Phoenix where we got to see my brother Paul and his wife Carly. Paul and Carly got married the same afternoon in the same temple sealing room that Jonathan and I were married. Paul and I have been siblings since he was a little over 2 and have been friends since an East coast trip just after I turned 13, so it was good to see them again. My parents were also out to visit Paul and Carly, so it was a mini little Southwestern reunion for a third of the Aylworth clan.

Let's begin with the car ride. Jonathan and I have discovered how to use Caleb's love of music to our advantage. Before we headed on a 5 hour one-way trip with Caleb we purchased 4 CD's totalling over 160 songs just for toddlers. Did you know there were so many little songs? Oh, I know all about sailors going to see, what you do with a "silly" sailor, monkeys jumpin' on the bed and many other little wonders. After all, 5 hours of toddler tunes beats the banshee shrieking right behind me anyday. So, off we go! Here is Mr. Joe Cool himself taking a break in Wickenburg...

The escape artist.

"Let me down, Dad!!"

Then, other than historic and glorious Arcosanti (please detect my sarcasm as all it really was was a hippie compound about 2 hours north of Phoenix), Skittles Bowling was my favorite family activity of the trip. I learned this little gem of an activity on, I'm pretty sure, my very first BYU date. Thank you, Chris Miller. The rules of skittles bowling are simple. For each color skittle you pre-determine the method of bowling assigned to it. In our case, if I drew a purple skittle, I needed to spin around 5 times before letting the 10 pounder fly. We gave purple this designation after my dear mother assured me that purple was the most rare of skittles colors. Statistically speaking, our bag of skittles was, therefore, an extreme outlier as about one in three skittles pulled was a purple. Needless to say, I with my iron stomach was the only one who did not feel queasy at the end of our interlude at the lanes, but we had a memorable, even if dizzy time.

This is Jonathan bowling backwards as required by his skittle choice.

And this is my Daddy. Bless him. He is a man of his word. He drew a skittle that indicated he needed to bowl with his eyes closed. Look how tightly *scrinched* his eyes are!

And this is my Mama sportin' excellent form.

I regret to inform that the rate of motion of Carly's hair precludes us from seeing her face...But it looks like she dropped the bowling ball on her foot...

This is my bro Paul going for the backwards "granny." A popular favorite in this Skittles Bowling event.I can't be certain, but this may be my victory dance with Caleb after bowling a strike...probably left handed. I have to agree with my cousin David in this matter... If it takes no training and if you can just go ahead and do it with your non-dominant hand, bowling really cannot qualify as a sport. I think I got a higher score skittles bowling than when I normally bowl.

The morning we left each one of us unwittingly put on the same shirt as everyone else. Curious. Quality bed-head, no?
Then we headed off to the splash park that Caleb LOVED. It was hard even getting pictures of him because he was running around so animatedly. It was just the right amount of wet to cool off without being unsafe for a toddler...except when mom steps in. Okay, now I'm already aware I'm the worst mom in the universe as a result of the following picture, so please, no hate comments in the blog. But since I have the picture, you might as well enjoy it...and know that brave Caleb is doing just fine.
Yup. This is exactly what it looks like. Jonathan took him to the top, and me, only thinking I could get a sweet action shot of the kid on this fun water slide, sort of forgot about catching the toddler on the way down. Well, I was right about the sweet action shot at least...and Caleb only skipped once or twice on spongy splash park floor.
He's not so sure about going down this time. I can't imagine why. :) I promise I put down the camera and caught him after this shot.

More trips coming soon...