After we got back to the house we saw an event for the Phoenix Art Museum, a free day. It was during the week but since we had the week (and month) off, we decided to go. It honestly was a lot cooler than I expected. Here are a few photos from that day. The first photo looked like it was exploding (so naturally Arabella made it like she was Neo from the Matrix and was controlling everything). Then we entered a dark room with what looked to be a ton of lights. It was called “fireflies” and to be honest pictures do not do it justice. It would have to be seen and appreciated in person. Finally, we have a silhouette of Arabella in the Sunset and by one of the art exhibits.
Towards the middle of the month, we took a weekend trip and went about touring Route 66. We went all over, we took as much of route 66 as we could. Some classic Americana was seen. There is still the longest stretch of Route 66 still intact in Arizona (which we saw). Along the way, we also stopped in neighboring states Utah and Nevada. The little boy had already been to more states in a few weeks than Arabella had been to for a few months of her life!
Since we were up in the Northern reaches of the state we also went to Horseshoe bend near the east rim of the Grand Canyon. It is beautiful, but in June very hot. I also think that it wouldn’t be enough to talk about little baby E if you didn’t have at least one picture of Elijah upset followed by one with his orange tiger “Cheeto” which he ended up naming later on.
Being at home afforded me some great opportunities to bond with Elijah and to enjoy and give some extra attention to Arabella at this time too. A bulk of the rest of the month we spent at home. Up above are photos of Elijah decked out in Cardinals gear! Then Arabella would occasionally try to breastfeed him- it was super sweet. He would be crying and she would come over to him, lift up her shirt and try to feed him. After sending a picture of the baby to some people at work we also got this nice gift, “Future CEO” which we had to have a photo with him. It was still big but we wanted to ensure that we took a photo with him looking very dapper.
Shower times were fun – imagine getting out of the shower and being faced with this. I’m sure this is one of a zillion reasons Arabella is so in love him with. Another baby photo I thought was cute as he was yawning. It almost looks like he had a surprised look and his hand covering his mouth. (Side note: I still have those shorts/shirt) Around this time we also took lots of photos of Elijah sleeping, on us, on his own, didn’t matter. This is one of the ones. Look at Arabella’s face, it tells the whole story.
Arabella tuckered herself out from playing and would always end up in the one place her toys should have been/use to be (photo above). We had an offer for free baby photos and so we went to JC Penny at the Superstition Springs mall, because free is free. I know they do it so you buy photos – we didn’t love most of them, but there were a couple of good ones. So we ventured out again towards the end of the month (think 4th of July) and it is not as fun when it’s 110 outside – so we went to the City of Angels. At this time we were trying to find a baseball team we all could go for (My wife being a Red Sox fan and myself a Yankees fan) and with the rest of my fam going for the Yankees it made it difficult to watch games and not feel like a fight would ensue. For the good of the order, we tried out the Dodgers for a little. Next up is July!
just Pray
note: this post was published on 07/28/22 but moved the publish date back to the end of June 2017 to keep chronological order.
