I’m back in the frigid and snowy midwest after a fun-filled mini vacation to Scottsdale Arizona!

It is freezing here.  Snow.  Ice.  Wind.  Low wind chill.  And it makes me have ice in my veins.  Not good. 

So thankful that I got to enjoy the sunshine and warm weather in the southwest for 3 days.  But I want to go back…and make it soon…please!  I need to defrost myself!

We stayed at a wonderful resort hotel in Paradise Valley.  The Intercontinental Montelucia.  To check out the resorts webpage click here.   It had great Spanish inspired architecture, a top ranked spa and a great pool areas.   The Joya spa also had a fabulous gym and also had gym equipment on the terrace, outside, overlooking the pool!  The spa had it’s own rooftop pool too, very cool.

And there were lemon and orange trees scattered across the property!  They looked so colorful, ripe and delicious I wanted to pick some to eat…but figured I didn’t want to get kicked out of my room either. 

Pools, palms and mountains: You can’t go wrong!

We saw some fabulous sunsets over the Sonoran Desert too.  Unfortunately only one of the nights were we able to capture their beauty in pictures.  This night we were at Troon North Golf  Club and they had a specific area labeled for watching the sunset at.  So that’s where we went!

Our friends Chris and Lisa joined us on our trip out west too.  We had alot of fun together!

Lisa and I did alot of retail therapy shopping while Dustin and Chris played golf at Wildfire and Troon North.

Wow, that’s alot of pictures.  I had to do it the slideshow way since I ran out of time to upload pics any other way.  🙂

And I can’t forget the wonderful meals we had on this trip!

We sat outside at The Sand Bar Mexican grill to enjoy a good meal.  But had to pay for chips and salsa.  What’s that all about?!  But it was a great atmosphere; our surfboard table and stools were in the sand and they had a wading pool for those who needed to cool off.

We ate Mexican food everyday.  Maybe that’s just what you do when you are in the southwest.  Our lunch before going to the airport on the day we left was at Blanco Taco’s and Tequila.  A trendy and hip eating establishment.  We sat outside for this meal too!  And we asked for flour chips and they made some especially for us.  So much better than corn chips!

The best Mexican meal we had was at Jalapeno Inferno.  Once again it was warm enough to sit outside.  Their flour chips were delicious and so was the baked queso dip!  I also had shrimp tacos.  I just think the name of this restaurant is cool.  Plus they were having a 10year birthday celebration and as you can see by the photos, we had a great time spinning the wheel for prizes!

We enjoyed a nice breakfast at The Good Egg too.  We sat outside, again, on their patio and got to choose from the 100 menu items they had!  I ate some hot wheat berry bowl with a side of B&G’s.  Along with the blood orange mimosa and cookie I acquired when browsing a nearby store while I was waiting on my food to be delivered 🙂

Bandera in Old Town Scottsdale exceeded our expectations.  The best skillet cornbread ever!  Similar to this recipe clone linked here.  On their appetizer menu they had deviled eggs.  Who serves deviled eggs anymore?!  So we had to try and they were palate pleasers.  And they served the skinniest french fries ever.  (Even skinnier than GD Ritzy’s, if you remember that chain).  There’s a picture of them above.  Funny thing is our friend used to work at Bandera, 16 years ago and some of the menu items are tried and true and still the same.

And yes my friends there is a restaurant called The White Chocolate Grill.   Nope, it is just not desserts.  It’s a contemporary restaurant serving American food.  We had some wonderful appetizers and main courses here also.  We had to ask the history behind the name of this restaurant and our waitress told us it was just because the owners both love white chocolate.  So yes, every dessert item on the menu had white chocolate in it!

In the mornings my husband would go to the Crave cafe and bring me back a hot white tea and one morning I devoured a cranberry orange scone from there.  They had gelato too, so of course we shared a dish one warm day. 

We had a great time on this trip, exploring, shopping, eating and hanging out. 

Oh, on our drive to the airport, we passed an Open House sign.  So we turned around and decided to take a peak at it.  Needless to say when we pulled in the expansive driveway our mouths dropped open  we didn’t know what we were in for.  It was a 7.8 million dollar compound for sale.   Dream on…but it was sure fun to tour!

This goes without saying, but I am going to say  it anyway…I can’t wait to be somewhere warm again…soon!

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If you were choosing a winter getaway destination, where would you go?