What a great weekend! I returned two nights ago from a weekend of celebration as well as a well needed change of scenery! What a change of scenery it was! I would have to say, Fountain Hills/Scottsdale beared the most BEAUTIFUL and AMAZING SCENES I’ve ever seen rising above the previously leading views of the Alaskan shore line. Other than the mountains, it may actually be unfair to compare the two, so let me just say that they reign as the top of my MOST BEAUTIFUL SCENES list!
So, I planned this trip around a graduation. My best friend graduated from Grand Canyon University with her Master’s degree in public health in Phoenix, Arizona. I couldn’t be more proud of her! #blackgirlmagic She had a rough year, but she pushed through! She stayed focused in spite of the many obstacles along the way. She could have stopped, but instead saw them as exactly what they were, something to get around and she moved accordingly. BYE OBSTACLES!!! LOL
It was really important to me that as we celebrated Kuturah’s AMAZING accomplishment, we also jumped outside of our comfort zones. What better way to do this than to do some things that we had never done? You know, the things we have seen others do, but either never felt brave enough to do it ourselves or just never made plans to do it. How does hot air ballooning sound? Or horseback riding? What about… BOTH?! Reservations… check!
Tuesday is here! Two more days to go! So excited! Gmail Alert!!! WTF??? Are you kidding me?! Due to President Trump’s travel in the area, our hot air balloon ride had been cancelled. This guy! Grrrrr…! All good! No way the guy with the funny hair, was going to mess up our trip!
We control the things we can and we don’t worry about everything else. On to the next! Thursday, we got settled, ate good, Drank good and sat around our beautiful rented home having girl talk! Eventually it turned into a scene from THE HANGOVER! You know like, someone falling to sleep on the bathroom floor, someone making interesting sounds in their sleep and then there was the bobcat & mountain lion scare! lol Trust me! It was a movie!
Hellooooo Friday! The makeup artist came promptly at 7 a.m.
It was then time to get dressed and head out! As I watched my bestie walked across the stage, I felt as proud of her as I would watching a child of mine walk across the stage. I know how hard she worked to reach that feat. Go Turah! Go Turah!
I started out my Saturday with a walk around this STUNNING neighborhood in which we were staying. It started off a little rough, but I enjoyed the crisp, fresh air as I marveled at God’s work. It was such a beautiful place.
After a good COLD glass of water, we headed on out to the stables. Horseback riding at the Saguaro Lake Ranch Stableswas next on the agenda! My horse’s name was “Big Mama!” LISTEN. I. WAS. SCARED. AS. SHIT! LOL No really… Getting onto the horse was much easier than I thought it would be. I really thought someone would have to push me by my butt to get me on the damn thing. Nah… your girl turned out to be a regular ole’ cowgirl!!! UNTIL… she decided she wanted to walk to have a sip of water. I was so scared that I was shaking. Hell, my damn brain was shaking! lol I wanted to get down. I immediately changed my mind. PINEAPPLES!!! (Kevin Hart) I didn’t want to play anymore! “Do you remember about 15 minutes ago, when I paid you that money and said that I wanted to ride a horse? Yeah… so I was just bull shittin’! Can you get me down please??!” That’s basically how I felt, but the staff there was SO encouraging (especially Kaleb) that I saw it through! Not to mention that there was a 7 year old girl on a horse that was looking at me like, ” And… how old are you again?” Between the two, I found my big girl panties and made like cowgirl! YEEEE HAWWWW! lol I can say that I am very much so proud of myself. I made myself uncomfortable and it turned out to be a very enjoyable adventure! Shout out to me!!! Embarrassing fact: I never knew that a mule was a half ass! Chubbs words! Not mine! lol No really, I never knew it was half horse and half donkey. I guess I just thought it was a… MULE.
After leaving the stable, we stopped by the Saguaro Lake to check it out before heading to the movies to see HALLOWEEN! Sorry, I didn’t take any photos, but it was a lot of fun!
The night was still young and we were not ready to bring it in quite yet, so we went to this lounge called, Michaels at Park Central. Not quite what I had expected it to be nor was it really my type of scene, but I typically find a way to enjoy myself wherever I go, so “Let me get um… a Crown and Coke. Double please!”
We left an hour or so before closing on a mission for some FOOD! Mexican? Absolutely! We were directed to this place called Filiberto’s after the place we first went was closed. So I ordered the carne asada fries and LISTEN… I will fly back to Arizona JUST TO GO TO THIS SAME SPOT. Do you hear me? JUST to get order this again. It was so good… even warmed up the next morning! Don’t be surprised if I am posting the dish from my kitchen soon! #shecooks
Well, that just about sums up my trip. The only thing that was missing was WAITING TO EXHALE. Watching that movie had pretty much always been in the plan as its become somewhat of a tradition between my best friend and I. Imagine how excited we were to find out that scenes from the movie were filmed in parts of the Fountain Hills area, which is where we were staying. We couldn’t get the TV to work, so we never actually watched the movie, but staying in the area was cool enough. We made our own movie!
Next up… Grand Canyon?
I AM EBONY 