Pining for the Fjords

After traveling to Sacramento to see Chris’ family for Thanksgiving and hosting my Mom in mid-December, we really weren’t planning on going anywhere for Christmas, thinking that staying home in our quiet house (as quiet as a house with three large dogs can be - they even make noise when they're sleeping!) sounded lovely.  However, a few months ago, we got word of a great deal being offered at the Aria Resort and Casino in Las Vegas over Christmas, including a room with a view of the Strip and a $50 resort credit per day.  Honestly, we couldn’t refuse! We woke up on Wednesday, 12/23 at home, had a meal of our traditional Christmas breakfast casserole, and opened presents, since we didn’t want to drag them all the way to Vegas with us.  We didn’t know what the holiday traffic would be like, so we decided to be conservative and leave on the earlier side, getting out of the house around 9am or so.  We stopped for a quick coffee/tea and ice cream break (it's my birth...

Need to read the first part of the story?  Click here . When last we blogged (we’re all in this together, after all), while our morning started out on a somewhat disappointing note, we ended on a great one with Mom, Sara, and Megan at the Wickenburg Christmas parade.  Although the temps had been pretty mild over the past few weeks, on Friday, some clouds blew in and things dropped by a good ten degrees.  Since Mom decided to visit, we had been planning to head to Flagstaff for real winter, but it seemed it was going to be a bit more legitimate than we realized. We slept in on Saturday morning (12/12) and bummed around the house for a little while, finally setting out on the road around 1:30.  We stopped for pie in Rock Springs, which was somewhat of a letdown; while their pie was good (we’ve had it before, mainly in “to go” form), our service was really awful, and I don’t know that we’ll bother to stop again.  At least we got to meet this cool dude in t...

Recently, Chris and I were lucky enough to host a visit from my Mom, Gwen, in the weeks leading up to Christmas.  A few years back when Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, she started making a “bucket list,” and one of the items that’s always been on the list was a hot air balloon ride.  Since we have several companies in the Valley offering them (and there’s always a Groupon or two for a ride), we figured her first morning with us on this trip was a perfect time to take her.  We decided to keep the ride a surprise, and we didn’t tell her until we picked her up from the airport on Thursday evening and were having a late evening snack at Pita Jungle.  Although the thought of waking up around 5am on a vacation day wasn’t thrilling, we were all excited for what the next morning would hold. We started out the day (Friday, 12/11) with a quick run through Starbucks, as caffeine was desperately needed.  We also grabbed a snack; while the balloon adventure was to...