::phoenix in january pt 1::

Kris has his orthodontics course about once a month. We drove out with him in September for a fun little getaway. He went on his own in October, and then took Max with him in December (and almost earned the title of a saint for it).
He was excited that this time we were all up for the trip.
We planned it well--lots of stops, and no more than four hours of driving a day.
We left on wednesday evening after work and drove to Gallup, NM. We stayed in a crazy old supposedly famous place called El Rancho. When we drove up in the dark Max said he thought it looked like Las Vegas.

Supposedly this is the place where all the movie stars stayed when they came out to make movies and such. There were signed photos all over the lobby--if you can call it a lobby.

I'd say their claim here is a little overstated. It's charming--at least in the lobby, but the convenience of tomorrow was sadly not that present.
Check out the crazy lobby.

It's hard to even tell what's going on in here with the balconies and the stairs and all the crazy furniture. The overriding theme in there (besides the movie stars) was bull horn furniture. If I hadn't had my arms full of baby when leaving the next morning I'd have gotten some shots. They did have some fun vintage vending machines and some other stuff in there. Overall it was charming, but also 100% overwhelming!
Then, when we went up the stairs and headed through a door towards our room, this is what we saw.

Cinderblock halls! The charm was gone! Besides the paintings of indians along the way.

The rooms were ok, they attempted to keep the theme with wagon wheel furniture. The best thing though was the bottle opener/corkscrew attached to the doorjamb in the bathroom. Just in case.
We froze all night, not knowing how to turn up the heat. Sandy slept well despite that though, so that was nice. Max tried to get him to do some stomach exercising, but it didn't work out so well. He didn't enjoy it much. The pictures are cute though.


I love how his little feet are pointing up. Max sure loves his brother!
We got up to head our four hours towards Phoenix. I enjoy this part of the drive because we get to drive through AZ's northern mountains and then down towards Phoenix there are tons and tons of the big cactuses. They are so fun to look at. I wish I had a picture, but it's tough to take a good one from a speedy car. We did get some video though, but I don't have that to post right now.
The drive went well. Sandy does so great in the morning, he mostly just sleeps and smiles. Max was attentive to him in the back and popped his "peaceifier" as he calls it, back in for him and blocking the sun.

I love those baby mirrors.
It was definitely cold in NM and northern AZ. At one point we drove into a big foggy cloud and I thought it might be stormy, but luckily it was just frosty instead. I thought it was cool looking.

We were all really happy to arrive in Phoenix in the early afternoon. It was sunny and in the high sixties. The baby was able to wear short sleeves outside for the first time in his life!
And that's as much as I'm going to say about it all tonight. Oh, except that I'll say we had a great time and I was a little sad to have to get home....

(If only he was always this jolly!!)