phoenix visit

We brought Grandma Taylor a very special little birthday present last weekend!

Brooklyn was very excited to see Grandma and Grandpa Taylor. We see them about every week on Skype, so we think she was able to recognize voices and faces.

We visited the mission office with them on Friday -- we hadn't been in when we were there for Christmas.

The office staff had a birthday brunch for Cheryl and we enjoyed chatting.

We stopped by the construction site for the new Phoenix temple -- the church members and missionaries in the area are very excited.

We figured out that the noisy birds they've been hearing in the backyard are grackels.

We were excited to put Brooklyn in some summer clothes.

We were even more excited to put her in her swimsuit!

We bought a little wading pool and put it up on the patio.

She loved playing with the swim toys.

And eating them.

Mommy even got in for a second.

Brooklyn loved playing with Grandpa. She's starting to realize how silly and funny he is.

They enjoyed looking at bugs or flowers or something.

Of course we had to make pizza on Saturday night for a birthday dinner.

The missionaries assigned to the area came over for ice cream cake (it was his birthday too!) along with Scott and Cheryl's neighbor friends.

Brooklyn showed off the new skill she's developing -- crawling. We'll have plenty more on that later.

We had a great trip -- Austin took a Friday off and we made a long weekend out of it. We had been meaning to visit back in February or March before we moved to Washington but things got too crazy. Last month we decided May would be perfect and made it into a surprise Mother's Day present for a quick birthday visit!