This summer has been crazy busy for Jefferson at work so we decided to take advantage of the long 4th of July weekend by going to Prescott and enjoy the cooler weather and 4th festivities.
We started off the trip by stopping by my parent's house on the way up and visiting for a while. My mom had a cute red, white, and blue breakfast and we had a great time hanging out. After that we headed a little farther north to the outlets and had a fun time walking around, shopping, eating, and buying a couple nice things. Then, it was back in the car for the "little over an hour" ride the rest of the way to Prescott. Unfortunately, there was a car fire once the road went down to two lanes and it took us over an hour to get not very far. Fortunately, Emery was great and slept most of the time and then played the rest of the time. She really only fussed for the last 15 minutes.
We pulled in to Chino Valley and visited with a lot of family, including Jeff's cousin and her family who have been in Jerusalem for the last 3 years. I hadn't even met her yet! We visited, played games, ate dinner, and visited some more. This is also when Jefferson and I became known to one cute boy as Jefferlyn. I guess we have our own star-celebrity name. We were going to watch fireworks but Emery started to get really tired (she normally goes to sleep at about 8:30) so we decided that instead of watching fireworks with a screaming, cranky 5 month old we would go back to Prescott and put her to bed. Of course, once we got to the new surroundings she was wide awake looking at everything and didn't go to bed until 10:30, go figure.
Friday morning, we woke up, got ready, put Emery down for her morning nap while we visited and then headed off to see Prescott as soon as she woke up. Our first stop was Sharlot Hall, a historic center with a bunch of buildings and...artifacts...? from early Prescott life. I'm not sure what the word I'm looking for is because artifacts is a word for things much much older but you get the idea. It started sprinkling halfway through which was so nice and cooled off the already fairly nice temperatures.
Once we were done there we walked around the square where they were having the Rodeo Arts and Crafts Fair. They had tons of vendors selling things and a band playing some music. It is always so interesting to see the different things that people make and sell. We also saw Jeff's grandpa's name on the war memorial in the square. After walking around for a while, we headed back to Aunt Gerry's house so Emery could take her afternoon nap. She slept so great in Prescott. She napped longer and better (even when there were kids and people making lots of noise) and slept through the night only waking up at 5:30 to eat and then go back to sleep for another hour or so. I think it's because we had the windows open and there was almost always a breeze. It was so peaceful. Anyway, later that night we got Pizza Hut and watched a movie before heading off to bed.
Saturday was the big parade so we got up and headed out to watch it with Uncle Grant and his family. They had some nice pop up tents that kept us shaded. Emery did pretty well at the parade. One group was giving out American flags so we got some and I let her hold one and she just held on to it and waved it around. It was so cute!! We left the parade a little early because Emery was needing a nap and a parade is not the best place to be able to fall asleep. GT, Victoria, and Aunt Gerry had lunch ready when the gang got done at the parade so we ate and then packed up and headed home, not without stopping at Dairy Queen for a blizzard.
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| Aunt Gerry |
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| The backyard overlooking Prescott |
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| Outside Jeff's grandparent's house. |
Emery did great but was definitely happy to be home. This is literally 3 minutes after we walked in the door.
We had a great weekend and really enjoyed being able to have a weekend getaway in the middle of such a hot and busy summer.
