Touching the Sky in Tucson, AZ { Family Portraits }

This past year has been so crazy. Many families haven’t seen each other for more than 12 months. Babies became toddlers, toddlers became kindergarteners and high schoolers are now going to college. Those who lived over seas, had to wait to get clearance to fly out. One of them was my best friend who lives in Israel. When I got a call from Dana in May she was torn on what to do and wanted my option. She wanted to see her mom and dad. Her parents are American and since Israel had a strict protocol they only allow Israelis to come into the boarders during May and June. So her dilemma was should she fly her little ones who are under five and not vaccinated to America, or wait till Israel allows Americans to fly in. It’s been two years since she has hugged her mom and dad and the kids only know them via screen time so I told her to pack her bags. The risk is low and life is too short to not see your parents. They took all the safety precautions got covid tests before coming in. They wore masks when flying and in a few hours they landed in Arizona to see each other. They tested again and everything came back negative. A few weeks later, I booked a flight from LAX out since we grew up together and I haven’t seen her or the kids as well. We had a great long weekend together and I got to even brush up on my Hebrew since Dana and Doron’s kids are bilingual and spoke to me in Hebrew.

Tucson is such a great city! It has all the beauty in landscapes as well as a great restaurants, spas not to mention the art and culture! Since we visited in June (the hottest month to come with average temps at 112 to 114) we found that going up into the mountains was a great escape not to mention 20 to 25 degrees cooler! I never would have thought to say that I was happy to be in 80 degree weather and feel like its so much cooler - but it was!!! We took the family up Mount Lemmon and saw the amazing views that Tucson has to offer and yes we even made it to the very top to the cookie cabin where they had cookies the size of a dixie plate! Our favorite was the Rachel which had chocolate and butterscotch chips in it. As we made our way down we found a lake where we watched families go fishing. It was a gorgeous day filled with happy grins. So glad we got to reunite this summer!!!