The "Love Trip"**

Ren and I just got back from spending two days of happy, carefree, kid-free time together at the Ritz Carlton in Phoenix. I had never stayed at a Ritz Carlton before, but Ren stayed at one on a consulting trip in Naples, FL and he teaches a business case on the Ritz Carlton in his Service Ops class, so he knew exactly what to expect. I felt so pampered by the doorman opening my car door for me and by having each employee greet us with a warm and friendly smile and ask us how we were doing, though it got to be a bit comical after the sixth person asked us. We encountered more perky Ritzy people in the hallways and on the elevator and outside the elevator which made me wonder if all this attention was a bit much. But finally one of them told us that a "team" was arriving and they had lots of extra people on hand to help get them situated. Ren quickly looked up the NFL game for the weekend and discovered that the Cardinals were playing the Rams on Sunday -- mystery solved. I felt a bit low-brow in my jeans and t-shirt (cute, but low-brow) but they treated me like I had money anyway. The hotel was DECKED out in Christmas garlands, twinkly lights and many different themed trees -- BEAUTIFUL! (here's a bad picture of me in my jeans in the hallway to show the gorgeous decorations).

I even discovered a Steinway grand piano sitting alone in a hallway by a banquet room that a played a little. It was an incredible experience to see how the other half lives, but I probably shouldn't get too used to it. 

Ren and I discovered a restaurant across the street called True Foods which is owned and run by Dr. Andrew Weil (a healthy-eating guru with books on the best-seller lists.) The food was amazing and super healthy too (I'm sure Ren will blog about the specifics, he always gives eating tours of his trips). Suffice it to say that carmelized onion tarts, warm whole grain pitas and hummus, and butternut squash ravioli were amongst some of the tasty dishes we had when we had dinner there last night and lunch there again today (because we just had to go back!) My favorite part were the planters outside the restaurant filled with basil, thyme, mint and rosemary.  I spent several happy moments fondling the leaves of the plants and smelling my fingers -- it gives a whole new meaning to the word "aromatherapy". Yum! 

After we checked out, we headed over to Tempe to the Mill Street Art Festival. I tell you, it's a rare treat to be able to stroll along, hand-in-hand with my sweetie looking at lots of expensive, arty things and to not be yelling, "Don't touch that!" every half second. Mmmmmmm....paradise. I found this darling booth with whimsical santas that looked carved but were really formed from a paper mache clay wrapped around bottles and lightbulbs. I just had to get one for my mantel, which was sadly lacking in whimsical santas this year. Here's a picture of one similar to mine from the artist's website: ejhicks.com. 

The work of the featured artist of the festival (it would be nice if I could remember his name) was incredibly cool with large metal sculptures that spun and twisted on large lamp-post like bases. They had a myriad of multi-colored shapes on them, twisting, turning and glinting in the sun...so fun! (I wanted one that was only $5600, what a bargain!) I didn't have my camera, but here are a couple of lousy pictures I took with Ren's iphone.)

When we were all "art"ed out, we headed towards home, stopped and did a little Christmas shopping and finally reentered the reality of a messy house and hungry kids waiting for dinner. Someday, we'll just live the carefree life all the time, right? But for now, the "love trips" will get us through.

**Note: my friend Tracie Sutton is the one who taught me the term "love trips" so she gets a footnote here.