4th of July weekend

Ben spent most of the weekend doing manual labor outside in the hot sun, but we still managed to squeeze in some good times. Friday we were supposed to go up to Snowflake for our friend Mike's 30th bday but got stopped 15 miles outside of Payson in some wicked traffic and couldn't make it. So we had to turn around and decided to stop in a place called Gisela that supposedly has cliff jumping near it. Ben's old girlfriend had wanted to take him there but never did, um, kind of wish they'd went on their romantic little getaway-we would've known where the heck we were going. We stumbled basically out of Arizona and I think into some backwoods town in Mississippi (really, I'm sure the people are very nice). It was so NOT a place I'd expect to be in AZ??... There were cows meandering through town, we had no idea where we were going, we skidded on some mud down to Tonto Creek (turns out we were not in the right place for cliff jumping). It was an odd adventure... It was so wet that it smelled like a rain forest, there were actual ferns and moss on the puddles in the road. Pretty though, and Kyndal got to do two of her favorite activities-climb up things and throw rocks in the river. Ben looks weird in the pictures, we were supposed to go to Mike's party dressed up as rednecks. On the 4th, we had the brilliant idea of spending it outside. We traipsed off to Schnepf Farms for QC's celebration and subsequently died of heat exposure. My poor kids. Since they have an earlier bedtime we wanted to go out and do all the fun stuff and then be back home and bathed before we sat on the driveway for fireworks. Boy was that a stupid plan. It was so freaking hot! It is so hot here, I get physically angry about how hot it is. I really would rather be freezing my tootsies off than be hot. It takes the fun out of everything for me. Luckily not for Kyndal though, she still enjoyed 5 turns in the bounce house before we left. Plus she was cute, and very concerned about her red hair bows that matched her shirt and pants. Little Dev just hung out, you could tell he was miserable but he mostly just had a pained look on his face. Note the chokehold hug Kyndal gives Devin. And note the sheen on my face. SO HOT. More sheening faces. Also, it looks as though Dev is being choked by the snugli, I assure you this is not the case. He does this to himself for some reason, I can't get him to rest his head on me, he always sets his chin on the edge. By far though, the highlight of our night was seeing this gem. I know it's hot sweetie, but seriously. You've been misinformed by someone, this outfit is not appropriate when you are heavily pregnant! I'm glad you have skinny legs still, buuuuut. What you can't see is the cowboy hat, it got chopped out of the picture because I was trying to look non-chalant about taking the pic. Please excuse my rudeness if you know this person, but maybe rudeness is necessary? Her daughter's dress would cover more skin.
Bottom line-next year we are NOT going to be in Phx for the 4th!