On August 2 we left Nashville for Phoenix, Arizona. We went with Adam's parents, Daniel, Kelly, Matt, Trenton and Brittany. The flight was not a bad one, we only had one layover in dallas and we were fortunate to have easy landings. Although, we were extremely tired because we only slept for about an hour the night before.
Upon arrival to Phoenix I was eager to go outside and feel the heat. So many people had warned us of this "dry heat". They said we wouldn't sweat (woo hoo!), I probably wouldn't be able to wear my contacts, we could end up with nose bleeds, and that it would be so hot we could fry an egg on the sidewalk. Well I'm happy to say I didn't sweat much, I made it through the week without any contact problems, there were no nose bleeds and we didn't even attempt to fry an egg on the side walk. The biggest obstacles we experienced were monsoon rains (or maybe I should say floods), Adam's car sickness, and worst of all Adam's sunburn.
Over all it was a nice vacation with a good balance of relaxing and exploring. We ate at many wonderful restaurants, lots of mexican type foods and one of my favorite things I discovered while there was sprite slushies. We went to the apache trail which is kind of the Cade's Cove of Arizona. it was about 3 hours of driving and we saw a lot of desert and mountains with a few neat stops along the way (tortilla flats and a ghost town) but thank goodness no wild life! We went to the Grand Canyon. That, of course, was a big highlight of the trip, it was absolutely beautiful and words cannot describe how miniscule you feel standing next to it. While at the Grand Canyon I quickly found that I have a fear of heights, not all heights though, just the heights where there aren't any guardrails.
My dad's brother, John and his wife Irma, and his kids Aaron and Eric (my cousins) live near Phoenix, so we met up with them for dinner while there. We ate at a great barbeque place called Famous Dave's. It was fun to see them and all of their wives and to meet Eric's little boys Landon and Eli. I was especially excited to show Adam off! We talked and ate for a couple of hours and got caught up on what everybody was doing and how everybody was doing. I am blessed to have such a wonderful family. We also got a chance to get together with Eric Allen one of Adam's baseball buddies from King College. He's in Phoenix playing ball for the Cubs organization.
Of course, we women did our fair share of shopping and we even enjoyed going to an English tea room. Brittany especially loved that. The boys all enjoyed an even at Chase field for a Diamondback's game. Adam and Daniel played golf at Grayhawk Golf Club. The one thing that we did almost every day was swimming and laying out. Now, I've had my share of sunburns so I made sure to slowly build my tan, never staying out in the sun for longer than I knew my skin could handle. However, Adam's sun tanning consisted of being out several days with sunscreen on and therefore not getting any sun. So, the last day he decided to leave off the sunscreen and stay out about twice as much as he had been. Needless to say he ended up with quite the sunburn. The next day at breakfast (before we were to get on the plane) We were all ordering waffles, pancakes, omelets, bacon and sausage, and all Adam's poor little sunburned stomach could handle was a side of apple sauce. We're still feeling the repercussions.
The flight home was equally as nice and I think we were equally as tired. We came home to a clean Burkely and clean house (we had a guy from church stay at the house and take care of the dog). We loved Arizona but as always we were glad to be home.
