Christmas Out West

Well this year, Christmas was definitely different than any other we have had. We spent this Christmas here in Arizona and we were lucky enough to have some family come and spend the holiday with us. On Saturday/Sunday at 1:30 AM, after driving 16 straight hours, my sister, Jenni, my brother-in-law, Kyle and my niece and nephew, Kailey and Sky rolled into the Dakota parking lot with me and Greg anxiously awaiting their arrival.

Sunday we decided to take them out for a drive to show them around. We took them out to Fountain Hills, which is just outside of Scottsdale. We went to Fountain Park where there is one of the highest spraying fountains in the world. It sprays about 7,000 gallons of water every minute up to 560 feet for about 15 minutes at the top of each hour from 10 am to 9 pm.

All of our photos were taken by Kyle, so you will have to refer to the links I have provided for pictures until I can get copies.

Monday, Greg and I had to head back to work (ugh), so the Barker's decided to go on an adventure (one that the Nelson's have YET to embark on) and climb Camelback Mountain. They loved it! And Sky finally got to climb his mountain!

Again...photos were taken by Kyle, so I've got nothin'.

Tuesday came (another work day) and went. Jenni and Kyle went and got us a Christmas tree!

Here is a picture of the tree. Yeah, it looked much better when there were more ornaments on the tree. Since our ornaments are in storage in Dallas (along with everything that we own) we had to buy a few new ornaments for this tree. Jenni bought some too to put on, but we took them off for her to take home.

Then there was Christmas morning. For a little boy that was so excited about Christmas morning, he sure did sleep late enough. I think we got up at like 7:30 am. We opened presents and at some cinnamon rolls Jenni made.

The next item on our agenda for Christmas day was to go and volunteer at the Salvation Army Christmas Dinner. Kyle volunteered his time to take pictures of the event (they were so excited to have a professional photographer photograph this important day). Me, Greg, Jenni, Kailey and Sky were in the Toy Distribution area. So we ran around like crazy grabbing toys in certain age groups. Kailey and Sky did great. Kailey stuck it out for the entire 3 hours while Sky helped out for the first couple of hours and then him and his new buddy, Kyle (the son of one of my colleagues) decided to run around (out of the way of course) and just be 6 year old little boys.

Again...pictures are with Kyle. Stay tuned for an addendum to this blog.

The next day was an exciting day. We were all loading up to drive up to Sedona, Flagstaff and then the Grand Canyon. We never made it to the Grand Canyon. The only open road was covered in ice (so why was it opened anyway?) and they HIGHLY recommended us NOT travel up there. Okay. So We spent the first day in Sedona where we just walked around and looked at the tourist shops.

Sedona Mountains


Sedona Javelina Art


More Sedona Mountains


More Sedona Javelina Art


Snoopy Rock in Sedona. Can you see him?




Then we headed off to Flagstaff. They had just received a record amount of snow up there and it was just beautiful.

Greg LOVES this kind of weather!


Kailey's coming to check things out!


Sky is ready for some fun in the sun and snow!


Swimming anyone?

Gidget was NOT impressed.

Gidget and her "grandma" sweater.


The Carlson girls...just hanging out.

A snow sprinkled mountain in Flagstaff.



We stayed the night in Flagstaff and the next day we went searching for a place to play in the snow. We stopped at a Big 5 Sporting Goods store and Jenni and Kyle bought two sleds for all of us to go sledding!

We weren't sure where we were going. And we happened to get a little lost driving along the Northern Arizona University campus when we came across this crowd of people with their sleds, trash can lids and plastic storage bin lids!


Sky goes first!









Here comes Kailey!


Kyle give his ride a "thumbs up"!

Sky and Greg go head to head in a sledding race...


...Sky won this one!


Snowman, built by Sky and Greg.



Lunch at Bun Huggers! Sledding makes you hungry for greasy burgers!