Arizona trip, Part 1: Friday April 2 and Saturday, April 3

These pictures are from Saturday, April 3 in Mesa, Arizona. But, before I get to that, I wanted to explain the circumstances leading up to these good times. We booked flights to Mesa from Missoula, MT from Friday, April 2 returning Friday, April 9th. Missoula is 5 hours away from Magrath, but the flights were pretty cheap from there. Before our trip, Mark was acting really strange for almost a week. He was salivating like crazy, gagging, and and acting tired and listless. I took him to emergency on 2 different occasions. He was missing a plastic stopper from his feeding tube which we presume he chewed off and may have swallowed and which could have gotten stuck in his esophogas. We were also worried he might have aspirated it, but he didn't develop a cough or fever and the x-rays didn't show any lung blockages, etc. After spending the evening in emerg on Wednesday (Mar 31), we took Mark back on Thursday for a barium swallow study where they tried to see if there was something trapped in his esophagus. They didn't see anything, but amazingly after the study, he started acting normal again. We decided to go on the trip after all and take him with us, hoping that he had overcome on his own whatever was bothering him. And, as it turned out, he had!

The travel was quite long, but went as well as could be expected. Our van was super loaded down, with our family and luggage and also Karson, Sherylee's son who coming with us to see his parents (He is living in Cardston with Rob's parents, his grandparents, and doing Gr. 12). We were quite a production at the airport. We had to check 2 car seats and one big suitcase, and everyone had a roller suitcase carry-on, in addition. When you consider we had to get Mark and his wheelchair and formula and meds through security and onto the plane, you can imagine that we were quite the sight. Note to self: Next time more checked bags, less carry-on.

Mark travelled pretty well, considering. He got pretty fussy in the airport at Missoula. They had patted him down in security and right after I had to change his poopy diaper on a bathroom floor. He was kind of spooked and got pretty terrified apparently confusing the airport with the hospital. At first on the plane, he was pretty upset, and I drew up the secret weapon, Choral Hydrate (which puts him to sleep almost instantaneously), but then with his ipod and music toy in hand and him seated with his wheelchair seating system and the tray table to bang on, he settled down and did pretty well for the whole flight. When we arrived Monte and Sherylee came to pick us up at the airport with two vehicles! (All week long we borrowed their vehicles to get around--thank you!)

On Saturday morning, Monte and I went for a run. For my half marathon training program, I had to run 8 miles that day, so that's what we did. Monte is a far stronger runner than me, and even though he hadn't run 8 miles anytime recently, when we got back, I was the tired one. We then watched the morning session of conference on the computer and had lunch, courtesy of Sherylee (who incidentally fed us all week long and did an amazing job of it. She had meals planned and the groceries on hand, and made it look easy, though I'm sure it wasn't--Thank you Sherylee).

After lunch, Liz and Christian and their 6 kids and Christian's brother Garth came to Sherylee's house. Liz and Christian and family were down in Phoenix visiting Garth for the Easter weekend and we were very lucky to be able to spend the day with them. We visited out by the pool and had an Easter egg hunt for the kids. At 5, the men went to Priesthood meeting, and we met up with them at the Mesa temple pageant which started at 8:00. The pageant was amazing. There were probably 3-500 cast members, several stages, lights, music, dancing, etc. The pageant told the story of Christ's life, death and resurrection. It was extremely well-done and attended by, I'm guessing, about 10,000 people per night. It was so nice to sit out at night and not be cold, too.

I'm not as smart as this blog system. These pictures are in reverse order