Escaping the October Surprise!

The weekend before Halloween, a storm surprised the northeast by dumping 16" of wet snow on the ground causing the power to go out and all sorts of other assorted problems.  What do you do when that happens? 
A. Commence eating the Halloween candy because Halloween is cancelled,
or
B. Fly to Phoenix and enjoy sunny, 78 degree weather with family?

Well, Mom and Renee chose B.  (Dan chose A, I think....) and even without a storm excuse, I was happy to join them there too!  Mom had been hoping to be able to come out to visit her brother Mike and his wife Connie, and this happened to be the week it got scheduled!  And so began our week of adventures!

One of the first things Uncle Mike did was give us a tour of his garage - the home of his '57 Chevy Nomad and '39 Ford Business Coupe.  Both were cars he completely rebuilt and restored himself.  Somehow I missed getting a picture of the snazzy red and chrome '57 Chevy Nomad.  Both cars are spectacular.  We each went for a spin in the Ford and enjoyed all the reactions of people as we drove by - fun!

 We drove over to ASU as well, to see the Frank Lloyd Wright theater building.

We also had a day in Scottsdale and enjoyed the art studios there.

We had lunch at a little ice cream shop/sandwich shop called "The Sugar Bowl."  It was a favorite of cartoonist Bill Keane, who did The Family Circus cartoons.

We also drove up to Sedona, the red rock area of Arizona, and walked through the Arts and Crafts Village of TlaquePaque ---  see if you can pronounce that!



Here I am pretending Chris is along with me....



Another great part of the "family reunion" was getting to see my cousins Angie and Shannon and their families.  What a special time it was to get to visit and reconnect.  (I will need to ask Uncle Mike for some copies of his pictures of all of us - somehow I didn't get a picture of the cousins, ugh!)

We had a wonderful time together, just catching up, laughing and talking alot while seeing some beautiful spots of Arizona. 
. . . And Mom and Renee were very tickled they missed the winter storm escapade happening in Connecticut!