Dear Colby,

We know we were just suposed to take one picture of Flat Stanley with something famous in AZ and send him back to you. However, a simple letter and ONE picture would not even BEGIN to tell you about the adventures we have had with your friend Flat Stanley this past week, so instead we wrote you a short story.

The following is an epic tale of a little paper boy named Flat Stanley.

Flat Stanley arrived to our home in Phoenix, Arizona on a sunny winter day. He told us he was from Utah and that his BFF Colby sent him to stay with us for awhile. We were so excited to have a visitor, but it wasn’t long before we realized that Flat Stanley had ulterior motives for his visit.

We woke early the first morning to the sounds of gun shots, fire bombs, and people crying for their lives. We jumped from our bed to see what was going on, only to find Flat Stanley playing our XBOX and drinking a Dr. Pepper.

When we asked him what he was doing up so early he replied, “Early, what do you mean early? ….I never went to bed!”

Flat Stanley knew he was in trouble for staying up so late, so he instantly jumped on the back of our dogs and ran out the doggie door.

We lost sight of him in the distance, but luckily there aren’t too many places to hide in the backyard. We found him sunbathing in a field of green grass, listening to his IPOD.

He was amazed that Arizona has green grass in the middle of winter!

We told Flat Stanley that there are tons of fun things to do in Arizona, even during the winter. First, we took him to a local horse show, but Flat Stanley couldn’t restrain himself and soon was riding the horse around the arena.

We also took him rock climbing near some waterfalls. Again, Flat Stanley was a little mischievous and somehow found himself stuck in some tumbleweeds. Flat Stanley was having so much fun! “Wow, there ARE so many fun things to do in Arizona, but I do miss the snow,” he stated. Then, to his amazement, we told him that we had a big surprise! “We have snow too!”

He didn’t believe us, so we took Flat Stanley Snowboarding.

He had never been before, so we had to hold his hand the whole time, but he got the hang of it by the end of the day. On our drive back home Flat Stanley asked us many questions about Arizona. We talked about boy stuff like dinosaurs, Indians, cacti, and of course the Arizona Cardinals who almost won the Super Bowl. “In fact,” we told him, “we can show you where they play!” We took him to see the stadium, and he thought that was cool. “I bet Colby’s uncle B.J. would love this place.”

That night at dinner we asked Flat Stanley if there was anything else he wanted to do in Arizona, but he shrugged his tiny paper shoulders and said, “No, I don’t think soooooo.” Just then he turned silent, and his eyes grew as large as two golf balls. We knew his little head was scheming something amazing… but we didn’t know just how amazing until the next morning when we discovered that Flat Stanley DISSAPEARED!!!

We looked high and low for him, but to no avail. We could not find him! Rachel decided to check our camera for any clues on his whereabouts, and that’s when we found what we were looking for. Flat Stanley had figured out how to turn our toaster in to a TIME MACHINE!

We don’t know how he did it, but we knew we had to get him back… so we followed him. We held each others’ hands, and pushed down the lever. There was a bright light and—POP!!! We were gone too.

When we reappeared we were in the time of Princesses and Kings, sword fights and banquets. The Renaissance era! We found Flat Stanley with a group of well-dressed villagers and told him we had to return back to our time.

He said the villagers told him there was a man who could whip fire in town and that there was a jousting tournament going on too. “Please, oh please can we stay a little longer,” he pleaded with his big puppy dog eyes. So we did, and it was really fun.

We even stopped for a bite to eat!

Yet the time soon came for us to leave, so we pulled out our “return with honor” button and gave it a tight squeeze. The button started to make a clicking noise and we knew that soon we would be flashed back to our time. Flat Stanley waved good bye to his new friends, and they waved in return. “Good-bye Sir Stanley,” the villagers yelled, and –POP—we were gone!

Whew! What an adventure we had had in only a few days. When he first arrived we told Flat Stanley that Arizona was fun, but he later admitted that he had had no idea how fun it was really going to be. We all decided that it was late and time for bed, so we said goodnight to each other and went to sleep. That night, while lying in bed, we wondered how long Flat Stanley was going to stay with us. He never really said how long he planned on staying. We decided that it didn’t matter; we were having so much fun that he could stay as long as he wanted to. However, it wasn’t long before that changed!
The next morning we found him hiding in a corner of the house holding a picture of Colby. He had big juicy tears on his flat face and his lips were quivering as he looked at us and said “…I miss Colby.”

We knew it was time for Flat Stanley to go home. We told him it was ok for him to go back, but first we had to clean him up. Rachel took Flat Stanley to her office and cleaned his teeth,

and Brett placed a band-aid on the cut he got from his run-in with a saguaro cactus.

Now that he was all patched up he was ready to go home.

Rachel gave him a kiss goodbye and Brett gave him a big high-five. We then placed him in an envelope, and before sending him back home to his BFF Colby, told him to tell everyone back in Utah that they are always welcome to come and stay with us in Arizona. And we promise it will always be an ADVENTURE!!

Colby, thank you so much for sending Flat Stanley to stay with us for awhile. We had SO much fun with him. We miss you and love you lots.

Love,

Uncle Brett and Aunt Rachel