Arizona trip

Derek and I were lucky enough to go to Arizona for a week!! Oh my word! Why did we ever leave? I miss it so much!! I can't wait until we're done with school so we can be back there again!!
Basically last Wednesday morning after Derek got off work from his night shift, we drove with Thayne and Kiama down to Maricopa, Arizona and spent the week with Raylene and Raylon. There were a lot of kids so it made it difficult to really get to go out and explore and do all the things in the city, but that's ok. We had a lot of fun family time and we were still able to do some fun things.
We went swimming 3 days, went to the Chandler Fashion Center, the girls went to Emili's bridal shower while the boys went to Jesters for Raylon's bachelor party. Jesters is an improv stand up comedy center. It's basically like watching Who's Line Is It Anyway in person. We had lots of ping pong and air hockey tournaments, and we played late night games together. I got 2 of my requests in. 1 was going to In N' Out Burger. It is so fresh and yummy, we even went twice!! I also requested that we go to RA Sushi, and luckily we were able to!! I was one happy lady!!
The best part of the trip was visiting our old ward. Our ward in Arizona is seriously the MOST amazing ward hands down!! The bishopric is amazing and that ward is so involved and active. Everyone wants to be there and everyone does their part. It was so fun seeing all of our friends. It was crazy because all of our friends now have babies and they are all so big! It was crazy but so fun catching up with everyone and seeing how much they have all grown. Derek and I were able to spend an evening with some friends from Idaho that have just recently moved literally a block away from our old apartment!! It was fun seeing them and playing games together.
All in all the trip was a blast, and we were sad to leave!! It's always hard to come back to the real world after a fun trip. Today was my last day of work and we start school on Monday. YUCK!! I am soooo not ready for it!! My semester consists of Physics and Chemistry along with 4 other classes. I am dreading it. This is what I plan on being my hardest semester. It's going to be very difficult for Derek to balance working full time all night long, sitting through class all day, finding time to sleep, and finding time to study on top of it all. I feel really awful but right now we don't really have another choice!! I hope we can come out on top after this semester! Wish us luck!!!