Spring Break..a bit delayed

We had an AMAZING Spring Break..thanks to many wonderful family members who are beyond generous to us.  Right after school on Thursday 3/29, we drove down to Baltimore, arriving late and sleeping for a short bit before getting up for a 6am flight to Phoenix. We arrived, so happy to see the sun and feel the warm air – it has been a long winter in the Northeast!  We visited for 5 days with Steve’s sister and her family. We enjoyed lots of chill time together…warm weather…their unbelievable gym which was so big and had anything and everything you could ever want to work out…

Very happy to be grilling and eating outside:)

Life is oh so rough in Phoenix 😉

Andrea and Brian -our generous hosts!

Annie and her dad

Matt, Ben and Brendan doing dishes

Thanks so this wonderful lady, clean up is easy as she has much of it done before you blink an eye!

The Easter Bunny came for all of the kids…and left a big bowl for the adults to share 🙂

Uncle Brian let the boyz drive his car…Ohhhh…they could get used to this! 

A little basketball at Life Time Fitness – the most unbelievable gym we have ever seen!

Steve’s brother Greg and his girlfriend Shawna have been staying in Phoenix for the winter but had been out of town until Tuesday. Fortunately, we were able to fit in a quick visit before they had to leave again. They are amazing artists and travel to do shows and work on their art.

We got to see Uncle Greg and Shawna before we left..meeting for breakfast at Whole Foods

On Monday the Scotts had to go to school and work so we took the opportunity to drive to the Grand Canyon by way of Sedona…

 Cathedral Rock-boyz don’t look so big here do they? 😉

We were able to meet up with our friends from home who also happened to be out there for Spring Break.

The Stone/Anderson crew – a little bit of home in AZ!

The mandatory family photo

Cairn building contest

And we drive back to Phoenix via Flagstaff where our nephew is a Freshman at NAU. We asked him where he would want to eat and he said there was a nice sushi place he went to with his parents. Well, some in our family would not find anything appealing in a sushi restaurant (and Liam then admitted that he does not like sushi either but they have good chicken!). So we went to a brew pub thinking burgers fries etc would be good. We got in there and it was a dive bar with plywood tables.  Ended up being great food though and we had the room to ourselves so we could visit and be crazy and not worry about offending or bothering other diners.

West coast Faughnan cousin visit

We flew back to Baltimore on Wednesday, arriving at our nephew and his wife’s home late that night. They were very gracious hosts as well – they had a pizza for each of the boyz (Maura said ‘Andrew can eat a whole pizza – so I know…), and stayed up chatting til midnight despite having work the next day.

Murphy, their pup, is all about the photos!

We headed to Wm and Mary for a tour – what an AMAZING school! Casey’s first pick but ultimately too pricey for out of state students who have a teacher and social worker for parents!

We stopped in Baltimore to explore the harbor a bit and eat dinner at Steve’s mom’s favorite Italian restaurant (we missed her being there). Casey was also considering Loyola and had been to accepted students day but had not seen the harbor since he was little.

Boyz are big Forrest Gump fans (who isn’t?)

A little calamari ap!

From there we headed to Steve’s parents, arriving late and spending the next day helping them out with some jobs around the house….

Casey painted

Brendan and Seamus set up the new master closet.

And I (twist my arm) brought Jeanne (who treated me) to get pedicures…I had the toughest job I am sure :)…truly though I did help with some organizing and unpacking in their dining room!

The next day we headed out early to a USNA crew race in NJ so that Seamus could meet the coach and some of the team. It was great to see some parents and Seamus especially enjoyed hearing some positive things about USNA as lately all he is hearing is how hard it is going to be -which he knows but it does get a little old hearing that.  We then headed to my brother and his wife’s house in RI.  It was beautiful and we were able to go for a nice walk, look at a couple of houses they are considering buying and they treated us to a wonderful meal out!

Aunt Mary, Faolan and the boyz

In the morning just before we left – Uncle Jim and Aunt Mary have been great to us and have hosted us several times as we have been touring colleges near them!

We headed out Sunday morning for Boston College accepted students day…our last official college tour!

Brendan and Casey giving Seamus a hard time about his height

And Casey ultimately decided on BC so despite the cold weather, it was a great visit.  They tracked and realized we traveled 55+ hours over break – so lots of quality family bonding time in the car ;)…after leaving as soon as school got out and getting home Sunday night and having school the next morning…we were all ready for a vacation from our vacation!

Thanks so much to all of our family who hosted us and we just  loved the chance to spend short but sweet time with so many people who we love and do not get to see as often as we would like being so spread out all over the country!  So much gratitude for them!