Excursions – Page 17 – Not Content to Crawl

Posted onFebruary 13, 2017

After my doctor visit Friday (2/10), I did a little shopping. One of my stops included Party City where I snagged this cute bunny cutout for 99 cents and this St. Patrick’s Day sign for $1.99. Both are for the front door.

I wanted to get a nicer Easter sign but they all had glitter on them which looks nice at first but makes a mess in the storage bins, not to mention eventually wears off.

I made a few other stops to grab some stuff for Joe for Valentine’s Day as well.

Friday night we watched Neighbors 2 which I thought was better than the first one.

Saturday morning we went to the arboretum for their Chocolate Expo and spent about $30 on goodies.

1st photo: jalapeÃ±o chocolate covered Slim Jims, a mint Oreo, cherry bombs, pretzels, chocolate covered Bullseyes.

2nd photo: dark chocolate toffee and an oversized turtle.

We tried everything so far except the pretzels and the turtle. The toffee is always good, the bullseyes were just ok, the mint Oreo was awesome, as were the Slim Jims. I think Joe really liked the cherry bombs too but I didn’t just because I’m not a fan of twizzlers.

We stopped at Chipotle for lunch and then went home to pick up Wookie to take her to Petsmart for their special Puppy Love event. She met some dogs and people and seemed to react better than last time. She also got some free treats!

In addition, I bought her an Easter toy. I love that the free Greenie’s she got are worth $10! We won’t be giving those to her until she’s 6 months old, however.

We signed her up for their 6-week puppy training course which starts next Saturday. I think she’s going pretty great with her training overall, but she could definitely use more socialization and it will be interesting to learn what we are and aren’t doing right with her too.

Sunday we did some grocery shopping super early in the morning. I couldn’t sleep so we found ourselves at Meijer just after 7 am.

We went to an 11 am showing of The LEGO Batman Movie which was, as expected, awesome! I can’t get enough of how cute and clever the LEGO movies are, and even though I’m not into the series, after seeing the preview I’m really looking forward to The LEGO NINJAGO Movie as well.

We made a stop at home to feed Wookie and then went to Beef Shack for lunch and then to Fermilab for their open house. However, once we got there and learned it was just science experiments set up for kids in this one building we’ve already visited before, we left. I thought we would be able to see the offices/labs in Wilson Hall so that was disappointing. I think it was a bit misleading to call it a open house vs a special event.

We wrapped up the weekend by watching The Grammys. I don’t know what the deal was with Beyonce but I couldn’t stand her so-called performance. She acts as if she’s the only woman who has ever been pregnant. It just reeked of self importance and it made me look away. I’ve never been a huge fan but she’s really rubbing me the wrong way lately. In contrast, I did like Lady Gaga performing with Metallica even if James’ mic wasn’t working. My favorite performance, however, was the tribute to the Bee Gees. Growing up my parents had a record player and a limited number of albums, one of them being Saturday Night Fever. We listened to it a lot so along with Creedence Clearwater Rival and the Carpenters, so the Bee Gees hold a special place in my heart even though I don’t really listen to their music very often.

Arizona – Friday, November 18

Posted onNovember 19, 2016April 1, 2025

Friday we headed over to Arizona Mills in Tempe so I could check out the Arizona Sea Life Aquarium while Joe met up with a friend for coffee. The aquarium was definitely geared toward kids so despite me doing my best to take my time I was done touring it in 45 minutes. I thought I got some decent photos by messing with the settings on my little point-and-shoot, but most of them still came out crappy. Here’s a couple of the decent ones. Funny that they both happen to be species of fish in Finding Nemo.

I spent the next 45 minutes or so killing time. I went to the food court and posted a bunch of Yelp reviews and then walked around the mall. Joe met up with me when I was looking at a store called At Home which is like Garden Ridge here.

After a quick walk around the mall we went to Corleone’s for Philly cheesesteak sandwiches. They were almost as good as I remember from seven years ago.

Later that evening we met up with M and her family to see the Lights of the World Festival. Trying to find the parking entrance was a nightmare, however. We were driving all over the place able to see the festival in the distance but unable to figure out which actual road would take us there. On top of that, no one seemed to speak English so stopping and asking people who were standing around wasn’t very helpful.

To add insult to injury, once we did find the correct road, we had to pay $10 to park in a completely dark parking lot. Yea, that’s right – they hadn’t turned any of the lights on at a light show. WTF?!!? We were both so pissed. I posted on their Facebook page and they just deleted it so I posted it on my page and tagged them. A few days later their response was “#fixed”. No apology or anything. So despite how cool the light show itself was I would never attend one ran by that company again since they have the worst customer service and planning skills. How no one thought to put up some signs directing traffic to the entrance is beyond me.

Anyway, here’s a few of my favorite displays from the festival.

Arizona – Wednesday, November 16

Posted onNovember 17, 2016April 1, 2025

Wednesday we got up early to heard to Wildlife World Zoo in Litchfield Park, Arizona. The drive is about an hour from Joe’s parents’ but wasn’t too bad thanks to the awesome HOV lanes – we flew past the traffic! I love the expressways in Arizona because they are all in fantastic shape thanks to the lack of snow and ice. Plus they are all absolutely free; no tolls whatsoever. Gotta like that!

We were meeting M, J, and O so we had time to stop at the nearby McDonald’s for a quick breakfast since we were due to arrive at the zoo ahead of them by at least twenty minutes. We arrived at the zoo about fifteen minutes after they opened and they were already there. Doh! Turns out their GPS overestimated how long it would take them to get there.

It was a rare cloudy/overcast day – our first one since arriving – which turned out to be perfect since it got into the mid 80’s throughout the day but without the sun beating down on us it felt very comfortable.

The zoo didn’t seem that large at first glance but it turns out they have a ton of animals. The highlights included the zoo show where they introduced some of the more intelligent animals such as Ollie the Otter and an African Grey Parrot. The baby animal nursery was awesome too – they had a white tiger cub, a leopard cub, and two lion cubs.

Included in the admission price was the chance to feed the lorikeets.

They only allow the feeding at certain times but we were able to attend the first feeding. Before going into the enclosure it was explained to us that the green bucket of apple pieces were to feed the birds and the red bucket was for any pieces eaten or that have fallen to the ground. We were also warned that anything that went into the birds would be coming back out within fifteen minutes and that we’d get a two minute warning so we could clear the enclosure in time. Feeding the birds was fun although a bit stressful when you have three of them digging their claws into your arm while picking apart a quartered apple in the palm of your hand.

I also got some great photos of the resident leopard which was exciting since most of the time they are sleeping.

Oh, and for 50 cents (per handful of food) you can feed the giraffes. You can’t get as close to them as at the Phoenix zoo, however.

I finally got a sharp photo of a meerkat too!

Around 2 pm we were super hungry so we decided to take a break and eat at the on-site restaurant, Dillions KC BBQ. I had the half chicken and Joe had the beef brisket, both of which were good. Their $2 onion rings were awesome as well.

After lunch M and crew decided to leave while Joe and I stuck around to look at the aquarium portion of the zoo which was the only section we hadn’t seen yet. I toured the majority of it alone, however, since Joe had a phone interview (his second of the week; he had one on Monday for a different company while we were at the Botanical Garden).

We left the zoo around 4 pm and made a pit stop at Walmart for a couple of things.

Later that evening everyone met up at Joe’s parents, including M and crew, who bought a Nothing Bundt Cake for Joe’s mom’s birthday. M had asked for lemon but apparently someone screwed up because we ended up with white chocolate raspberry. Luckily it was delicious anyway!

Arizona – Monday, November 14

Posted onNovember 15, 2016April 1, 2025

Monday we were up fairly early, ate some chocolate frosted donuts, and took off for the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. The regular admission price is rather high at $22 per person but thanks to our Morton Arboretum membership we got in for free. It was definitely an interesting place that was laid out nicely so we never really went far out of the way just to get back on track, but it’s a desert so it wasn’t full of flowers like our regular botanic garden either. I appreciated that there were bathrooms in most of the areas which included bottle filling stations so you could remain hydrated. Also, the bathrooms smelled like you just stepped into a Yankee Candle which I thought was a nice touch.

As the morning went on it got warmer out, but what I noticed was that even with it being in the mid 80’s I wasn’t sweating due to the lack of humidity. There was a distinct difference in temperature between the sun and shade as well. I’m sure when it’s 100 degrees the lack of humidity doesn’t help as much, but it was definitely nice in the 80’s.

As we were walking toward a particular section, one of the garden employees let us know that a great horned owl was in a tree nearby. Sure enough there were a bunch of people around the area trying to get a photo of him.

We’ve been trying to spot wild owls near us for years – it figures we’d see one while on vacation.

Once we had seen everything we headed to lunch at McGurkee’s Italian Kitchen.

I was a little thrown by the sesame seeds on the subs but it turns out they really made the taste of the sandwich, along with the fact that the bread was toasted.

Afterwards we drove over to a place called Churn for dessert. Their ice cream was ok, but not really worth the high price ($10 for the two of us).

Weekend Recap

Posted onNovember 7, 2016April 1, 2025

Friday we had our friends over for dinner. I made baked cream cheese spaghetti (accompanied by salad and garlic bread) and brownies for dessert. We didn’t get to play any games even though they were over from 6 pm until 12:30 am. We hadn’t seen them since July so we had a lot to catch up on. They are watching the rats while we’re out of town later this month so we went over the daily routine and gave them keys to the house. I love that we have someone we can trust to not only take care of the boys but also keep an eye on our place. Joe and I are both paranoid over all the things that can go wrong when we’re not home so it gives us peace of mind.

Saturday we slept in and didn’t do much whereas yesterday we headed to the park to shoot some hoops which was a lot of fun, and then walked around a bit. I swear I walked past one of my old friends from college but when I texted our mutual friend she said it wasn’t possible since she lives in California. Her parents live in the same town as the park, though, so I think she’s here visiting. I debated whether to say hi but decided against it since she didn’t seem too interested in the idea of getting together when I proposed it years ago. Ah well, I guess I’ll never know if that really was her unless our mutual friend asks her, but I really think it was.

Today was Milo’s follow up vet visit. His abscess filled up a little again so they had to drain it and he is on more medication for a week so there goes another $110. I also made the appointment to have Gizmo euthanized on Friday. I really hate doing it, but the fact is his mass is growing bigger every day and I don’t want our friends dealing with him declining while we’re several states away. The vet told us two weeks ago he only had a few weeks to a month left so I’ve postponed it as long as I can without risking him suffering or dying without me there. It sucks, though.

On a more positive note, after the vet we visited the arboretum to take in what’s left of the fall colors. I don’t know if it’s just this area or what, but it’s like the leaves change colors and almost immediately fall off the trees so it’s difficult to catch them when they look their prettiest.

I did get some nice shots, however, and the weather was gorgeous. We stopped at Noodles & Company for lunch which we haven’t done in forever. We had a BOGO coupon plus a gift card we had purchased last December so it didn’t cost anything out of pocket. I didn’t finish my noodles either so now I have lunch for work tomorrow.

I listened to a live stream of The Cure in Germany while editing my photos this afternoon which was very relaxing. I wish every day could be like this (minus the vet visit).

Today was probably the last day of warm weather and on top of that it starts getting dark before 5 pm now. If we had the means to live somewhere out west from November through March of every year I would jump at the opportunity.