My cousin asked me what it said on Grampy’s red shirt, the one he had worn in our New Year’s picture. She could make out that it said “Amara” on his shirt but what did it say under that? This is the story.
After many years together Grampy and I were married May 7th, 2005 when Amara was just 15 months old. Jenna was my Maid of Honor, Grampy’s Dad was his Best Man, Justin gave me away and of course, Amara was our Flower Girl, and of course, she stole the show. She had already stolen our hearts.
We planned to honeymoon in Sedona, Arizona for a few days as I had always wanted to go there. We would take a side trip from there up to the Grand Canyon. In doing my research on where we might stay, I was amazed to find they had a place there called the Amara Resort Hotel & Spa. It wasn’t even a year old and I had never heard of anything or anyone else called Amara. I had already found another place in Sedona that I wanted to stay and to be honest – this really didn’t look like our kind of place. Just a bit too posh but I knew I wanted to go there. At least try to see if we could get some souvenirs or something from their gift shop. Something that said Amara on it. Surely, they would have a gift shop?
They didn’t but they had the greatest General Manager who was just as surprised to find we had a granddaughter named Amara, as we were to find a resort with her name. While they didn’t have a gift shop, he did let us purchase some staff shirts in red and white and a couple of baseball caps all of which had “Amara Creekside Resort, Sedona Arizona” embroidered on them.
Staff shirts seemed so perfect since we already knew we would be her staff whenever she was at our house!
Amara looked so cute when we got home modeling our shirts and caps!
Christmas Card 2005
We don’t wear the shirts very often but Grampy always wears one of the red ones in our Christmas or New Year’s photos!
Sweet story!
That’s awesome! What a kind guy to share the resort’s Amara wear with you. Maybe one day you and Grampy (and maybe even Amara) can splurge and go all out on the poshiness and stay at the Amara resort, just for the heck of it.
Great photos, as always.
Cute, cute story! And what a beauty Amara was, even at the ripe young age of 15 months – and already sporting the smile that lights up Southern California!
Love the story! Thanks for answering our question as to what the shirt said. I will make sure I pass this on to Autumn as well. Great pictures!
What a hoot! That is such a great conversation piece and so nice of the hotel to share with special grandparents. Amara must get a kick out of it.
Great story to share and darling pictures (as usual).
I know about trying to find those unusual names on something. That worked out so nicely, and you left with not only shirts, but a great tale for retelling.
That’s a great story ! what a wonderful coincidence and luckily the manager was sympathetic and cooperative! 🙂
She’s adorable and love the story!
Nice story — a combination of a romance and a grandparent love story!
What a neat story! Amara is a pretty name. It’s funny, I was just reading some of your older posts earlier today, and then I went to check on mine and saw that you had left a comment! So I’m visitng again.
Hope you and Amara get to revisit that resort some day!
Have a wonderful New year! Love, Linda
“Staff shirts seemed so perfect since we already knew we would be her staff whenever she was at our house!” Love it! Aren’t we always on their staff when the kiddos come to visit?! And aren’t we the happiest staff in the world!
What an awesome memory! I remember when Uncle Mark and I went to Sedona on our way to visit you in 2009. We had to see the Amara Resort and take a picture of the sign!! You should go back there with Amara someday!!!