Party in the Desert

Hooray for some warmer weather! Gus and I just returned from a visit to Phoenix to see Mandy and her family. I figured there was no better time than January to head to the sunny desert. Thankfully, all the crazy rain happened in Phoenix the week before we went, so while we were there it was about 70 and sunny every day. Not too shabby! Gus survived his first plane ride pretty well, and slept almost the entire way. He also slept pretty well there (although he half woke up every morning at 5:30, I could always make him sleep until at least after 6).
Mandy hosted us out at her beautiful new house in Gilbert, about 30 miles outside of Phoenix. Gilbert seemed kind of strange because everything was really new (less than 10 years, I would guess) and looked the same. Then sprinkled among this was some farms. Literally there would be horses and cows on a block with giant new houses. Very strange! I have some highlights from pictures below, or you can see them all on my snapfish page:
http://www5.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=3783548014/a=103663773_103663773/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

The Eyrich family at the Phoenix zoo


Me and Gus with some saguaro cacti at a park near Mandy's house


Me and Gus on top of South Mountain, which is just south (I know, shocking) of downtown Phoenix, so you can see it above and just to the right of us. You can just drive to the top, so it was very convenient....I wasn't sure I was ready to hike with the baby bjorn. There were cacti all the way up the mountain!


Spencer and Gus playing. Spencer was almost ALWAYS in Gus's face if they both were awake. I think Gus was a little lost last night without someone to constantly entertain him!


The kids at Tempe Town Lake


Cool cacti and some big red rocks at the Phoenix zoo


The ultimate zoo habitat - the zoo has the bighorn sheep out on these giant rocks. So cool! The red rocks at the stl zoo pale in comparison....


Dad, this one is for you. If you can see past the reflection of my shirt, I took a picture of a field. They have these parallel mounds of dirt, and Mandy said they flood the fields instead of regularly watering them, and the dirt somehow contains water without washing stuff away. Mandy said they even grow corn there, crazy! Just very different looking than fields at home. I guess this is alfalfa?