Better Late Than Never

Right??? I finally had time to write about our trip to Arizona in early June. First let me say that we got really lucky with the weather. It was in the 90's the whole week (Usually it's regularly over a hundred by June.) A nice DRY 95 seems like paradise compared to 85 in Chicago!
For our first trip with little miss we were lucky enough to be invited to go with my in-laws to their timeshare in Arizona. Since it was the whole family going and we had been there before, it seemed a good safe bet for a first outing with a soon to be toddler.

I can't say enough good things about our accommodations. We stayed at the Scottsdale Camelback Resort. They are a time share property but I understand that they do take "outside" reservations as well. There are plenty of activities that we could easily have not left the property for the entire week, except for grocery shopping. They do have a nice poolside restaurant that had some yummy food but I liked being able to make our own meals. The 3 of us stayed in the smallest Villa available, which has 2 beds and 2 levels, small kitchen with fridge, stove top, microwave and dishwasher. If you are staying there with a small child, ask for the crib on the second level. For naps we were able to darken that area much better than the lower level. The crib and high chair were both supplied by the resort. They were both in excellent condition!

When we attended the Monday morning welcome breakfast the head of the activities brought a container of girl and boy toys for D to choose from. She wanted both :-) It was very nice of them to think of little things like that. We spent a good deal of time in the kiddie pool that is well covered and uses salt instead of chlorine (as does the larger pool.) Unfortunately they didn't have any loaner pool toys and no one had left any behind that week (I'm told this often happens but you obviously can't rely on it.)

There was a lot of resting on this trip. Which is a good thing. I was sad that we didn't make it to Kokopelli Winery this time. We discovered Kokopelli in 2003 when we were in Arizona on our honeymoon. We were back in 2009 and it was still delicious! Oh well there's always next time. I also heard that there is a Musical Instrument Museum in the area. If anyone has any thoughts on that I'd love to hear them. When D is a little older, if we are in the area again we will take her to Rawhide Western Town. We took two of the nephews there the last time we were in town and we all had great fun. It's not an "authentic" ghost town but they have great gun fight shows.

Mommy and daddy did take one trip without the baby girl (she was with grandma and grandpa so she didn't even notice LOL.) We went tubing at Salt River Tubing. There were 5 adults and 2 "big" kids and we managed to mostly stay together. There are some faster areas we called rapids but not even close to white water rafting. The company's age restriction is 8 yrs and up. That seems about right because they don't recommend tying tubes together. You definitely want some sort of water shoes with traction. Even with hiking sandals I struggled getting to the shore at the end point. Of course I'm a weakling so that didn't help :-) I highly recommend this for anyone looking for a little relaxing sight seeing! Just don't forget your sunscreen.