Arizona

Last week T had a conference in Arizona and invited me to go with him. Since Peaches is still nursing more than eating solids we decided to take her with us.When we left it was snowing hard. We had to get de-iced before we could take off.

  

Peaches did so great on the flight down! 

 

 We had the window and she liked looking out. Here she is watching them get ready to de-ice.

 

First airplane ride!

She nursed through take off and didn't make a peep about her ears popping. 

She had missed her morning nap since we were dropping off her sisters with Noni and heading to the airport. She started fussing so I put her cover over her and she was asleep within 30 seconds. 

She slept for about an hour and then happily looked at this book for literally 25 minutes. 

It felt so nice to touch down in sunny Arizona with not snow, but palm trees lining the horizon. 

We got to stay at the Arizona Grand and it was probably the nicest hotel we've ever stayed in. Or maybe I just liked it the best because of the Spanish style architecture. There were fountains and palm trees and wrought iron and tile everywhere. It was gorgeous.

We landed during the Superbowl so we headed to a restaurant after picking up one of T's co-workers and were able to see the rest of the game. 

The next day Peaches and I hung out in the room until lunch. She took a short nap and I got some digital scrapbooking done. Daddy and his two co-workers had a long break so we all headed over to In-N-Out. Yum. 

They went back to meetings that afternoon and Peaches and I went back to the room where she proceeded to cry off an on for an hour. I finally gave up and when they got back we headed to the mall. It was actually not very warm on Monday. To the point where me and the other gal that was with us had the guys take us to the mall so we could buy sweaters! It was, of course, WAY warmer than home but 65, windy, and overcast felt chilly when we were dressed for high 70's. I had left my coat at home!

After hanging out at the mall for a bit we met up with the hospital's architect team (who was also in town for the conference) for dinner at a steakhouse. It was a fun place and the food was amazing. I had to take a picture of "dessert" for the girls. After the meal they brought us a can of cotton candy. :)

The next day was similar, I got more scrapbooking done while Peaches took her morning nap and then we went out to lunch with everyone at Dilly's Deli, a place we used to go after church in college. 

Peaches loved crawling all over our hotel room, which had a separate living room area. I gave her empty water bottles to play with and she was perfectly happy. :)

Tuesday afternoon was another no-nap time, but this time she didn't cry. She just rolled around talking and singing to herself. That worked out fine because they got done early again so we headed out. 

We thought we had time to do something fun so we found a bowling alley. We actually only ended up with time for one game, and I didn't get to play because I had to feed Peaches, but it was a nice diversion. 

That night we met up with four of our college friends. We had dinner at one of the couple's house and Peaches loved having toys to play with. She was happy as a clam to dig through the bin of toys they brought out for her.

Tuesday was warm enough to be comfortable in short sleeves so we took a little walk around the hotel grounds before heading back to the room that night. I loved this hotel! So pretty!

It's hard to see but there is a giant chandelier in this area.  It was so neat, and is one of the spots where they have weddings at the hotel.

T was out early the last morning and I packed up and finished my digital scrapbook while Peaches took a final nap. 

It felt like such a quick trip! But it was so nice to feel warm and be out of the snow, if only for a few days. I'm really glad we went!

We went to lunch one last time and sat out on the patio before heading to the airport.

Peaches didn't do quite as well on the plane ride back...well, she did fine as long as we didn't try to make her sleep. She was exhasted but would start screaming any time we attempted to settle her down for a nap. She ended up crawling back and forth across our laps and reaching for the iPad for two and half hours. It felt like a looooong flight. But it could have been a lot worse. She actually did amazingly well the whole trip, and made people smile wherever we went. It was fun to have her along, and I'm so glad we made the effort to go! It was a nice little break from school and all our other responsibilities at home.

We landed with the snow coming down hard and headed to Noni and Papa's to pick up our sickie girls...more about that tomorrow!