Arizona

We got back late last night from our trip to Arizona. It was a very good trip. The girls were fantastic on the planes rides going and coming. Our flight was so late last night that Miss stretched out on the floor of the plane to go to sleep. We didn't have reliable wireless while we were there. So though I had intended to post once or twice during the week, here's one big fat post to tell you all about the trip.

Our first morning there, Miss was ecstatic about the sun and warm weather. I chose this house to rent specifically because of the large grassy area where she could play and the fence around the pool. Here she is marveling at the wonderful weather.

It wasnt quite as warm as I thought it would be but the weather was the same every day. Sun. 70-ish degrees. Almost no clouds. Not warm enough to swim, but warm enough to play outside a lot. And my big girl loves to play outside.

It was the first thing she asked her daddy to do every morning. With the time change she was getting up a bit earlier than usual, and my generous husband got up with her every morning to let me sleep in a little bit. And every morning, even though it was still pretty chilly early on, she asked right away to go outside. They had tons of fun just playing in the yard.

We got out and about quite a bit as well. We went to the Phoenix Zoo.

Miss got to feed a giraffe. The first time she tried to feed him the lettuce leaf his crazy-long tongue kind of freaked her out and she dropped it.

So the she watched her daddy do it

and gave it another try.

Watching the cheetahs.

Lunch time.

Lass was a superstar, just hanging out in the stroller we rented or in her Ergo carrier.

Miss asked all day to see the monkeys. They had a nice "Monkey Village" where we could go in and walk around with the monkeys on the loose all around us. Miss got a kick out of looking for them up in the trees.

"Where'd he go?"

We took a nice walk in Papago Park.

We went to a playground near our rental house.

That's my girl!!

One afternoon my hubby gave me a break to go to a local spa for a treatment. It was amazing and such a nice treat for Mama!!

We all enjoyed our break from the cold and snow. It was nice to just be outside and play without being crazy bundled up and freezing. It was also cool to see all the flora of such a different climate. I had never been to Arizona or any place like it before, so it was fun for me to see all the different cacti and other plants and to show them to Miss.

We also had fun looking at ants. Fortunately, this time of year there aren't many other bugs or creepy critters in Arizona.

Interestingly, one of my favorite outings of the whole trip was to a bunch of Main Street art galleries. They have amazing galleries in Scottsdale and we spent one morning sampling many of them. Miss seemed to have as much fun (if not more) looking at the art as she did at the zoo. She "oohed" and "aahed" and pointed out all the things she recognized. At the first gallery we went into she saw some large cartoon-like female statues and she pointed to them and said "Oh, Big Mama!" We all cracked up, including the woman working at the gallery. Miss is still talking about the "Big Mama" statue.

Overall, we were pleasantly surprised by how friendly the people are in Scottsdale and how much fun we had. I had never really thought of Arizona as a place high on my list of places I wanted to visit (other than to the Grand Canyon), but it is definitely a place we will likely go again. It's nice to have a break from the cold, and we will have some great friends moving there we would love to visit. And I want to spend some more time browsing the art galleries as we barely scratched the surface this time.

It's snowing here as I type this. Fortunately it is a bit warmer than when we left last week (think 20 degrees versus zero). Of course, even though it's snowy and cold here, we are very happy to be home.