Trip To AZ!

Hi, everyone!

Man, I am EXHAUSTED! My last post was to announce that I was quitting my job, and since then, I've been absent. I took a small break to go to Arizona to visit my family, now I have two weeks until my last day!


I have never been to AZ before, but my mother is from there and her family lives there. I got to meet a lot of people I had never met before, and a wonderful author I met in the blog-o-sphere!

Aladdin and I flew out on Thursday last week:

So early!

AZ!

I stayed with my aunt who I haven't seen for about seven years. She has three kids--my cousins, who I also hadn't seen for maybe...seven or more years:

Me and my Aunt

Cousin Pic!

Cousin pic!

Cousin pic!

Okay, so THEN I got to meet my Uncle who I haven't ever met! I told him we will never go another 23 years without seeing each other! Guess what?!? He loves LotR and The Hobbit, too!! Books and movies!!

Me and my Uncle!

Then, I got some really AWESOME pictures of my family.

The first is my mother. Why is this so important to me? Well, I have no pictures of my mom from when she is young. I have a driver's license picture of her from when she got her license in OK. Nothing else. So I was ecstatic to have this one: 

Isn't she gorgeous?! 

Then, I got a picture of my grandma. Now, this is important because, while I have pictures of her, they were when she wasn't in good health. I only met my grandmother once, and she died when I was 7:

Just as beautiful! 

Next is my grandpa. Now, my uncle has a better picture of him from when he was young (and he had such pretty eyes!), but this one is a little blurry. I've only seen ONE picture of my grandpa, so when I went to AZ, I have seen, in total, 3. I never met my grandpa. He died when my mother was 16 from a massive heart attack.

He was a handsome man!

Now, for the AMAZING author I met!! 

You all have heard me talk of her and you probably have visited her blog! She is Barbara Kloss!! The author of Gaia's Secret and The Keeper's Flame. She is THE BEST self-published author I have EVER read. 

Idk what we were doing. 

Smiles!

YAY!

We ate a Angel's Trumpet Ale House. It was yummy. ALSO, did you know Barbara's THIRD BOOK has a title?!? 

THE DRAGON'S BREATH! 

If you haven't already, please do yourself a favor and read her books!

Much love to you all! I'll probably not begin blogging regularly until I end my job on the 23. After that, I *might* be taking another trip to New York and Canada, but I'll let you know!

Loves,