Weekend in Phoenix and Sedona
Long weekends are the perfect time to explore, visit with friends and family, and enjoy an extra day off work. This last weekend did not disappoint, checking off all three.
We had family arrive late Thursday night and while we enjoyed our time relaxing and chatting, we were also able to get out and explore a little bit of the surrounding Phoenix, AZ area.
Yummy Food
As you know food is a very important part of our life and this weekend we delivered! Normally, when we try to show off a new place, something ends up messed up but not this weekend.
For breakfast we enjoyed Bosa Donuts and Over Easy. Bosa has the best raised donuts, and our favorite menu option – a croissant stuffed with ham and cheese. Over Easy is our new favorite sit down breakfast spot. They have a malted waffle which is my favorite style (belgian waffles are too thick), plus a Basil Melt sandwich which has such a unique flavor you just won’t get anywhere else. Nathan has a variety of classic breakfast choices that he usually gets.
For dinner we went to our favorite brew pub, State 48 as well as an older favorite Hula’s Modern Tiki. At State 48 Nathan loves the fish and chips and I always go for Totchos (nacho ingredients on top of tater tots). At Hula’s we were not all that hungry, but it worked out in our favor. We choose a table full of appetizers and enjoyed ceviche, pork sliders, potstickers, pork tacos, and steak skewers all family style.
If you are looking for good fish (not shrimp) ceviche, Hula’s is your best bet! They are the only place in the valley that I have found it.
As you probably noticed the only downside to all of these great selections is that we didn’t end up taking any pictures! The food and company was too good, we just went straight to eating. 🙂
Activities
While everyone else had Friday off, I still had to work. So that limited our ’free time’ to Saturday and Sunday.
Saturday was spent hanging around the house, taking down our hot tub, and wandering the Arrowhead mall for awhile until it was time to head to dinner.
Side note: In case you were wondering, it is not fun at all to get into a hot tub that is 104* when it is 100*+ outside. So we will enjoy our hot tub all winter, while everyone else deals with snow!
We did enjoy a classic amazing AZ sunset. After years, we still loving seeing and watching these sunsets. Next time I will get Nathan to take some really good pictures, not just from the car.
Anytime family comes to visit, we never feel like we have enough time. Thankfully, this weekend was different and we ended up with a entire extra day. So, we decided to spend Sunday up in Sedona and explore downtown.
After an easy drive, coming into Sedona the ’back-way’ via HWY 260/89A, we had stopped at Coffee Pot for breakfast. If you haven’t been I do recommend it as a good diner option. Kinda reminds me of Cracker Barrel with the store out front. Just be prepared for a wait, its almost always 30-45 minutes until a table is available.
Once we finished breakfast we drove over to the downtown shopping area, parked at a free lot, and started walking. We wandered into almost every shop, including local souvenirs, soaps and candles, and and anything else that looked interesting!
We always like finding Nathan t-shirts, though we picky about the material. They have to be super soft and light to handle our hot AZ summers.
We also found a local shop selling hand-made products including plastic free soap. While that has become quite trendy option lately, we found a scent we both fell in love with – Apricot Kernels from The Hoppy Goat Farm.
One of the last store we stopped at had incense for sale. We have been on a candle kick lately, and found a few that smelled really good. Never having used incense before I was a little nervous about the holder. It seemed a little precarious to be holding a burning stick. But then we saw that 30 sticks were only $4! Even if it totally failed it would be worth it to try, so we picked out a few scents to try at home.
Spoiler – We won’t be using those again. It was easy to use, but we only smelled smoke and that is not what I want my house to smell like!
While walking through downtown, we did grab a few pictures of the beautiful scenery Sedona has to offer. Next time we will spend a little bit more time going on hikes and let Nathan play around with his camera to get even better pictures.
After a long hot day, we were happy to head home and grabbed a bite to eat at Texas Roadhouse before turning in for the evening.
Monday was another early day in order to get our family to the airport on time. So we hit Waffle House on our way across town. Then finished our drive to Mesa Gateway and said our goodbyes.
On our way back home we stopped by Scottsdale Quarter to sign a local petition.
We happened to see the Yeti store, and you can’t pass up an opportunity to look around a Yeti store. Plus, I had been looking for new mugs, as I have recently been fond of Chamomile tea.
I picked out this beauty (minus the straw) and absolutely love it!
I always thought of mugs and insulation for hot coffee or tea, but it does an incredible job at keeping things cold too! After brewing black tea and adding ice cubes for Iced Tea, and I still had ice cubes left 4 hours later!
Nathan also picked out a new purple tumbler so he can rotate his morning coffee cup.
After an eventful and long weekend we spent the rest of Monday afternoon relaxing and enjoying a few more hours away from work before our weekend was over. Sometimes you just need to get out of the house and enjoy local attractions to relax and reset in-between work.
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