Vacation

We headed to Arizona on Friday November 2 with my mom and sister Kristin and of course Anna and Paul. Anna got to continue her first class riding thanks to Kristin's platinum status.

We arrived at our resort, Scottsdale Camelback resort Friday afternoon and visited the pool, getting some fruity drinks and playing Bingo. That night, we headed out for an early dinner at Coco's as we were still adjusting the the time difference.

Saturday, Kristin, Mom and I headed to the Arizona Mills mall, while Anna & Paul stayed behind. Anna caught up on her sleep with almost a 4 hour nap! We tried out Garduna's for dinner, the Mexican "cheesecake factory". Anna insisted on eating chips & salsa, even though the salsa was too hot for me. Eventually, she got a hot bite and then wanted only to sip water out of a straw for minutes on end.

Sunday, we stayed around the resort and caught up on our football watching. We weren't willing to miss the Pats/Colts game and we were lucky enough to catch the second half of the Vikings dominating the Chargers and AP helping us win the fantasy games we had him in. We brought home Oregeno's pizza that night, a tasty Arizona treat.

Monday, we headed to Dennys for breakfast with Kristin. Anna loves eggs & sausage. That morning, Anna went to a little park with Kristin grandma. That night, Anna, Paul and I went to dinner with Paul's aunt Shell & her husband Rob at Mimi's Italian restaurant. Great spinach & artichoke dip!

Tuesday, we headed to Sedona (about a 2 hour drive both ways, without accounting for our small bladders). It was a beautiful drive through the mountains and gorgeous when we got there. We had Mexican for lunch where Anna started digging into the salsa bowl with her fingers...no chips required! We decided to take a trolley tour to the Chapel of the Holy Cross and other tourist attractions. We shopped and stopped a couple scenic overlooks before heading home, with a stop at the Johnny Rockets on the way home.

Wednesday, Anna tried on her cowgirl outfit from Kristin & Grandma. She lost her balance and hit her mouth on the table before falling backwards. There was a lot of crying and a lot of blood. Her teeth looked fine, but we weren't sure where all the blood was coming from or what exactly she had hit. The bleeding would stop for a while, but come back if she wanted to eat or suck her thumb. Unfortunately, it kept coming back after my mom left with the car (and car seat). The resort didn't have popsicles (a suggested treatment for cuts in the mouth) and we were worried about how deep the cut was. We called Shell and she picked us up to go to Urgent Care. After waiting an hour to see a doctor, he suggested stitches in the tongue, but said we'd have to go to the ER because he couldn't sedate her there. My mom had caught up with us by then and we went to the ER and quickly learned from the doctor that as long as it had stopped bleeding, no action was required...it was more pain than it was worth of miss Anna. So we were discharged with orders...soft food diet, low salt & citrus and popsicles for Anna-we told her she could have anything she wanted. That night, we had dinner at Shell's and saw Hannah and great-grandma and grandpa. They were so excited to see Anna and how she's grown.

Thursday, we did more shopping in old town Scottsdale, with a stop at Los Olivos for lunch (more Mexican). Anna learned how to blow bubbles through a straw here-we made quite a fuss about it. That night we had a great dinner, capped off with a HUGE cookie ice cream sandwich.

We headed home on Friday after breakfast at the Pancake house. Everyone enjoyed their vacation, but my sister and mom definitely went through Anna withdrawal after being with her for a week. She was such a character, trying to sing her ABC's, waking us all up at 7 each day and trying to say "skol vikings".