memory mondays

Here we are on vacation (and having a fabulous time I might add)! I forgot to bring the cord to download photos to the laptop, so thought that it would be a good time to begin a segment on my blog that I will call "Memory Monday" where I will share a random story or photo from my personal or family history...

Being on vacation naturally stirs memories of other vacations. Our last family vacation was actually to Phoenix. It was in February of 2009 (I was pregnant with Liv) and we drove from Utah to Arizona to check out the area as we were pretty sure that we would be moving there.

It was a LONG drive (11-12 hours) and we stayed that first night in a hotel close to Rob's work, before moving to the condo in Scottsdale for the week. Rob loaded up the cart with our stuff, and took the cart and boys out to the van to load while I did the last check of the room and gathered the final things before departing. We went to church and then drove around for while before driving north to Scottsdale.

Later that afternoon, we unloaded all of our stuff into the condo and I began unpacking. I hadn't seen our pillows or the boys' quilts so I asked Rob to go outside to get these things out of the van. This lead to a discussion where Rob told me that everything WAS out of the van, and I suggested that everything must NOT be out of the van and eventually went out to check for myself. Rob was correct, and our five pillows and all of the boys' quilts/blankets were missing.

We called the hotel and sure enough, they had found our items and had them waiting for us at the front desk. We were about 40 min. away so we ended up swinging back by this hotel the next day while we were out house hunting. A hotel staffer had put all of our items into a huge plastic sack labeled "Peterson" and it was funny how big and conspicuous the bag of stuff was. Rob made fun of me for *missing* these items on my "final check" of the room and we both chalked it up to my pregnancy brain. In fact, I think he gave me a hard time for most of the week...

When we arrived home late the following Sunday evening, I got the biggest kick out of one of the messages left on our home phone: "Mr. Peterson, this is 'so and so from the hotel' and we are calling to let you know that we believe we have some of your belongings here at our front desk. One of our patrons saw these items fall off of your cart as you were departing this morning..."

Ha, ha! In Rob's defense, he did have all three boys and the cart of luggage all to himself. Oh, the things we end up remembering the most.