Happy Birthday to ME!

My birthday weekend got a great kick off when my parents took me to dinner on Friday night!

I am very excited that we went to Le Chalet. The food is really good and it is an EVENT to go there. They have some fancy dishes like the La Potence and the Swiss Raclet and you can't miss with the salted caramel crepe to finish off your meal.

If you sit in the bar area you can watch the closed circuit tv's as they prepare your crepes. It is pretty cool watching them make them. They pour the batter, swirl it around, flip it over and then fold it up and put your stuff in it. They make it look easy.

Here are some pictures from the night.

As we were leaving the restaurant, mom spotted this cow statue which says "dookie" on the bottom of it and being the juveniles that we are, we had to take a few pictures with it.

 On Saturday the celebration continued as Suzanne and I went up to the cabin with our dogs and enjoyed the cool pines. We started the afternoon off with a little veggie platter and some Boddington's then took a walk to the watering hole to see if Jinxy would jump in and show us her Labrador roots. She did!

After working off the veggie tray we decided to head in to town to have dinner at my favorite Payson restaurant Gerardo's. We had a delicious dinner (do you see a theme with my birthday celebrations?) Then we headed back home where Suz surprised me with a cupcake from Tammie Coe's a great book and a gift card for Le Grande Orange (does she know me or what?).

On Sunday we spent the day in Payson doing some antiquing. What a blast! I got some really cute stuff for the cabin and Suz got the find of the day with an awesome lamp that was so big that it wouldn't fit in the back of my truck! Score!

 


Today (my actual birthday) I woke up to Reece's wet nose poking me in the head and some pretty flowers blooming in the front yard. Some happy birthday wishes and songs from friends and family. It has been a great 41st birthday!

Buca and Bowling, Celebrating Mom

On September 16th we celebrated my beautiful mother's birthday. I won't tell you which birthday it was but it was a BIG one and it rhymes with mixty.

Mom's day of adventure started out with a trip to Lake Pleasant to fish with my brother. It's not every mom that is lucky enough to have their own professional guide to take them out fishing. They had a great time enjoying the cool early morning weather and from what I heard lots of fishing and not as much catching. I guess the fish were still sleeping at the ungodly hour of 5 AM. 

Don't forget to book your next fishing trip at Arizona Fishing Guides (can't resist the plug for Scooter's company)

After mom's fishing adventure we met up for lunch and then we were off to shop for a cute outfit for the evening's festivities. From there we hustled on over to get a mani/pedi from Leah at Salon Sanctuary. She did a great job and our hands and feet were primed and ready for some Buca and some Bowling!

The family convened on Buca di Beppo in Scottsdale where we stuffed ourselves silly with way too much food.

Here we are before the food came, don't we look so much thinner?

In anticipation of triangle shaped cheese sticks and softball sized meatballs

And even though we were all stuffed from dinner, our very nice waiter brought over some birthday candles and a birthday brownie for us to chow on. It did not go to waste.

Happy birthday to you IRENE!

 After dinner we rushed off to make our bowling reservation and to hopefully burn off a few calories.  I won't bore you with the play by play bowling action or the, uh, scores. Let's just say that Gerry is a ringer, Kayse is well on her way to being a professional bowler and the rest of us just had fun. Here are some shots of the dork family.

Nice follow through!

Ready to get our game on

Awwww

Guess who is a poser just like her auntie?

Yeah, that was a great idea

The latest in rental shoe fashion

The cheering squad

The day and the evening were a success! We all had a great time celebrating mom on her milestone birthday.

I'm BACK!

Hellloooo internets! I am sorry I have been away so long. Lots of things have been happening so let me update you.

First things first, I am sure you are all just dying to know what happened to the little garden that could.

Well, the cucumber plant produced some interesting looking cukes. They didn't turn the dark green color that we see in the grocery store and their texture was different than what I expected. They weren't as crunchy but the skin was so thin that you didn't have to peel them you could just chop them up and eat them so that was cool. Check out the bounty that was the cucumbers.

Do you think these weird shapes are a result of project artificial insemination?

Then there are the tomatoes. The desert reds didn't come in very well. I think it may have had something to do with the great caterpillar infestation of June 2011. I have no idea where those little suckers came from but there were tons of them and they were very well camouflaged.

I e mailed the long suffering Ben from Harvest to Home and he sent me some stuff to put in the water and that seemed to do the trick. Alas I believe it was too late because we mostly got tomatoes that looked like these

But we did get a few of these

Unfortunately I can't find any of the pictures of the yellow pears except for the two nestled next to the cucumbers in the prior picture. They turned out well. The flavor was good. They were sweet and perfect for dipping in hummus or adding to pasta or salads or just eating them straight off the vine. I didn't have many to share because they were small and they went quick. Maybe two of those next year and skip the desert reds.

The guys from Harvest to Home felt bad about how the thing with the cucumbers went down so they offered me a Fall garden box. I am very excited about that. They have broccoli, cauliflower, lettuces, spinach, herbs. Lots of stuff. I am not sure what I am going to try out this season so stay tuned for that. If you want to grow your own garden give Dave or Ben an e mail and they can set you up. infoAZ@harvesttohome.com

Now, harvesting the garden wasn't the only thing I have been doing these many weeks that I have been away not blogging.

We have been up in the mountains.

Look at these pups after a long day running around the watering hole

 Then Mike found a crawfish spot and we had a nice crawfish boil.

Yumm!

And then we found an Arizona Black rattlesnake in our bunkhouse. He probably wouldn't have come inside but someone left the door open all night and I am sure the snake thought it was a great idea to curl up in the shelter of our bunkhouse all camouflaged looking just like a rope on the ground.

Here he is giving us a last look before heading in to the woods

Also I got a new helmet! So now Mike will let me ride the 4 wheeler. I know, it is quite the fashion statement. And, bonus!  I can go a lot faster now that I have some goggles to keep the bugs from smacking me in the face.

We rode the bikes to the top of Diamond Point to watch the sunset. My guy's idea. He is such a romantic.

So, that was pretty much our Summer. Now that we are heading in to Fall, I can't wait to post about some of the cool events that will be happening. Fall is my favorite time of year! The cooler weather we have been panting and waiting for is on the way.

Some events I will post here but check out my other blog Cheap Thrills in AZ. This is a collaborative effort with my friend Beth. We are going to find and review some cheap things to do in the Valley.