We had a great time in Phoenix and Tucson last week! I’ll try and give you the highlights. The purpose of our trip was for Tony to attend some meetings with the Farm Bureau Credit Union board members and some of their executive management. He is a volunteer on their supervisory committee… that’s really my full extent of knowing what that all means!
We flew out on Tuesday night and got to Phoenix around 1:30am (our time). On Wednesday we went out for brunch to the Cracker Barrel and then Doug and Tony went golfing and Jen and I went shopping. It was a beautiful sunny day in the low 70’s… perfect! It was so good to see Amanda (12) and Jay (8), although for a very short time. Jay just couldn’t understand why Tony couldn’t just leave me in Tempe with them and he could go to the Tucson meeting himself! Amanda has grown so much since the last time we’ve seen her. She’s only about ½ inch shorter than I am! The next time I see her I’ll be looking up at her. We had a delicious grilled steak supper with their family and before you knew it our evening was over.
Tony and I left on Thursday morning to head for Tucson. We picked up Sanford and Mary Lou at the airport. We were soooo hoping we could get to the Karchner Caverns that Jen and Amanda told us about but we ended up just not having enough time. The guys’ meeting time ended up earlier than we expected… they needed to “report in” by 4:30. After their meeting the whole group (about 30 or so with spouses) went to a steak house for supper. They had everything very well organized and coordinated.
Friday Angie (yes Angie and Mary Lou were both ther!… how awesome!) and I went shopping at the mall. Friday night we went to this awesome Mexican restaurant. They had mariachi singers walking around and a huge menu selection.
On Saturday afternoon we went to Old Tucson Studios....it was an old western town with a “gun fight” show and all. We didn’t have much time there but we sure drove through some beautiful scenery on the way home through the mountains. We have come to appreciate the variety of colors we have in the Midwest though. Being in the desert reminded us just how many shades of TAN and BROWN there are! Saturday night we went to another steak house and then to see the broadway style production of “Two Amigos” at the Gaslight Theatre. It was a late night… getting back to our room around mid-night or may be a little later. We packed up our room for an earlier departure in the morning. It's been such a great trip though!
We left on Sunday morning at 7am for our long trip home. We flew from Tucsan to Denver to Chicago to South Bend. I had just thought to myself about how smooth the day was going, the flights were on time, thanked God for such a good day… when the day took a bit of a small twist. We sat on board a plane that must have been 85-90 degrees inside for 1 hour before they made us de-plane and get on a different plane. That all set us behind by about 2 hours but I appreciate their detail to safety! : ) …something about a piece of metal that wasn’t secure enough and was near a tire and could possibly rub against it… tires are good things when you have several 100 tons trying to land on them! We arrived back to South Bend to weather that was 50-60 degrees cooler and with snow.
We really had a great time though. The hotel (which I decided really was more like an “inn”) was beautiful and really pretty small... only about 30 or so rooms. I would definitely go back and do recommend it. If you haven’t glanced at it you can find it at http://www.hacinendadelsol.com/ Tony enjoyed learning more about the credit union and I enjoyed the rest, relaxation and shopping! The kids did great with Beppe and Pakka and they said the time went fast. The first full day we were gone Quinn instantly had a stomach ache when I talked to him on the phone which I think instantly improved when we hung up. Tony asked, “Did you get a stomach ache because you were talking to Mom?” and Quinn had to admit with a little homesick sounding “yes”… like I said, I’m positive he forgot all about our separation when he hung up the phone!
So today it was back to the real world. Too bad we can’t go on vacation about once a month to recharge the batteries. It was a busy day at work but not crazy so that’s good. I still have about ½ hour of dictations to do but I’m hoping I can find the time tomorrow.
Well, I need to finish up some laundry. I have a small mountain of it now.
Love to all, Leah
No comments:
Post a Comment