A Desert Oasis and Continued Parent Training

Sunshine, Sunshine! We were in Phoenix the perfect weekend, nearly every day was 100 or more. Bliss.

Chris and Camille were so nice in letting us stay with them. We had a blast playing with Cal and Crewe. I actually miss hearing them trying to sneak up the stairs and wake us up at 6:30 every morning. And of course adorable Crewe saying "Taylor! Taylor!" "What happened??" They were so excited to have us there, it made the weekend that much better :) 

We hung out at the pool everyday, played with Cal and Crewe and then did it all over again. We were so busy doing nothing I didn't get one picture of the boys! Just goes to show what a great weekend we had. 

We did drive up to Sedona on Sunday afternoon. It was crazy to watch the cactus fade away and suddenly drive into redrocks and greenery. 

Unbeknownst to me, Taylor took this lovely photo.
I stared at it for quite sometime, still can't believe I'm that well rounded.

One day we will master the self portrait

Top of Oak Creek Canyon

On our last day we went to see Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright's Winter home. It was awesome. He moved to Scottsdale around 70 when his health was failing and spent every winter there, moving back to Wisconsin for the Summer. Turns out I knew little about Wright's life, had no idea what a scandal he was. But, by the time he started work on Taliesin West with his third wife he had settled into a more relaxed though no less egocentric life. 

Add caption

Add caption

Add caption

Wright thought the desert looked like the bottom of the ocean floor. He wanted to build a ship to sail out into the desert. So here he built the prow, the property extends back from this point. 

Add caption

This was my favorite buidling/room by far! It's a music theater, with perfect acoustics. The Wrights loved to throw parties, every weekend they had a black tie affair. He also built another much larger play theater on the property.

Though these sculptures were done for Wright's Midway Gardens project and actually designed by Alfonso Ianelli, Wright takes full credit for them. When the park was demolished all but two of the Sprites were destroyed, both are at Taliesin West.

The long weekend was just what we both needed. Taylor withstood the heat far better than either of us expected :) I still haven't convinced him we could move to Arizona, but he did admit the sunshine and warm weather was pretty nice. Perhaps we'll make it a new tradition.