Phoenix trip

Haven't posted in a while. We've been busy! Here are pics from our trip to Phoenix. (I got to go present a paper for a conference, and we decided the whole family should come.)

Phoenix was GREAT. The hotel we stayed in was quite the resort - complete with water park, palm trees and fountains. It was perfect weather to enjoy the swimming pools, the wave pool and the "lazy river" (. Alex surprised me with her boldness in the wave pool. She has learned that with a life vest and her little toucan inner tube, she is invincible in the water. Even after one wave smacked her in the face, she still wanted to go back for more. In the evenings they showed a kid movie over the pool. This will be perfect in a few years; as it was, I couldn't really watch the movie because I was trying to focus on keeping the kids from drowning unnoticed. They sure had fun - they thought it was pretty cool to be in the pool at sunset. The kids slept well in the hotel except for one day when Sam learned he could climb out of the pack and play (see picture). We moved it away from the bed and that seemed to foil him again. Whew.

I had a nice mix of attending conference meetings, shopping the outlet mall, and playing in the water with the kids. I haven't traveled much for work in the past couple of years, trying to stay closer to home and the kids, but it was nice to get out of my usual work environment and meet people who are tackling the same problems from different angles. I felt happy with my presentation, and it generated so much discussion among the audience that the moderator had to cut it off so the next person could speak. At least they didn't fall asleep, as the department chair did while I defended my master's thesis. Anyway - I'm happy that part is over and look forward to presenting the same material to another audience in July.

We visited a train park too - this was really up Sam's alley. He looks so serious in the pictures but he really did have a good time. Really!


Alex insisted I include this picture of her showing off her bandaids. She skinned her knees at the train park. She stood up for an entire bath trying to keep the bandaids from coming off. :-)

Even though we returned to a cool and wet Salt Lake City, it felt like we got a good start on summer vacation. Hooray for summer!