After having many disappointments this year on the adoption front, we decided to take a much needed vacation. We drove down to Arizona and visited with my sister and her family, and tried to catch up with a few friends we left behind. Unfortunately we didn't have time to see everyone we wanted to see, and ran into a few people we didn't expect to see. The last part of our trip included going to Sea World, so I am just warning you now, we have a lot of pictures.
We took the route through the Hoover Dam to see the progress on the amazing bridge they are building.
We stayed with my cousin, Tyler's family our first night in Phoenix. They have a daughter Halle's age and they had tons of fun playing together. We went together to the Children's Museum in Phoenix where we met Jolene. The kids had lot of fun with the pretend grocery store and all the other stuff they had there. It was just perfect for their ages.
Going through the tricycle car wash.
Up on the platform where they load balls. Good job Halle for not being scared.
And serving ice cream cones.
Then we spent a few days at Jolene and Kimball's house. It was crazy because I was trying to get some of my Christmas shopping done since we don't have all those great stores in Idaho, and especially in our little town.Katie followed Halle around the whole time we were there. She wanted to be just like Halle and do everything she was doing. It was adorable. This picture wasn't planned, but we realized they were wearing similar jammies.
We made Halle burn off some energy at a park near their house before we got on the road to California. Apparently they didn't plant winter grass there.
We went to Sea World on Thanksgiving Day. It turned out to be the best time to go because there weren't any crowds. We did hear a lot of other languages besides our own though.
She would only put one finger on the dolphin, but she touched it. She said it felt like a hot dog.
No kids to speak of in the play area. She just walked right in and had the place to herself.
This is the pose you will see my sister, Jolene, doing in just about every picture we have of her as a child. We have always said that Halle is so much like her, and here is another similarity. She was doing it for every picture I tried to take of her.
Neal is standing in line with Halle to get on a ride. The people surrounding him are fully grown adults, mind you. Like I said, we heard a lot of foreign languages. I had this same view when I went to Hong Kong. I felt like a giant looking over everyone's heads in the subway.
Here's Halle being brave on the rope bridge with Dad. She went down a twisty slide that was over 2 stories high. Way to go!
We saw the Shamu show twice. Earlier in the day as we were leaving the first show, I looked down and Halle had tears streaming down her face. She was sad because she didn't get to be splashed. We had time at the end of the day, so we went again. We only moved forward maybe three rows, but they brought out the big guns and had two splashing at a time. 
Shamu definitely made it up to her - and us. So then she starts complaining that she's freezing cold! But she was all smiles. She told us on the way home that she is going to be Shamu's trainer when she grows up. I told her she would have to feed him the fish. She replied by telling me she would just have to bring her gloves. She had apparently already thought this through.
