Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Weekend Getaway

This past weekend Andrew and I were given the wonderful opportunity to have a weekend away, just the two of us. For parents of two busy boys, that is an unheard of treat! My boss has a beautiful home in a forest/golf course community in Flagstaff where he usually spends his weekends. This past weekend he was going out of town and offered to give us his house for the weekend. Of course we took him up on it! We dumped the boys off with Grandma and Grandpa for the weekend and headed up on Saturday morning.

The house was beautiful and in an awesome community. Here is the view from the deck on the back of the house.


We spent most of Saturday just walking around the community and hanging out on the deck soaking up the sun and the much cooler temperatures then we've felt in months!



At about 2:00 the clouds rolled in and the thunder started to rumble. We held out on the deck as long as we could, but when we felt the temperature suddenly drop about 5 degrees and could smell rain in the air, we figured it was time to head inside.

I must say the highlight of the trip was our dinner adventure on Saturday night. We went to the Mormon Lake Lodge east of Flagstaff. It's an old west style restaurant that serves steaks and various other meats. Andrew decided to be adventurous and ordered Elk ribs in a prickly pare marmalade. They must have been really good because he took them down! The food was so good, and we had a nice time without any children to tell to sit still and behave! When we left the restaurant it was dark outside. The restaurant was back in the woods so the 7 or so mile road leading to the restaurant was pitch black. The clouds had cleared so we had a clear view of the night sky. We decided to pull off the road and do a little star gazing. Holy cow! I'd never seen anything like it. It was like we could see every star that ever existed. We could even see the Milky Way. It was incredible. After we got back on the road, we were talking about catching glimpses of wildlife out on the side of the road. I had just finished telling Andrew that I never see anything, when there is bambi on the side of the road, ready to cross the road right in front of us! We even had to stop the car to let her cross. It was so exciting!

On Sunday we had breakfast at this great little local place called Mike & Ronda's The Place. The food was incredible, and SO big! After doing some more relaxing on the deck, and taking a little ride in the Gem Car...

We decided to start making our way home. Since the house was right off of the 89A, we decided to take that way through Oak Creek Canyon and Sedona instead of just heading back down the 17. We stopped at a scenic overlook on the way. It was so beautiful. It's amazing to think thinks like this are only 2 hours away from home!



I just thought this sign was kinda funny...


We had a great weekend away, and are so grateful to my boss for opening his home to us.

2 comments:

Lea said...

That looks like such a fun, relaxing weekend! Good for you guys!

Jen said...

We really live in a great state, don't we? I love that we can drive to these getaways so easily. Looks like fun, and that sign is hysterical!