Phoenix

Scott and I got to take a little trip by ourselves down to Phoenix the last week of January.  When Scott was first offered the trip, it was just before our anniversary in December.  With this kitchen remodel, we knew we couldn't afford anything big for our anniversary, so we decided we'd count this trip (paid for by work) as our anniversary gift to each other.  But, with a December 19th anniversary, it makes it hard to travel so close to Christmas.  So, we planned the trip for January.  Since my parents would be our babysitters, we decided to plan the Phoenix trip the week before our Disneyland trip, so my parents wouldn't have to make an extra trip down here.  In hindsight, planning two trips back to back, both of which required leaving my little Kate behind, was not the best idea.  But, Kate survived, and I survived, and Scott and I had a fabulous time alone together.

Yep, that's my husband.  Isn't he cute?

The place we stayed, the Hermosa Inn, was a quaint little hotel with casitas scattered about.  I was in love with the green grass and colorful flowers.

  

After we got checked in, we headed out to do a little shopping.  My friend had told me Last Chance was a must go to place.  We scored clothes for all the kids at killer prices ($.97 ties for the boys, $3 shirts for the girls, $5 jeans for Savannah, etc). 

After shopping, we found a little restaurant close by, The Amarillo Grill.  And while I'm sure the food was not all that healthy, it was absolutely delicious!

The next day we attended the Phoenix Open.  I'm not a golfer, so I wasn't sure how much fun I would have.  But, it ended up being a very enjoyable day.  I sat in the sun and soaked up the warmth, and enjoyed good food.  It was just wonderful being there carefree with my husband.

I had to take a picture of this policeman on his horse to show my boys when I got home.

That night we had dinner with the guy who had paid for our whole trip (an insurance guy Scott does a lot of business with) and his girlfriend.  We had dinner with them last year when we went to Phoenix, so I felt like we knew them and really enjoyed visiting with them over dinner.  
 
The next day we took on Camelsback Mountain.  It was NOT an easy hike, but I enjoyed every minute of it.  I love a challenge like that.  Scott not so much.

Scott will kill me for posting these next three pictures, but I couldn't resist.  There were a couple of young (20ish) girls that offered to take our picture.  After the first one, they told us to do something fun.  We're old.  We don't really know how to do fun.  So the next one they told us to jump.  We are really old.  We can't even jump properly.  Scott looks like he is riding a horse (and has no neck).

The view from the top was gorgeous and so worth the climb.

After our hike, we went back to our room and got cleaned up and went to the Gilbert Arizona Temple open house.  It's a beautiful temple.

  

That night we met up with some of Scott's old mission buddies and their wives for dinner at a yummy pizza place. 

The next day we got up early and checked out, and headed to the airport.  It sounds simple, but we actually had everything go wrong that morning.  First when we got to the car, Scott plugged the address of the rental car return into his phone to get directions.  For some reason, it couldn't pull it up.  We sat in the car for 5 minutes trying to get it to work, before we decided to just start driving and try and find it ourselves.  We needed to get gas in the rental car, so we stopped at a gas station.  After 5 minutes, Scott got back in the car and said he couldn't get the pump to work, and we'd have to find another gas station.  Then we took a wrong turn (because we didn't know where we were going), and ended up going about 15 minutes out of our way to get to the airport.  We finally got the car returned, and headed up to wait for the shuttle bus to take us to the airport.  Scott realized as we got to the bus, that he had left his cell phone in the rental car, and had to go running back to get it.  When we finally got to the airport, the line to check our bags was super long.  I nervously checked the time, as the line didn't move and our flight time was getting closer.  Finally we got to the front of the line, and Scott typed in our flight number to the kiosk.  It said we couldn't check in.  A clerk came over and said we had missed the deadline to check our bag.  There is a 30 minute cutoff and we had missed it by 2 minutes!  So, we got sent to another incredibly long line and totally missed our flight, and ended up spending the entire day in the airport waiting for the next flight to Boise.  Spending 11 hours in the airport was not the best way to finish out our trip, especially when I needed to get home and get ready for our Disneyland trip, but it was what it was.  We tried to make the most of it and played silly games and wandered the airport terminals.  We finally made it home after the kids were in bed.  I missed Kate so much, that I insisted on getting her up to play with her.  It was wonderful to snuggle my baby.

My sweet kids knew how stressed I was to lose out on a whole day of Disneyland preparation, so they helped out by cleaning the house for me to come home to.  I have great kids!