Our Extended Christmas Vacation Part I

When we were engaged, Zach and I wanted to work out a plan for spending major holidays with both sides of the family. We decided upon alternating Thanksgiving and Christmas each year by spending one in Phoenix and one in Leo and then doing the opposite the next year. This was our year to be in Phoenix for Christmas but with Schumachers moving to the DR we knew we wouldn't be able to have Thanksgiving with them. This presented a problem in my black and white mind.

So when we found out that it worked best for mom and dad Schu to have us come the week after New Years it seemed perfect that we could spend Christmas in Phoenix and go from there to the DR after New Years. The only negative was that we both were going to have to take a week off work which can be tricky being a teacher and in HR but it didn't take much convincing for me to buy our tickets and make a week of sub plans :)

My response to mom's text asking if we were excited to come to Phoenix :)

Saturday, Dec 20th we were able to take our time getting last minute bags packed and cleaning the house before we flew out of Fort Wayne and flew directly to Phoenix/Mesa. So nice!! Upon arrival in the beautiful sunshine, we were greeted in baggage claim by my mom and dad and then headed home to settle in. We grabbed Chipotle and took it over to my sisters' house where they had a surprise for us. A puppy!! My sister had just gotten a dog, a lab/chow mix named Kingston, from a shelter and wanted to surprise us. He is very cute and will be a bundle of energy for Alyse :)

A few of us went to the Phoenix Botanical Gardens for the Luminarias. Basically, at Christmastime they light the whole place up with the paper lanterns and string lights and have live music. It was beautiful and just another awesome thing that Phoenix has to offer!

The Sugar Thieves. A local blues band. Seriously amazing!

During the week we celebrated Christmas as a family and with our extended Freed family, made a couple last minute trips to the mall for gifts, ate out (A LOT!), played games, watched movies, and just enjoyed being together.

The littlest members of the Freed family

Dad is always so great at indulging us when we feel spontaneous. I was inspired to try Avocado Egg Rolls after having them at the Cheesecake Factory the week before in Chicago.

Nice photobomb, Dad ;)

Zach was pretty pleased with his Christmas gifts :)

Emily too! We are all so blessed by each other!

This girl and her Disney! She had a seasonal position at the Disney Store this year.

New game for Christmas, Heads Up!

You try to get the person on your team to correctly guess the word on the card on their forehead

That Friday, my Uncle Tom and Aunt Kathy from Indy joined us in Downtown Tempe for a walk around the lake and Mexican food at Macayos. I love Phoenix in the winter!!

Beautiful AZ sunset

Jenna, Zach, and I hiked a trail on North Mountain one morning and then had breakfast at Scramble. We were trying to find a different trail but got lost so we settled for this easy one which didn't go all the way to the top but we had a fun time anyway :)

You could see a thick layer of smog that morning. Yuck :P

Like I said earlier, we ate out A LOT!! I'm ashamed to say we ate out at least one meal a day for the three weeks we were gone!! We didn't eat out for a long time when we got home! We love good food and trying new restaurants and our two highlights from this trip to Phoenix were definitely Postino Wine Bar in downtown Gilbert and Cepe Bar in Tempe. Postinos specializes in different types of bruschetta. Some of the delicious bruschetta we had were roasted red pepper and goat cheese, artichoke, prosciutto/marscapone/fig, and smoked salmon! At the Crepe Bar we got some savory and some sweet like a Southwestern style and Nutella with Bananas :) SOOOO GOOD!

Downtown Gilbert

Our final new experience this trip was trying out Top Golf. Dad, Zach and I checked it out. It's basically a bowling alley but instead you hit golf balls out onto this huge driving range that has targets you aim for. Each ball has a chip in it and you compete against your group for the most points by hitting into targets around the range. It was three or 4 levels and they served food and drinks while you played. I'm pretty sure Zach fell in love and since we now have lifetime member cards there I bet we will be spending lots of time at Top Golf in the future :)