Vacation....a week late

Well...now that we've been home a week, I think I'll actually post something about our trip. Between not feeling well, and having potluck at our house Friday night, I just didn't take the time to blog about it. So without out further ado...

Even though Sedona was freezing cold and snowy...we were still able to see a few (very few) beautiful red rocks. We drove a little ways out of Sedona to church that is built into the rocks and as we were leaving it started sleeting so we stayed inside the rest of the evening.

We were able to go to the Phoenix Zoo on Tuesday, but didn't get any good pictures there. After the Zoo we drove to Tuscon where we met Joel and Seth and helped them get supplies at Home Depot. After returning our rental car and eating supper we headed to Mexico. There were no problems getting across the border...but I did wonder if I might lose my life on the drive through the curvy mountain country, but thankfully we arrived safely at CVE around 10:30.

On Wednesday morning we had the opportunity to babysit for some of the kids while everyone was at a staff meeting. They were all very good...but really made us miss Madison:)Blare worked with Joel while we were there and had many different small projects from fixing toilets and door knobs to putting new bearings in wagon wheels.

I spent most of my time in the kitchen, baking. They wanted the freezers to be stocked up for all the work teams in the coming weeks. On Friday night the guys had a valentines dinner for the girls, so we made bread sticks for the meal. The girls were a big help and (I think) really enjoyed helping. I didn't get any good pictures, but a little 3 year old girl named Candi helped me a few different times in the kitchen, and I absolutely loved having her around. (She reminded me a lot of Madison) Here are the little girls with their roses. They were all so cute!!!!

We had a wonderful week away even though I think we would have had better weather if we would have stayed in Indiana. (The weather in Magdalena really wasn't too bad...it would start off freezing and then warm up a little during the day, and then be back to freezing at night. But we had little heaters in the dorms and we were never cold at night) Thanks to everyone at CVE for the warm welcome and to Joel and Seth for the great tour of the town, ranch, ect...

Hi from Phoenix

You know how Phoenix is always supposed to be warm and sunny...well...it's NOT!!!! We landed on Saturday and it's been nothing but cold and rainy since we've arrived. We drove up to Sedona yesterday after church and on the way, we had to stop at a Wal-mart to get hats, gloves, and a coat for Blare (we DID NOT bring warm enough clothes:) Our plans were to be at the Grand Canyon today, but they said that driving up there would be to dangerous. There was so much snow and ice and a lot of accidents on the roads we needed to take....so we're back in Phoenix.

Tomorrow we are hoping to go to the Phoenix Zoo and then drive back down to Tucson where Joel and Seth will pick us up to go to Magdalena for the rest of the week. Hopefully Magdalena will be slightly warmer than here. I hope everyone is having a great week!!!

Birthday Fun

Yesterday in church Susie turned around and said..."you haven't updated your blog for a while!!" So I figured I better do something about it.

Yesterday was Madison's 2nd birthday. It's so crazy to think that she is already 2 years old, time REALLY does go FAST! She has been so much fun and such a blessing to us these past 2 years and we are SO thankful that God has blessed us with her. We've had our trials with her, but looking back it's easy to forget about the bad stuff and just remember the good!!

On Saturday night we had a party for her with Blare's family and some of mine. She was one happy little girl and was on cloud nine all night long! (she actually woke up really early on Sunday morning and instantly wanted to go play with all of her new toys!) On Sunday night we had Grandpa and Grandma Fiechter over because they couldn't come on Sat. night, and since they just got home from vacation Todd & Teresa came over too.

Ever since we went to Florida in Nov. she's really been into Nemo, so we decided to do a Nemo cake. I was getting ready to draw the Nemo on the cake and chickened out, so Blare ended up doing that part, and I'm so thankful he did. He did a GREAT job!!

I think the cupcakes were my favorite part of decorating!! If you can't tell, the ones with the teddy grahams are supposed to be a beach with the bears "floating" in the rings and the other ones are just a small version on the cake.She loved blowing out the candles and asked to do it again and again.Madison loves to play the piano, so mom and dad got her a little keyboard she can carry around and play!!Dan & Audra got her a little princess hair set and the blow dryer really blows. She thought she needed to blow dry her hair with me on Sunday morning!!We had to convince her that she couldn't wear the shoes to church:) and she insisted on wearing the dress the next night too:) She LOVES both of them:)
Todd & Teresa gave her this harmonica...hopefully she'll take after her grandpa and Uncle Travis and play a real one someday!Thanks to everyone who came to her party!! We are so thankful for all of our family!!