Checking off the our AZ Bucket List

These last several weeks have been beyond fun!  As we near the end of our 'AZ chapter' I am beginning to feel a little melancholy moving away from those we have grown to love, but also feel satisfied and ready to.  I feel like these last few years have been an 'extended vacation' rather than a terrible, long medical school experience.  We feel great about our experience and will be leaving without any regrets!

That feeling is beyond awesome!

Our bucket list is sadly coming to an end....

1) Hike at Papago

This was surprisingly loads of fun for the girls.  They loved climbing up the rock, finding little seat-like crevices to sit in, and then turn to us with excitement all over their faces because they achieved the climb.  It was great to get a fun view of downtown PHX.

After the hike, Chase wanted to take the girls to see some puppies somewhere,but we had no luck. So, instead, we went to the Scottsdale Fashion Square Mall and out of the blue Chase brings up the idea of taking the girls to get their ears pierced.  WHAT?!?

I wasn't opposed to it all , but just surprised it was his suggestion.  I was feeling a little nervous for them because gosh, this is a BIG MOMENT in a GIRL'S life!!  Luckily I had my camera so we walked into Claire's and it went up hill...then down hill...then back up hill real quick!
(I will be doing an individual post about the girls' experience).

 2) Fountain Hills
I would recommend this place to anybody.  Fountain Hills is a small to medium sized, secluded community in the northeastern side of Scottsdale. A friend told us about it so we invited a group of families to join us for a Saturday evening in the park.  We picnicked, played bocce ball, & watched "Madagascar 3."  The fountain goes off every hour and then runs for 15 minutes.  According to their website, it's apparently one of the world's tallest man-made fountains.  Needless to say this evening was fantastic! The weather was cool, we had grass to sit on, & the company was enjoyable!

PACKING BREAK

 

3) Desert Ridge Live Music & Candy Store

One Friday evening we went out with the Higbees to enjoy live music, outlet mall bustle, & a trip into a candy store.  We enjoyed everything about the experience.

 This was the kids' first time picking out their own candy and filling their own bag of OVER-priced candy.  If it weren't for me supervising we would have gotten out of there completely broke!

4) Organ Stop Pizza

This is a great, family-fun night out.  Top of each hour, a man starts playing the organ.  He is outstanding!  He can play anything and everything.  The girls loved it & recognized a lot of the songs (a good portion of the music selection is from Disney).  We all enjoyed our time and met up with some of our favorite people- the Bagley family!!

5) Tolmachoff Farms
We went to this fall, festive, fun last year and had so much fun!  We've been to a few different pumpkin patch/corn maze/ farm festivals here and this one wins by far.  This year we invited our besties the Higbees to come along and it made the whole experience that much more enjoyable!  I have so many pictures from the hours of fun we had there so this event gets it's own post! :)

6) Day Trip to Sedona
We've gone in the past but I really wanted to go one last time before moving out of the state. Sedona is awesome even for a quick day trip.  The smell of the outdoors was outstanding to me.

We explored a place we hadn't been to called Tlaquepaque (it's fun word to say). :)

It's an artisan village type shopping area.  We had fun taking pictures here!

After that, we drove out to West Fork Trail and had some fun exploring and getting a few pictures there.  A big reason we drove up to Sedona in the first place was because I had a family photo shoot to do the following week.  The family wanted their pictures taken in Sedona so I had to explore a bit in advance. Luckily these two locations were fantastic and I was able to go there again the following week.

"Simon's Hot Dogs" is a literal hole in a wall.  It. is. GHETTO.  A little Columbian family owns it and sells a variety of different hot dogs.  A funny little spot where you can buy a hot dog topped with chili, pineapple, and crushed potato chips. :)

Now, 

on to check off the rest of the list!