My Christmas Vacation

So you may wonder why I haven't been blogging much the last few weeks.  Well, my husband and I decided at the last minute to take a trip to Arizona to visit my mom for the holidays.  It's been five years since we last saw her, when she was out here for our wedding.  This was Jim's Christmas present to both me and my mom, and what a wonderful gift it was.

We left on Sunday, December 21.  We stayed in Little Rock, AR that night, then headed to Midland, TX for the second leg of the drive.  We left Midland on Tuesday and arrived at mom's around 6:30pm that night.

Christmas Eve and Christmas day were spent at home, reminiscing about family.  Mom cooked a wonderful ham dinner on Christmas Eve and a yummy turkey dinner on Christmas (boy do I miss that stuffing!). 

   

On Friday, we decided to take a short trip to Tombstone, AZ.  We weren't too impressed.  It was a little on the commercialized side, but we did enjoy the food.  We visited some of the antique shops there and I got some vintage postcards and a bag full of letters and other paper artifacts.  At one shop, I inquired about how much she would take for the entire box of cabinet cards; her response "Well, I'd have to add them all up since their priced differently."  Mind you, they were her's, not another dealer's, so she could have negotiated.  Come on...how many does she sell individually?  I was willing to take them off her hands for the right price, but oh well.

 

On Saturday, we took a trip to Bisbee, AZ.  Bisbee is a mining town, and unlike Tombstone, it was not commercialized.  It was beautiful and we had a lot of fun there.  I also managed to pick up some cabinet cards while I was there!

   

Sunday was emotional.  Jim and I packed up the car and headed out.  It was hard for me, as I would have loved to have stayed longer.  It's actually hard to write this even now, a week later, as I miss my mom and wish we didn't live so far apart.

We drove to Arlington, TX where we spent the night.  On Monday, we drove to Longview, TX to visit my grandaunt, Flo.  We stayed for a few hours and then drove the long drive home, arriving at 6am on Tuesday.

It was an emotional and exhausting trip, but I had a great time.  A big thanks to my wonderful husband for such a great Christmas gift!