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Saturday, November 20, 2010

Weekend Update: Friends Visit!

Last weekend Tori came in town for a quick visit. She came specifically to get Adam's (surprise) Christmas present, and we were lucky enough to spend some QT with her while doing so :) In order to preserve the nature of the surprise, I'm not going to mention any details of Friday, but let's just say we had a fun time!

Saturday morning Tori found that her flight home got cancelled, so after dropping Jay off at Sun Devil Stadium for some good ol' fashioned tailgating, we headed to one of my favorite places in Scottsdale - Kierland Commons - for some shopping. We had a great lunch, caught up on everything in our lives, and of course, shopped! I found some great sweaters in Anthropologie (best store ever - I think we spent 2 hours in there alone) & thanks to a birthday gift card from my dad, I bought two! 

Later that afternoon Ryan flew in, so Tori & I picked him up from the airport (very handsome in his uniform I might add) and then headed to ASU to pick up Jay. We all had a great night. Ryan's mom was in town on vacation as well, so the 5 of us went to Crust for dinner & drinks. Tori & I shared the Arugula & Prosciutto pizza that was so amazing we couldn't stop gushing about it! Anne, Jay & Ryan shared the Chicken Bruschetta pizza which was yummy as well. 

Anne & the boys:
 Westwinders Unite!!

Guess what? I'm now caught up with my blog posts! One more weekend update to go and then it's Thanksgiving! What are YOU thankful for???

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Weekend Update: Family Visit

Jay's parents came to visit the second weekend we were home & we had a great time! 

This is what a good chunk of the weekend looked like - comfy on the couch watching football - specifically Nebraska beat Missouri:

Saturday night we went to the Roaring Fork for a delicious dinner! It was soooooo good. We started with their famous kettle of green chili pork with hot buttered tortillas...yum! Then for dinner I had the Sugar Cured Duck Breast with onion jam, sour cherry mustard and little cabbages. Jay had the RF Mixed Grill which included baby back ribs, rotisserie chicken, shrimp and sausage.
 Ed had issues with the chair. Memorable moment...
Saturday before heading out to dinner, I started working on Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Rolls. I had wanted to try the recipe for a long time and decided this weekend was the time to go for it! It wasn't until I started mixing the ingredients that I re-read her blog post & realized that the recipe made 7 pans!!! Yikes! 
 
As you can see they did turn out quite delicious & I had enough to share with my friends at work and even freeze 2 pans for later!
After we stuffed our faces with doughy deliciousness, we headed over to Desert Botanical Garden for a little walk. It was a gorgeous fall day & perfect weather to explore. I had been telling Karen & Ed about the Chihuly exhibit that I sadly missed out on a year or two ago & I was pleasantly surprised to see that they had one installation left. Here you can see the beautiful "Desert Towers" project that the garden is raising money for so it can be a permanent fixture. Can you believe it's glass??
 Awww. Happy to have my husband home!
 I loved this particular cacti. Can't remember its name, but it had the word "button" in it. Super cute polka dots :)
With it being Halloween, there was a big Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration going on. This lovely skeleton drinking a beer greeted us.
 Pretty flowers that remind me of home for some reason:
 Gorgeous sundial that had flowers/plants set just right to tell the time (and it was accurate!):
 Handsome husband among the Saguaro:

 Who says the desert isn't green??



Thanks Karen & Ed for a great visit! We really enjoyed seeing you!!

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Weekend Update: 2 Weekends Ago...(part 2)

Friday night we ate dinner at the hotel - Jay got a panini and I had a sandwich of some sort. I can't remember the exact details because we shared a side of macaroni & cheese and omgitwassogoooood.

There was a wedding going on at the pool outside of our room, so while we talked ourselves out of crashing it, we watched movies and I danced around the room and the patio to the tunes. 

Saturday was my birthday & we got up very early thanks to my alarm on my phone (and forgetting that it was MONDAY, not Sunday). Not my favorite part of the day, but I did enjoy putting on some long sleeves since it was a cloudy & chilly morning, and heading over to Koffi across the street for some pastry & coffee. We sat there & watched the old people reading their newspapers and the M-F workers grab their cuppa Joe before work. I always love that reminder of being on vacation - these other people are going to work & I am not. 

It was now time for our massage! Jay suggested a couples massage which was a nice treat! Afterwards we enjoyed the sauna for a bit before heading back to the pool. Even though it was still a little cloudy, I think we got the best part of our tans on this day. It was a great time to read & people watch...but soon enough we were hungry again & I was craving a burger! 

We found this place online called Tyler's (can't find their website but this blog post explains it pretty well) and set out to downtown Palm Springs to find it. After a few wrong-turns, we finally found this cute little place in the middle of a parking lot. I got sliders (delicious!), Jay got a cheeseburger and we shared a basket of fries. The lemonade was homemade and hit the spot. I loved the patio seating and the casual location.
We were so full we decided to take a walk. The downtown was super cute. Described by Jay as "Spanish Revival...1920s & 1930s..."(don't act like you aren't impressed...). I liked the Walk of Stars - just like in Hollywood...names like Elvis Presley & Bob Hope lined the streets. There were old photos of Rock Hudson & other celebrities enjoying the area from several decades ago. Palm Springs definitely prides itself on  its history which was really nice!
We got back to the hotel around mid-afternoon & had a coffee break at the hotel's casual restaurant. 
It was very diner-like and I liked it! Plus, how cute are the creamer & sugar containers? And these stools?
I started feeling artsy. I need to learn bokeh on my camera. I want to really bad. Maybe my friend Joe will help me?
Heading back to the room, Jay actually smiled for the picture but all I got was this...
Room 531. You walked through this wooden door to our patio & then into our room. I loved the door. 
Aren't the fixtures cute? Rustic. I like that too. 
And then it was time for dinner! I was so excited because the place we selected - Castelli's - was highly recommended to us by the CFO at my work. She goes every year and gave it rave reviews. We were definitely not disappointed! We shared the Fried Artichoke Hearts to start and then for the main course we each had one of their specialties. I had the Fettuccine Alfredo with chicken and Jay had the Osso Bucco. Both were delicious! 

And the wine. Ahhhh the wine. It deserves it's own paragraph. We splurged on a bottle of Bolla Amarone and I was in heaven. It was absolutely delicious. Yummy. Just thinking of it is making me salivate. 
                                                
It made Jay feel sexy...
                                                
And why do I love my husband so much? Because he isn't afraid to splurge on the finer things in life and he makes me laugh. A lot. 
For dessert Jay had the Creme Brulee (of course) and I had attempted eating a slice of cheesecake. We shared two different glasses of port wine and some coffee before calling it a night. Our fabulous waiter gave us a tour of the restaurant (I was ready for a mobster to walk out of the shadows at any minute) and then handed us a check along with a shot each (including himself!) of Sambucca. What a night!

Thanks hun for a wonderful birthday!!!

Weekend Update: 2 Weekends Ago...(part 1)

Two weekends ago, my husband came home!! It had been a long, LONG time, so it was so nice to see the countdown on my phone get closer and closer to the big day :) Also interesting to note: Scottsdale had rain on 10/21?! 
Jay came home Friday afternoon & we enjoyed a nice little late night dinner at Crust. Saturday I had acupuncture & then Jay went to yoga with me! Of course, after watching some Nebraska football!

Sunday morning we got up, packed, and got on the road. It was a nice slightly overcast morning and the drive to Palm Springs just flew by. Ok, it really didn't. It sucked. It felt like it took forever. 

But we made it! We had gotten a great deal via TravelZoo (have you ever tried it? We got a great deal for our Montreal trip here too) at the Ace Hotel & Swim Club.
The hotel is an old-school motel that has been renovated into a funky retro hotel. We had a patio room that felt very "surfer" to me...
I loved that we had our own private patio to enjoy...
And can you tell that it's a party hotel? They had quite the stash available to us...
Once we checked in, we immediately got into our bathing suits to lay out by the pool. They have a pool party on Sundays with a DJ, so we laid out a bit and Jay got us come cocktails. The drink menu had some interesting items on it so Jay started us off with a drink called a Figa. It's made with house-infused fig vodka, earl grey tea & honey tangerine. Um. It was gross. So guess what? Jay drank both of them. 
Then, he ordered me a Caphirina (cachaca muddled with lime & kiwi) and I didn't like that one either. So...Jay drank it! I thought it was pretty funny: 
(I'm wearing a beautiful shirt that Jay brought home for me! I look super fat in it here, but it's real cute in real life!)

And THEN, I ordered a margarita (below) and was happy! Jay, on the other hand...was drunk :)

Lesson learned: Order the margarita.