So, now I will tell you all, for my journal's sake, how our Arizona trip turned out. I want to remember how we felt and what we thought of our possible future home. We flew into Phoenix on Thursday. Immediately we went to see the campus in the downtown Phoenix area. When we drove up to the campus, we were absolutely shocked. It did not look like a campus at all. Since this is not the main ASU campus (but the campus Ben will be at), it did not have the campus feeling. It consisted of 2 or 3 high rise buildings among several businesses. We were immediately turned off by the size of the city and the amount of people there. It felt dirty and scary to me. Now, we have to remember that we both come from a small town, which we love. Ben talked to the admissions faculty because he couldn't possibly wait until Monday to talk to her. Monday is when we had our big meeting planned. Needless to say, we left the campus that day feeling disappointed. On Friday we decided to have a different attitude and really look around at the Phoenix Valley. We drove everywhere. By everywhere, I mean we were in the car for the majority of 6 hours driving around the valley. It is so large and there are quite a few cities, that we didn't even see everything. We even went to the extent of using the GPS to find houses that were for sale so we could feel what each city's residential area was like. By the end of the day, we had a very good idea of what cities we would like to live in, how long of a commute it would be to school, and where my different options for PA schools were. We felt accomplished. Both of us were beginning to feel really excited about Arizona because we realized that it wasn't necessary for us to live the big city of Phoenix. And, who doesn't love 80 degree weather in December? We spent the majority of the day on Monday walking around Phoenix and figuring out the train system. We looked at different hospitals that I could work at and different places around the train that we could live in. Obviously, there were areas that we found that we both felt like we should avoid, but there were plenty of nice areas to live in as well. Phoenix didn't look so bad on Monday. After we got over the culture shock that both of us felt, we realized that it was actually a very good place for Ben to get experience in the social work field. We had our meeting with the other applicants applying to the social work program. Unfortunately, Ben has done so much research on the school that he was able to answer everyone else's questions for them. That meeting was pointless. But, we were able to meet one on one with the field placement supervisors. She was so nice and willing to answer any questions we had about the different social services around the city. We learned about different programs that Ben is very interested in. One of the programs was a Spanish speaking internship. He'd be able to speak Spanish 80% of the internship, qualifying him to receive his Spanish certificate. This would be amazingly beneficial to put on a resume. After these meetings, we felt really good about the school. They have a lot to offer Ben and we know that he'd really enjoy it there.
Among all of the business that we were trying to sort out, we found time to have a little bit of fun. We stayed with my cousin and her husband. We spent many late hours chatting and learning more about each other since my cousin and I are so far apart in age. It was so fun. Ben and I feel like we could really be good friends with these guys if we move down there. It will be so good to have someone we know in town. We also went to dinner with one of my uncles and a few more cousins. One of my cousins has two little three year old girls that Ben has a secret, or not so secret crush on. Those little girls just melt his heart. It's darling to watch him with them. My brother and sister in law live in Tuscan. This was a big bonus to our Arizona trip. We were able to go down and spend Saturday and Sunday with them. We had a good time with them. As we should all know by now, I'm the worst at taking pictures. This was the one and only picture we got our entire trip, only because Elizabeth took it. This is my brother and sister in law (with my future niece). Ben was teasing them the whole time saying that he was going to be the favorite uncle. We're not so sure how they felt about that. 
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