ROAD TRIP CHRONICLES: HOLIDAY WEEKEND IN ARIZONA

Helloooo ~ I hope you all had a lovely holiday weekend! Yikes it's already Thursday, and the count down is on to say goodbye to this very weird 2016. So much left to do, but first a little play back of our holiday weekend.
It was bright and early last Friday, 6 AM to be exact, when we loaded up the car, and I mean loaded, and headed to Arizona. My daughter, my husband, our dog Daisy and our grandogter Penelope. (I longed for my old gas guzzling SUV). Let me start by saying that we've never taken the dogs on a road trip before so we had no idea how this six hour road trip from LA - AZ was going to go. The magical thing about dogs though, and you know this if you're a dog person, is their instinct, it's such perfection, they just know what's happening. Daisy has never been farther than the 15 minute ride to the vet and that trip has her foaming at the mouth, shedding enough fur to make another dog, and stinking up the car enough to the point where I have to drive with my head out the window. But when we got in the car for this trip she instinctively knew it was a good thing, no foaming, no shedding, and no stinking! I'm thrilled to report that aside from a mess at the first rest stop when Penelope stepped in tar, (more human error than dog error), her and Daisy were complete angels, real road warriors. As for us humans, we sang Christmas songs and stuffed our faces with travel snacks and had a grand ol' time. Our destination, an airbnb that my awesome sister-in-laws found that accepted dogs. My in-laws live in AZ for the winter and their complex doesn't allow dogs so instead we all got to stay together in a cute little dog friendly condo.
Penelope chose not to sign autographs at Chriraco Summit
 Daisy chose to sleep to avoid listening to my singing.
Are we there yet?
Grateful for safe travels and to be out of the car!

We decided to move Christmas Eve up to Friday night and have Christmas and Hanukkah on Saturday.  Having Hanukkah and Christmas fall on the same day was extra special and I brought along our prettiest Menorah. Latkas were our appetizer to the wonderful Christmas dinner my sister-in-law made, she could really give Martha Stewart a run for her money! And we watched Adam Sandlers original debut of his Hanukkah song on SNL which I adore and is my tradition to play on the first night of Hanukkah every year. After dinner and our white elephant gift exchange we even got into a hot game of dreidel!

Stockings made years ago, my sister-in-law, (Martha Stewart), she thought of everything!
Even The Elf on The Shelf made it.
And Penelope made the cutest reindeer who needs a hair cut.

Photo bombing of the Latka maker.
Yummmm.
Girls rule after an overly competitive game of Catch Phrase where the guys cheated, hahaha. I'd hear about that but they don't read my blog heehee.
Daisy tolerating me and her Christmas outfits.

On Saturday morning we headed up to Superstition Mountains, dogs and all. I figured I'd go as far as Daisy could. But to our surprise she tramped up that mountain and did the three miles like a real trouper. I stopped just short of the top with her because it got very rocky and steep so I was afraid she'd slip, (OK I was afraid I'd slip), so I didn't get to take a picture of the petroglyphs at the top but I have one below taken my one of my sister-in-laws. Pretty amazing. Legend has it that in 1891 gold was found on the trail.

That's one of my sister-in-laws being hoisted by my brother-in-law, that's the part that scared me.
So we sat it out across the way.
These are the dare devils. Including handsome, not shown, because he was off with my niece hanging from a cliff somewhere.
Credit to my sister-in-law for braving the top for this picture.
Just chillin' on a mountain top.
A storm started to move in on our way down. 

When we headed back to LA on Sunday we stopped in Palm Springs to snap a few pics of the snow on the mountain tops and the windmills, a fun sight especially for Christmas weekend! Palm trees and snow, now there's a juxtaposition. I love you California! 


A great time was had by all and to all a good night.