Girls Trip!!!

 

My bestfriend, Ashton, and I have wanted to do a girls trip for ages now and between kids and traveling hubbys it's been hard to coordinate a time that would work. We finally found a weekend that would work for both of us and decided to take a quick weekend trip to Arizona.

I dropped Coop off with my Dad on my way out of town and had a really hard time, I've never ever left Coop over night. I called Ry after I left crying that I didn't think I could do it. He and my Mom both told me I needed this trip, so I should enjoy it and relax, which I think I did a pretty good job after I got over leaving Cooper. I got to the airport with time to spare, so called to check on Coop a few times, and started reading some books I downloaded. My flight down was completely packed, I had B boarding and still had to sit by people in a full row, we taxied forever on the runway which ended up making my flight about half an hour late, which was okay because so was Ash's.

When I landed I took the shuttle over to the airport rental car area and had the best driver ever, he reminded me of Rafiki from The Lion King. He lifted my bag for me and gave me "VIP seating" and proceeded to talk the entire 20 minute ride over, he gave weather reports, nationality and racial reports, local news report and gave a bit of some tour guide type information, basically our entire shuttle was laughing the whole way over because of our little Rafiki driver. I got our rental car with a bit of a fight, long story short, priceline gave me one price and the car place tripled it, but after a bit of frustration and lots of talking I made them get closer to the price I was originally quoted. I drove back to the airport and picked up Ash and we headed over to the Scottsdale Quarter, an amazing mall, and shopped until our movie started at 6:00PM. It was so great to catch up while we shopped, we went to a few different stores and we found a store called Oil and Vinegar; they had a wall full of different oils and vinegars, literally every flavor you could fathom. We spent no less than an hour tasting different oil and vinegar mixes from all over as we tried to narrow it down and find containers that would be carry on worthy. After we decided on our flavors and the lady bottled them up for us we headed to our movie over at iPic, the most amazing theatre I have ever been to! As we walked to the theatre we called our husbands, Ry was feeding Coop chicken McNuggets and Jade had the girls at McDonalds, we both had to laugh. At the theatre we had huge recliners with a pillow and a blanket, and a great waiter. Popcorn came with our seats and after we polished that off we order some delicious lemon chicken satay with roasted asparagus and ended our movie with a yummy death by chocolate cake, it was SO good. I want all my movie going experiences to be like this from now on. After the movie we headed to Bill's house (Ashton's Mom's new husband) and got settled in for the night.

Friday morning rolled around and I woke up early because I was still on Idaho time and I'm not used to sleeping in, I got up for a while and then decided I should take advantage of trying to sleep in so I went back to bed for a while. After we woke up we headed to downtown Gilbert, a really cute area, and ate breakfast at a place called The Farmhouse, it was pretty good minus that both of our orders were a little messed up, and they burned Ash's waffle and flipped it over thinking she wouldn't notice. When we finished there we headed back to the house for some serious sun soaking, the neighbors had left to Canada for their snowbird flight and so Ash and I had our own private, heated pool. We definitely used an entire bottle of tanning oil between the two of us in two days. The weather was so perfect! After we had had our fill of rays we showered and went to San Tan Village for some serious shopping. It was so nice to shop with not a worry of time, kids' schedules, potty breaks etc. We both found some great things and then decided we were pretty famished from our shopping so we went to an Italian restaurant called Brio. Our bruschetta and dessert were delicious, my meal was mediocre and Ash's was delish. After dinner we found a Redbox after quite a bit of driving, (Siri was confused) and then we headed back to snuggle up and watch it.

Saturday was our last full day together so we made the most of it by heading back over to downtown Gilbert for some breakfast at Liberty Market. Before breakfast we were excited to see that they had a farmer's market going on, so we meandered through it before we grabbed some yummy breakfast and then headed to Usery Mountains for a little hike to the Wind Caves. It was a good little hike but really nothing to see, we counted maybe two desert flowers and a couple lizards. I'm used to Idaho mountains full of lots of trees, water and pretty things to look at, but at least we got a little exercise for all the dessert we enjoyed, right? We descended pretty quick so we could head home and change into our bathing suits and soak up as many last Arizona rays as we could before we went home. After we were satisfied with our sun exposure we showered and got read for our last night together. We decided to go back to Scottdale Quarter, such a fabulous mall, and found a great H&M and did lots more shopping and then enjoyed a delicious dinner at True Food Kitchen. We couldn't end our evening without dessert so we found a place, no thanks to Siri, who wanted us to "prepare to walk (through the desert) to our destinination" called White Chocolate grill, our dessert was good but I think the other ones we had prior trumped our white chocolate brownie that night. We had quite a task ahead of packing our bags and bags into our single carry on, so we stopped and found some space saver bags. By some miracle we fit everything and had a quick sleep before we headed to the airport at the crack of dawn Sunday morning.

We said our good byes, both barely made it through security check with our precious oil and vinegar and I was so happy when I found out we only had thirty five people on our flight. I had a quick flight home and drove as fast as I legally could to get home to my boys. Coop was napping when I got home so I peeked on him and then showed Ry how amazing it was that I fit everything in my carry on, I think he wasn't that amused. It was nice to be home and see my boys but I do miss the sun, we have since had a rain storm and a snow storm.

 

Dropping Coop off with my Dad, I don't really know that he knew I was gone, everytime I talked to Ry and asked to talk to him he fervently said "no".

At Scottsdale Quarter right after we both arrived in Phoenix, ready to shop and have a weekend of relaxation.

Watching "Admission" funny movie, great company, food, and I think every movie theatre should be like this one!

One of the pics Ry sent me, Coop sleeping at about 5:00PM, not naptime or bedtime, just a little rest.

Two vampires waiting in the sun to be seated and The Farmhouse for breakfast...

 

The sun was absolutely heavenly.

 

My child and his dinner; chicken nuggets, yep that's a twently piecer, and he is drinking his milk out of a water filter bottle, so healthy, so glad I was only gone for three days.

"Look Momma, i'm having the time of my life with Daddy!!"

 

Wind Caves hike

Us at the top of our hike, check out that view!

 

Our last night, at True Food Kitchen, the night was perfect we were seated outside in lounge chairs and ate the most delicious dinner.

Our dinner, a bowl of delectable crudites and yummy tortilla soup.

 

My bag fully packed...

Unpacked, I'm not sure how this happened but it did and I love it!