So far, 2012 has been the best year for the Arizona Nastases, as far as “family visits” go. Two of Chris’s brothers visited in January and February; Tammy and Larry Pike were here, for the second year, to celebrate one (of our two) our wedding anniversaries and my parents arrived in January! To top it all off (so far) my sister, Melinda Brown and her husband Paul (and three adorable kiddos) came in March. It’s great for the kids, as we both only make it back to Omaha about once a year. Unfortunately, since we moved to Arizona, we’ve only seen Mindy and Paul’s family two or three times.

Our kids SORT OF know their “Aunt Lori” and “Aunt Mindy”, but really, they know family friends better than they do their own family. So this trip was VERY important, for all of us, not only for the grown-ups to reconnect, but for the kids to (in my mom’s famous words) “MAKE MEMORIES”! So, MAKE MEMORIES we’ve done!

Mindy and Paul rented a beautiful home just minutes from ours, in the Santa Rita Mountains. It’s so beautiful, like a resort! Very luxurious, with lots of amenities (I could probably write a rental ad for it), it has pool and hot tub, on lovely grounds. It is seriously the PERFECT house for a large family of rambunctious kids (and fun adults)! The kids swam for innumerable hours, and floated in the hot-tub for days!

The game-room beckoned when they were inside, with pool or air-hockey or checkers or hide-n-seek. MY favorite feature? A tie between the waist-high herb garden-such a GREAT idea when you have to weed it!-and the Deluxe Scrabble game on the table in the sun area. (sigh) OH! And the multi-eating areas in the kitchen and patio. Brilliant!!

Tonight I’m feeling very melancholy, because my family’s visit is quickly coming to an end. They will all be leaving this Friday morning, to drive up to the Grand Canyon for a few days, then they’re all going home. However, we have another day together, tomorrow, which I’m sure we’ll all enjoy!

This moves me to the impetus for this post. The AMAZING, wondrous, HILARIOUS day we had today. Which I NEVER want to forget… because I know, in the future, I’ll remember wrong, or
worry that I’ve remembered wrong! lol --->warningto Jack Nastase

Jack and I met my parents and Mindy & Paul and kids at Colossal Cave state park. The park is named for the COLOSSAL cave (discovered in 1879, for the nerds) and of course, this is the MAIN EVENT. (I am editing the comment to add that we did some OTHER things, like watch the big kiddos pan for jewels (which is when Nathan gave me a COLOSSAL “diamond”, and Natalie-boo gave me some “could be fool’s gold, maybe not fool’s gold”) -she knew it was fool’s gold (LOL)-and we pet some horses.

So, we get our tickets for the cave tour (which goes 7 stories underground) and get into line. As we descend into darkness, Jack starts insisting that I take him "home"; that we go back. He insists I carry him. Luckily, a tour guide leading a group on their way back offered Jack (we were at the end of the line) her flashlight, which distracted him most of the way. Practically every rule that they mentioned, before the tour, we broke. (Groan) “No flashlights in the tour guide’s eyes, no pointing flashlights where the guides point flashlights, etc.”. There were times when my fear of heights almost overtook me, holding my baby in my arms! But I would tell myself that my dad (my hero) was behind me, and my brother-in-law, Paul, was in front of me and I knew that neither one would let us fall.

In fact, there were many times when I’d see my brother-in-law reaching his arms to subconsciously protect his family, then peek back to make sure Jack and I and Grandpa were ok.

Occasionally things the tour guide said would resonate with Jack. “Stalactite, stalagmite” (which he repeated, ad nauseam, to the joy of all the rest of the tour, I’m sure.) We reached the depth
of over 700 steps (with him annoying the other part of the group only 18% of the time), which I’m basing only on gratuitous laughs, there and again.

Finally, we made it out of the cavern. I knew it when the kind lady who had offered her flashlight to Jack in the beginning of our climb said to Jack, “Young man, I’ve been looking for that light”, and gently pulled it from his hand. He was stunned and dismayed, only for a moment, when he looked up and saw the light at the entrance. “Mama! We’re on our way home!” lol

On our REAL way home, the memories of our visit to the “Colossal Cave” took on VERY MASCULINE, VERY COLOSSAL infringements. Jack (on his fake phone, telling “daddy” about the day): “Daddy, we went into the cave. Then we saw BATS! The bats chased us. I said, C’mon guys, we gotta get outta here! Then we run, and the bats come!” At this point, I interject, only because I was witness to something completely different. “Jack, you really saw BATS?” without pause, “Yes, mama, the bats came (gestures into his hair and around his head) and I screamed!” I
waited a moment and said, “did they sound like this: squeech squeech, squeech?” He looked at me like I was nuts and said, “NO. They said “insert-very-scary-very-masculine-movie-monster-sounds”. He continues this line of “memory” of our fun day.

The ONE thing I LOVE most about his recantantation is his insistence that: Grandpa, Uncle Paul, Keegan and Nathan (his boy cousins) are his “guys” fighting the bats. Funny how, regardless of the reality that MOMMY and Aunt Mindy are the ONLY two who would have leaped to our death to rescue him and there were ZERO bats on our tour, he’s relating to the males! LOL Total
guys' guy!