Leaving 2022 with a BANG

We got home from our travels to Arizona on the night of Dec. 28th. Although we loved going to Arizona for Christmas, our travels took a bulk of Christmas Break, so it was nice to spend some down time at home again on the 29th. I had to work at the movie theater that night, so I spent the morning finishing my Christmas Break puzzle that I'd started on the 23rd before we left for Scottsdale. I love completing puzzles, but I limit myself to only doing a couple of them each year, usually over Christmas Break! After I finished this particular one, I glued it together to hang in my classroom (since my classroom is decorated with hot air balloons). 

I really liked this colorful design!

(After Christmas Break, I hung the puzzle in the center of the window wall in my classroom)

I had to work at the movie theater again the following day for the matinee showings on the 30th, but then I was free for the night. Josh and I spent the evening at the Hobbs' home playing "Pennies" with them and the Oswalds. This was our last game night all together before the Oswalds left for their mission the next week. We loved our game nights with these couples! We usually played Pennies when we got together (a game that Craig's family created), but we also played other card games occasionally, too. 

We were blessed with a lot of snowfall on the last day of the year, December 31st. We had decided to have a New Year's Eve party with friends, since we were gone for Christmas Eve (we'd hosted that party the last 2 years), so I prepared for the party all day inside by cleaning and cooking and Josh worked outside to get our driveway and parking area ready.

We had so much fun at our New Year's Eve party! We ate great food, watched the football game on TV, and played games. We mostly played "Code Names" (my FAVORITE group game), taking turns between all the couples to be the "Spymaster" representing both the girls and the boys teams. There was even involvement from the youngsters in our game this year! Sadly, the girls team lost once again although it was SUPER close!

The families that joined us for New Years were the Oliversons, Deschaines, Williams', Hiltons, and Woolfs. There was also a DFY New Years activity in town with a free movie that night, so Kanyon and most of the other teens voted to hang out in town (except Abby), which left just the adults and kids at our house. While the adults and older kids played games, some of the younger kids played in the bedrooms, and apparently did some art projects, too! Sidney and Pyper surprised us by showing us a bunch of New Years signs they'd made to decorate our spare bedroom with! It was SO adorable!

In the upper right photo, there's a piece of taped string--we had 
to cut the string that was draped across the open doorway to
even enter the room, and that was the remainder of it. So cute!

At midnight, we went outside in the cold to light all the sparklers we had (which were left over from July 4th) and a few random bottle fountains, too. It was a fun way to end the year--with a BANG!

While we partied in Salmon, Ammon and Gabbie celebrated New Year's with her family in Las Vegas. I liked seeing his adventures from afar--but I still preferred spending the holiday at home!

Happy New Year!

Christmas Break in Arizona

This was our first Christmas Break vacation to a warm destination, and the timing of going to Scottsdale was perfect--Ammon said it rained the days leading up to, and including, our arrival, but then it turned nice and warm for the next 3 days (including Christmas Day), and it was crappy weather again the day we flew out! Josh and I enjoyed the warm weather immensely! 

The view of the pool courtyard from our hotel room

Ammon had to work the day after Christmas, so we slept in again and then Josh and I spent the morning reading by the pool, laying like lizards in the sun on the lounging chairs, soaking up all the sun's rays we possibly could into our winter-ridden bodies. It felt heavenly!

Josh's viewpoint

My viewpoint

That afternoon, Josh, Kanyon, and I took the hotel shuttle and were dropped off at a shopping district about a mile away. We ate lunch at a Mongolian BBQ place. It was the first time Kanyon had been to that type of restaurant and he absolutely LOVED it! 

It was unusual to see the fake outdoor Christmas trees.
They seemed so out of place amidst the palm trees!

There was an indoor 3-D glow-in-the-dark miniature golf course in the same strip mall, so we went there next. We were all tripping wearing those 3-D glasses as we golfed indoors--everything on the 18 hole obstacle golf course seemed to move as you hit the ball! We'd never experienced anything like it at any other mini golf place we'd been to before!  

We decided to walk a mile to our evening dinner reservation at Medieval Times. As we started walking from the strip mall to there, we passed the Colorado Rockies practice field, the Great Wolf Lodge, and this really cool memorial that paid tribute to the USS Arizona that sunk in Pearl Harbour. It was a really neat surprise to happen upon this place! We read all the signs as we walked around it, admiring the unique memorial. In the center of it all was the boathouse from the salvaged portion of the USS Arizona, which was donated to the state of Arizona from the Department of Defense. The boathouse is permanently placed inside a glass structure that was currently locked, so we were unable to go inside for closer inspection, but we really liked walking around the grounds and seeing the designs of the column formations. 

We arrived at Medieval Times before Ammon did, so we waited outside until he got there after work. I'd been to Medieval Times once in L.A. when I was a teenager, and Josh went to a similar type of dinner/show venue in England when he was on his mission, but none of our kids have been to it before. We were seated on the bottom row right in between the yellow and blue sections, so we could choose which of those teams we wanted to be on. I rooted for blue. It was a great show! The food was incredibly delicious, and we enjoyed watching the colored knights and the well-trained horses compete in the battles. There was even a falconer that entertained the crowd with a trained falcon that flew around the audience for one portion, which was a fun addition to the show. Our team didn't win (green did), but we all had a great time nonetheless! 

You don't use any utensils to eat with during the dinner show.

The MC

Introduction of all the colored knights

After we left dinner, we drove through a drive-through Christmas lights display, which was a first for all of us. It was a really cool light show set to Christmas music that you listened to as you drove through, which was just set up in a massive empty lot. Each section of the lot was set up in a different theme. I thought the whole concept was a such a fun idea! It took us about a half hour to drive it from start to finish. 

I loved this flashing, dancing light tunnel at its entrance.

The next day, we woke up early to go golfing with Ammon at Fire Rock Country Club--the golf course that he's been working at since October. Kanyon didn't come prepared with "appropriate" golf attire, so after the lighting show the night before, we went to a Walmart and Ammon picked out a polo shirt for him and Ammon let him borrow some shorts and belt that would fit him. We didn't bring any golf clubs with us, so Ammon found some extra clubs that Josh could borrow and we used two carts to drive around the 18-hole course. Kanyon rode with Ammon, as they both used Ammon's left-handed clubs, and I drove with Josh (but chose not to golf--I just prefer watching them). It was a pretty golf course, and we liked seeing the course where he's been working at to finish his final internship. 

The city of Phoenix is in the distance on the right.

This cactus has taken a beating!

Such handsome & sharply dressed boys!

What a cute Christmas bush!

Ammon--always the big brother and golf critic for his younger sibling.

That's the Fire Rock Clubhouse in the distance.

After the round of golf, we were all famished, so we stopped at a cute hometown restaurant called Phil's Filling Station in Fountain Hills. The food was outstanding, the decorations inside were so kitschy, and an additional bonus: our waitress had lived in Challis many years back and knew exactly where our hometown Salmon was! We loved eating at this place! As we were finishing lunch, the fountain at the nearby Fountain Park started shooting water. The fountain goes off once an hour during the daytime and sprays water for 15 minutes. It shoots water over 500 feet high! It was such a sight to behold! We finished lunch, and then drove around the park, watching its continuous spray. It was yet another cool place we got to see! 

The view of the fountain from our spot on the deck.

Josh trying to get the closest shot possible.

After lunch, we drove back to our hotel. Josh and I read books around the poolside again, and Ammon took Kanyon back to the mini-golf place that we'd been to the day before (but he'd missed due to work), and then they went out to eat together before returning to the hotel for some more movie time, snacking, and putting together our 2nd puzzle of the trip. 

Kanyon was so tired from waking up early to golf
that he fell asleep on our drive back to the hotel!

Ammon had to work again the next day, so we had an Uber come pick us up the next morning at the hotel to drive us back to the Mesa airport. The flight was delayed, which was annoying, but we made it back to Idaho okay. It had snowed again in our absence, so the truck in the parking lot was covered in snow, which was a rude awakening from the warm sun we'd left behind in Arizona! Amanda met us in Idaho Falls to bring back the fixed trailer--the one that that we'd taken down to Ogden earlier in the month with her mom's belongings but the wheel had broken on the way. We went out to dinner at Stockman's with Amanda before driving the trailer back home to Salmon that night. We loved going to Arizona over Christmas vacation, and are already talking about doing it again next Christmas!