So, we're at the end of the year! YAY! My last post about 2010 HAS to be about our crazy Christmas trip to Arizona. For actual Christmas, we were at my Grandma Anderson's house with all my aunts, uncles, and cousins, which was AWESOME because it was just like my Christmas trips to Utah when I was growing up. Pictures of this will have to come later, because they are on my old camera.
Anyway, a day or so later (I can't remember which), I embarked on the Faulk family tradition of going to Phoenix, Arizona right after Christmas to visit Daniel's Aunt Susie and Uncle Brian. Let me just say, this trip did not go as planned.
First of all, we had THIS new, non-trained puppy in the car...the golden, smaller one :)
When we pulled into Las Vegas on the way down, she had pooped all over in her cage, and had smeared it all over herself. The smell was horrific. Throughout the trip, she continued to poop all over Aunt Susie and Uncle Brian's house. Good thing they have 5 dogs and are used to it.
Now, Vegas was just not a lucky place for us. Right before we got to Vegas, the Expedition started dragging some piece of car-nonsense on the highway, so we had to stop to tear it off. Then, we got to Vegas, cleaned out all the doggy poop, and headed back on I-15. This tranquility was short-lived, however. The Expedition started put-putting and clicking and doing all sorts of things that even a non-car-trained dummy like me knew was bad.
So, we put-putted off the next exit and eventually got the car to an auto mechanic. He informed us that the put-putting and clicking was indeed bad. It would cost a lot more to fix the problem than the car was worth. So, we were stranded in Vegas with no car. Well, let me rephrase. We had a totaled car that we didn't know what to do with and no functioning car to get to Arizona with.
We started calling every car rental agency in Las Vegas. Unfortunately, it was the week of New Years and every place was fresh out of rentals. We even had my dad calling every Ford dealership in the area. Finally, we found an escape at a rental agency that they were willing to rent to us for a ridiculously high price--go figure. So, we put-putted over to the rental agency, picked up the Escape, put-putted the Expedition to the airport long-term parking, and continued on our way to Phoenix--5 hours later.
When we got to Phoenix, we discovered that it was not the sunny, warm getaway we had been expecting. It was 50 degrees and windy. While we were there they had their first snow in over 20 years. We just felt so tickled to have experienced such a miracle! Not.
Anyway, the next day Daniel's brother Joseph and his dad drove back to Vegas to drop off the Escape and drove back in Joseph's car. This obviously took an entire day off of their vacation. The next two days of Daniel's parents' "vacation" were spent at a local Ford dealership buying a new car--an Escape. Needless to say, this was not what they were expecting to do on their favorite trip of the year. And this whole time Porsche, the new puppy, is pooping everywhere--just to give you the full picture.
Now, so far this had clearly been a pretty crazy trip. Luckily, Aunt Susie and Uncle Brian are pretty awesome people, and they helped us have a BLAST despite all the drama. We shopped like crazy! Aunt Susie is an outlet goddess. I got tons of stuff for my student teaching and several other excellent items from around the house the Susie wasn't using (like an pair of unused JCrew rainboots!). This is a cute outfit (the picture doesn't do it justice...) for student teaching I got at the Banana Republic outlet:
We also went golfing. Now, this was not a fantastic experience as it was freezing and windy, but we tried to make the best of it:
As you can see in the video below, I'm a pretty awesome beginning golfer!
So, in summary, Daniel and I were super sad that we didn't get to use this:
But we did get to see this:
And a LOT of this:
Anyway, a day or so later (I can't remember which), I embarked on the Faulk family tradition of going to Phoenix, Arizona right after Christmas to visit Daniel's Aunt Susie and Uncle Brian. Let me just say, this trip did not go as planned.
First of all, we had THIS new, non-trained puppy in the car...the golden, smaller one :)
Now, Vegas was just not a lucky place for us. Right before we got to Vegas, the Expedition started dragging some piece of car-nonsense on the highway, so we had to stop to tear it off. Then, we got to Vegas, cleaned out all the doggy poop, and headed back on I-15. This tranquility was short-lived, however. The Expedition started put-putting and clicking and doing all sorts of things that even a non-car-trained dummy like me knew was bad.
So, we put-putted off the next exit and eventually got the car to an auto mechanic. He informed us that the put-putting and clicking was indeed bad. It would cost a lot more to fix the problem than the car was worth. So, we were stranded in Vegas with no car. Well, let me rephrase. We had a totaled car that we didn't know what to do with and no functioning car to get to Arizona with.
We started calling every car rental agency in Las Vegas. Unfortunately, it was the week of New Years and every place was fresh out of rentals. We even had my dad calling every Ford dealership in the area. Finally, we found an escape at a rental agency that they were willing to rent to us for a ridiculously high price--go figure. So, we put-putted over to the rental agency, picked up the Escape, put-putted the Expedition to the airport long-term parking, and continued on our way to Phoenix--5 hours later.
When we got to Phoenix, we discovered that it was not the sunny, warm getaway we had been expecting. It was 50 degrees and windy. While we were there they had their first snow in over 20 years. We just felt so tickled to have experienced such a miracle! Not.
Anyway, the next day Daniel's brother Joseph and his dad drove back to Vegas to drop off the Escape and drove back in Joseph's car. This obviously took an entire day off of their vacation. The next two days of Daniel's parents' "vacation" were spent at a local Ford dealership buying a new car--an Escape. Needless to say, this was not what they were expecting to do on their favorite trip of the year. And this whole time Porsche, the new puppy, is pooping everywhere--just to give you the full picture.
Now, so far this had clearly been a pretty crazy trip. Luckily, Aunt Susie and Uncle Brian are pretty awesome people, and they helped us have a BLAST despite all the drama. We shopped like crazy! Aunt Susie is an outlet goddess. I got tons of stuff for my student teaching and several other excellent items from around the house the Susie wasn't using (like an pair of unused JCrew rainboots!). This is a cute outfit (the picture doesn't do it justice...) for student teaching I got at the Banana Republic outlet:
We also went golfing. Now, this was not a fantastic experience as it was freezing and windy, but we tried to make the best of it:
As you can see in the video below, I'm a pretty awesome beginning golfer!
We also pigged out and ate tons of fantastic food. Joseph also ate a disgusting amount of fortune cookies:
There was tons of game-playing (the game of Poo is the BEST GAME EVER!) and chatting and movie-watching. Everyone got to play with their new Christmas gadgets, and it was just nice to spend time with family--despite all the drama. My favorite "people" to hang out with were these three:
So, in summary, Daniel and I were super sad that we didn't get to use this:
But we did get to see this:
I can't wait to visit the fam in Phoenix again mostly because they're awesome, but also because there is no way the trip could ever be this crazy again! Or could it...
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