It's my Birthday!

I had a lovely birthday... it was Saturday so I took my morning bike ride and had my free birthday drink at Starbucks. I had a couple of wonderful surprises arrive at my door thanks to Terri and Mary! 

 Thank you, sister for the GREAT tin full of brownies!

 Thank you, Mary for the most wonderful and addictive popcorn ever!

 Dinner was at one of my favorite places, ZTejas, and then cupcakes at home. Mine was a salted caramel cupcake. 

Thank you to Pat and William.  

Thank you to everyone who sent me cards and wishes on my day, it is nice to be remembered!

Snow in the Valley?

Ok maybe not real snow, more like slushy frozen rainy snow, that sounded like hail coming down. It gathered in the stoney plant areas and the garbage can to make it look like snow. It was cold but not freezing cold at least not on the ground, there is no ice on the streets or sidewalks. Just enough to make the desert dorks think they have snow.

 

 

Wild Wild West

 It was a beautiful, sunny day here in the Valley of the Sun and so we decided to take a road trip to a town we haven't been to before. Cave Creek and Carefree are right next to each other and really just at the northernmost tip of Phoenix, but still about an hour away. We happened upon a festival in each town. First up Cave Creek and their Frontier Town, yes another of those wild west kind of areas, goodness gracious there are enough of them out here. In "Frontier Town" there were lots of shops and pubs and then they had an arts/craft thing going on. Truly I do not have any idea who buys all that southwest style stuff. 

 Welcome to town!

 A real outhouse......I don't think anyone still uses it

Lots of old farm/mining/frontier equipment with artwork animals pulling them.

OK so maybe Frontier Town was not that exciting. We kept on down the road and passed pub after pub after pub with thousands and I do mean thousands of Harleys in the parking lots. I am thinking we found where all the Sunday Harely riders go. Little more down the road and we come to the Carefree Arts and Chocolate Festival. Well turns out the chocolate is not what made that worth the stop. It was the Desert Cactus Kickers a self-described group of dancing grannies from Cave Creek, putting on quite the performance.

 

 

 

 They were really fun to watch, I give them a lot of credit for getting up there and tapping their way around. On the way back home we stopped at Big Earls Greasy Eats for a burger, but I had chicken. I believe Big Earls was on one of those TV shows that travel around the country finding unique places to eat. Sandwich was good, but I wouldn't put it on TV not that anyone asked me.

 

 So there you have it just another wild west town out here in the wild west.

Saturday Bike Ride

This was not the Saturday for me to forget to bring my camera on my morning ride. Pat suggested I ride over to the Farmer's Market in Gilbert and he was going to drive over there (after giving me a head start). The path I took had oh so many interesting things to see on the way and I wish I had my camera to capture them (I will have a redo on that one another time). When I got to the Farmer's Market (yes way after Pat) there was also an Arts/Craft thing going on. We walked around and then went to a little coffee shop in town. Made me realize there is a lot of history and interesting things going on Downtown but I never go there. Have to make a point to do that more often. So anywho on my ride home, the path I rode on ran behind Freestone Park and in the fields all sorts of pint-sized kids were playing soccer and flag football. Well that brought me back to many a Saturday morning spent watching Mike and William play when they were little, which is bringing us right to today's Blast from the Past. It is Fall 2003 and Mike is playing flag football and William soccer.

 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day is not at the top of my list for Holidays, however, when the kids were small we use to make heart-shaped pizzas for dinner. They loved doing it and well in the middle of February in the cold and snow there isn't a whole lot else to do. Look how adorable they are holding their pizza dough that they shaped into hearts.

  

The finished product made them very proud and they were actually very good, we all enjoyed eating them. 

 

 The year was 2001... fast forward to 2013 and William agrees to make heart-shaped pizza with his mother once again! I think we did a much better job of shaping hearts back in 2001, but we had fun making our pizzas and eating them!

 

 

Unfortunately for us Mike was not here to join in the fun, I am sure he is jealous....LOL. I also made these delicious brownie cookie hearts for dessert. I am thinking for a holiday I don't celebrate, I did an okay job of celebrating.

 

 

 Silly boy put his heart cookie on his heart and it is sitting right on his thumb. What a goof! Hope you (that would be you Mom, since you are the only person that reads my blog) enjoyed this little blast from the past, you can look forward to more as I continue to try to organize and clean up my photo area.

Birthday Party!

Well I have been up to a lot of nothing lately, so much of nothing that I haven't had anything to blog about. Last Saturday I went to a birthday party for two of my little friends. Daniel turned 6 on February 7th and Aliana turned 3 on February 9th. They are the children of my friend Teri, who you may remember from this post. It was a bit chilly outside, well chilly for Arizona anyway and windy but the kids didn't mind and they had a really fun day.  

 The birthday girl and boy!

 Some great grilling by Frankie's brother.

 What 6-year old boy wouldn't love boxing gloves? 

No, I did not give them to him. I had six year old boys once I wouldn't do that to Teri. LOL

 A Dora doll for Aliana!

 All smiles looking at the cakes and 

waiting to blow out the candles.

 The happy family.

Aliana, Frankie, Teri and Daniel

 It was a fun afternoon, and I hear the party went well into the evening. Me being me I am sure I was home asleep while they were all rocking and rolling. I am just glad to have been included in the celebration, I love to see the kids and a birthday party is always a fun time.