phoenix road trip {2014}

every winter my father in law heads to phoenix to stay with his sister. usually nick will end up driving him down there and he will fly back. it's always just a quick little trip, but i secretly always wanted to go with them but never said anything cause it was good father/son time for nick and his dad.

well, my father in law was here in utah for a few weeks and him and nick had planned a trip to take him back to arizona. so this time i asked nick if i could go with them this time. nick talked to his dad about it, and decided i could come with! i was so excited to be able to go on a weekend vacation with them and be able to go to phoenix to finally see where nick's aunt and uncle live. and not to mention, enjoy the 80 degree weather in march!

we left early on friday morning and of course mcdonalds breakfast was in order before getting on the road. those barfuss boys love their mickey d's. finally we were on the road, we made our usual pit stops when heading south, first stop was in beaver, our second was in st. george. 

while in st. george, nick and i decided to stop at a store called rocket fizz. we have one up in SLC, but we went there to get us some ale8's for the road. sadly, they were out of regular ale8, but it didn't stop us from getting diet ale8.

we left st. george and headed towards vegas to stop for lunch. we had to stop at in-n-out cause it is so much better when you are on a road trip! 

after vegas we decided to make a pit stop to see the hoover dam. and let me tell you, nick and larry could not stop with the "dam" jokes. i think i heard them for the rest of the trip.

 hoover dam was really neat, i hope at some point i can take a tour of it.

finally we just booked it to phoenix after that. at that point i think we were all tired and just ready to be there. we got to stacie and kevin's house around 8:30 and kandis and greg were also there and they were making cookies and playing mexican train. the lythgoe's are great hosts! it was fun to stay at their place. after eating tons of cookies and playing a few rounds of mexican train, nick, kandis and i headed out for the hot tub. definitely a perfect way to relax before going to bed.

the next morning we got up early again to head to mesa temple with nicks dad. that temple is absolutely beautiful. this was my first temple i've been to out of state and i'm glad it was cause it is so pretty!

after the temple we headed back stacie and kevin's to get ready to go to the angels vs. diamondbacks spring training game! i was so excited for this because i have always wanted to go to an angels game, so i can somewhat cross it off my bucket list, but i still want to see them play in anaheim. 

after the game we headed back and had a relaxing night of sitting in the hot tub, eating yummy hamburgers, a DQ run and also discovering that our flight home was not booked for the next day... it was for next sunday, march 16th.

woops!! but everything worked out, we got the money refunded {for a small fee of course} so my father in law got his money back, and was also able to book nick a flight back in april for cheaper to bring him home.

so we ended up renting a car and driving back on sunday. so we still got home the same day, just not the way we had planned! but the drive is always fun with nick and it went by so fast.

even though our trip to phoenix wasn't super long, it was still so much fun. it was so fun to hang out with family all weekend, get my first sunburn of the season, and finally be able to see what phoenix is all about! hopefully we'll go to phoenix again real soon :)

next time i go to a baseball game in phoenix, i probably shouldn't wear a necklace...