A Romantic Getaway for Two

Now, don't get your hopes up that I'm in some great relationship and was wisked away for the weekend... I AM in a great relationship, it just happens to be with my best friend Jill. We've been in serious need of some one on one girl time and with her recently passing the NCLEX and her boyfriend out of town, we jumped on the chance to take advantage of some of her time off.

Now, where would you want to go for an incredibly fun weekend away from life with your best friend? Did you say Tubac, AZ? That's what I thought you said! And that's exactly where we went. Ok, that was a sarcastic comment (I'm not quite sure how to convey my sarcasm in a blog yet...). We didn't have much time, so we decided to just see what kind of 4-star spa and resort deals we could find. I searched on Orbitz and found a $79/night deal at the Tubac Golf Resort and Spa. We had never heard of this place, but it was out of town (about a 2.5 hour drive) and it didn't really matter where we were... as long as it was away from life.

Um, this little place couldn't have been more perfect. The weather was a good 20 degrees less than Phoenix. It was pretty and green and surrounded by mountains.

The resort (and Tubac) are apparently historic locations of the days of Arizona settling (here I am reading up the history)

so the surroundings were quaint with little casitas and haciendas turned into hotel rooms.
Here's ours...

The room was surprisingly spacious and comfortable...

especially with these yummy robes! (Perhaps "yummy" isn't the right word for robes, but that's the word that popped in my head!)

The decor was a "tasteful" Southwestern (I usually don't like Southewestern).

Our only complaint about the room was the super short shower head...

... and the incredibly loud air conditioner. Every time it popped on, whether or not we were having a conversation, Jill and I would start shouting "What??" at each other. Seriously, you've never heard an AC unit this loud!

Anyway, we got there late Sunday night and just went straight to bed. Monday morning, we lazily got up and headed into "town" (this place is seriously a tiny, little artsy town) to find some breakfast. There were lots of cute shops to explore, but more often we were greeted with signs like this:

Everything was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays... the two days that we were there. But that's ok, we weren't really there to look at shops full of stuff we'd never buy. But these "ladies" were a little tempting.

I opted just to take an illegal picture instead, while Jill covered for me (the store was plastered with signs saying "No pictures"... yeah, right, like I was gonna pass this up)!

After our brief excursion to "town" we headed back to the resort for some personal pool time... and I really mean personal. Since the summer is the down season for Arizona, the resort was pretty empty. We practically had the place to ourselves.

We just lounged around,

ate lunch

and played rumicube like a bunch of old ladies.

And then, the rain came down... kind of out of nowhere, it just started pouring and we had to gather everything up (including my iPod and speakers I had set up) and jet back to our room. Now, don't get sad for us, thinking we had to stay in the hotel room for the rest of the day. The rainstorm came right about the same time as our scheduled SHWEDISH MASHAGES at the Spa! (that's swedish massages... but you try saying that 10 times fast!)


We had spa appointments at 3 and 4pm, and since NO ONE was around, we had the entire spa to our selves. So, while Jill Jill was getting her massage, I was pampering myself in the steam room and the sauna and then we switched. Then we each took long showers and got ourselves all ready using the spa's hair equipment.

I, apparently, was having a hard time figuring out the whole comb device concept on the blow dryer, but I finally managed.

It was fabulous, but remember, we're old ladies here, so one of the highlights of our spa time was playing the Yahtzee they had in the waiting room!

We also found this book, DESTINED for a girls trip,

with words of wisdom such as this:

It says "Friends are the family we didn't start out with who make us feel likable, funny and clever."

Don't you just love it when people pull a camera on you and you start posing because you think they're taking a picture, but really they're taking a video?

After our relaxing hours at the Spa, we got ready for our dinner out at "The Stables". It was the one and only restaurant open, and pretty pricey for us, but whatcha gonna do... we had to eat, right? So I just did my best trying to fit in with the rich crowd. How'd I do?

From the time we found this place on the internet, we were so excited to go to the bar at "The Stables" and sit on their unique bar stools!

Jill and I are wannabe cowgirls (Jill's probably saying "speak for yourself!" right now). But we do have an affinity for cowboy culture. Listen carefully to my Urban cowgirl explanation (or esplination, right Kathy?) on how to ride a horse... or a saddle barstool.

After dinner, we headed back to our hotel room (with a brief private "night swim" at the pool first) and I promptly fell asleep as we watched "Hairspray" (fun movie, by the way).

The next day we had to check out of our hotel and make it back to Mesa by 3pm for our hair appointments. We also wanted to get pedicures, but everything was closed in that little area, so we decide to continue our vacation back at home, but not tell people we were home yet. So we headed back to Mesa.

I got pulled over just outside of Phoenix for following a car too closely at high speeds (the idiot kept speeding up and slowing down and wouldn't get out of my way). Luckily I just got off with a warning. Jill really wanted to snap a photo of me out of the car talking to the cop for the purpose of a blog story, but we weren't sure that would go over well. Too bad.

Anyway, back in Mesa, the pedicures were a much needed treat.

Jill and I caught up on some high priority interest reading.
Jill with an Arizona Bride magazine....

... and me with the current issue of Seventeen!

I guess we both just felt the need to know the audiences of our lives!

After the pedicures, we went to my hairstylist's place for my 6 week cut and color and Jill got a nice trim too. By 5pm, our pampering weekend was over and we were back to our separate worlds to recover from all of our vacationing. Thanks, Jill Jill, for making special Spendy time that I could spend with you!

You're such a poser!

"Wanna be my friend again sometime?"
said in my "special" voice to match this "special" picture Jill snapped of me

The Bushy Bush Removal

Home improvement project #2 (see below for #1) was to remove this gross, smelly, overgrown bush of sorts from the west side of my garage. It was growing up into the eaves and my home insurance company wasn't happy about the fire hazard of it and wanted it trimmed or removed. I think its ugly, so I opted to remove it. Again, I solicited the help of a man (Greg)... I don't have a husband to give a honey-do list to, so I just recruit as needed! :) Sorry, no before pictures... I forgot. But I've got the working pics.

Greg and I hacked it down with loper-off-ers (I'm sure that's not the official tool name, but I thought it was cute that Greg kept referring to them as that... and he was serious).


Then we dug around the base of it, picked it a bit...

... and then, POP!
...it came out!

We were expecting to have to chain it up and pull it out with his truck, but that wasn't necessary. We loaded up all the debris and took it to the dump...
end of bush.

So, do you like how I keep saying "we" did all this stuff, when, truth be told, Greg did a lot of the work. He was just stronger and faster than me. A big thank you to him, especially since he got up at 5:30am on a Saturday to do this so we could beat the heat.

I know, this wasn't that exciting of a post, but it is for me. Sorry, no booty pictures to vote on for this yard project. I'll have to keep that in mind next time. (By the way, booty #3 won... I personally voted for #2. I liked how it showed width AND curve. All of you, apparently, like just plain width!)

Tile Me! Tile Me!

I'm just turning into a natural homeowner... doing home improvement projects left and right! Ok, not really, because I can't do anything by myself. I always need some one else's expertise, help, opinion, etc. But I do feel the pride of home ownership and love working on my house.

Last week, I did two projects that were long overdue and I just needed to get it done while I still had the time off work and the friends to help. The first project was tiling a back splash on the kitchen walls. Every I would get crap on my walls, I could just hear them whispering to me "Tile me! Tile me!" So I did.

Here's what it looked like before I started:

My friend Ryan (my date for the Luau last year) likes to do home improvement projects as a hobby and he had some free time last week and offered to help me. There's NO WAY I could have done this without his help.

Ryan's a little camera shy, so this is the only picture he would let me get of him. He basically did everything... but really the only thing he really did all by himself was cutting the tile.

He taught me how to butter up the tile and stick it on the wall...

... and then how to do the grout.

So, I did do enough of this project to take ownership of it and say that I did the tile work in my kitchen... with A LOT of help from Ryan. He was so nice to not only give his time to do this, but to also be patient with me and teach me how to do it. Thanks Ryan! (He'll probably never read this... oh well!)

Anyway, Lowe's still had the same tiles that the previous owner used for the remodel, so I just bought enough to bring the back splash up the wall at a diagonal (Ryan's idea... more work, but so worth it!) and top of with the same decorative border tile that's above my stove. We worked on it for a couple hours a day for four days... I'd say it took us about 12 - 16 hours when all was said and done.

Oh, did you want to see the after pictures? Ok, here they are!

I LOVE my house! :)

I just couldn't resist...

I found this link on my sister-in-law's blog and I just couldn't resist poking a little fun at my life.

Create your own family sticker graphic at pYzam.com

Jill Jarvis, RN

Today, my BFF Jill found out that she passed the NCLEX and is officially a registered nurse! Jill finishing her intense 18-month nursing program and passing the boards brings her that much closer to being able to spend more time with me again! :) Now, if I could only work on that boyfriend of hers...

Congratulations, Jill Jill!