a Tucson adventure

Last week my family and I (minus Hank, he was on a business trip in Chicago), headed down to Tucson to celebrate my cousin Ryan's graduation from University of Arizona. It was so nice to head down to their neck of the woods for once. Aunt Pat is my Mom's sister and she and her husband, my Uncle Bob, have four boys. Before we even lived in Arizona we would come out to Tucson to visit them from NJ, and I have so many great memories of when we were all so young- visiting Old Tucson, Mt. Lemmon, desert adventures, and lots of laughs. Whenever we all get together I can't help but think about how neat it would be to have four boys. Originally I wanted a girl at some point, but whenever I'm with my cousins I feel like I could be the mama to a bunch of boys just like my Aunt and be so happy.

So anyway, Ryan (the third oldest) graduated UofA so they had a party at my Aunt and Uncle's. Their home is so beautiful and it's always such a treat to enjoy a cool(er) desert night. The night was full of Mexican food, way too much cake, some badminton on their sports court, lots of longing glances at the crystal clear pool, and some trampoline jumping. It was a great night.

Sarah, Henry and I drove down together, and on the way down we of course made the hours fly by with so much girltalk as Henry snoozed away. On the way home it was no different...until I looked down at my odometer and realized that my gas light was on. And had been on.  We were on the long, desolate stretch between Tucson and Florence, about 35 miles between each point. I checked my "range" and it let me know that I had 5 lovely miles left until we ran out of gas. In the middle of nowhere. With little to no cell reception. In 90+ degree heat. And a baby in the car. My worst nightmare. BUT luckily my parents, sister and Abe were in front of us, so my iPhone managed to grab a signal and let them know what was up. I fully anticipated running out of gas...but guess what? My fabulous, wonderful, super car got us all the way to the gas station. We may have been running on fumes, but we got there!

So lesson learned- check your gas levels before engaging in intense girltalk sessions.

All in all though it was a wonderful day and I'm so happy we got to celebrate with Ryan. Unfortunately (and REALLY regretfully) I only used my phone's camera that evening, but these are still good representations of our night, however embarrassingly bad the photo quality...

I sure love my family.