Scottsdale, AZ - September 15 - 18

I've already talked a tiny bit about my trip to Scottsdale last weekend in my 17 Weeks post, but here are all the details! As is my way, this is long but I didn't want to do 2 posts, so just settle in.

It all begins in 2003 (?I think) in a nasty old house on East Hennepin Ave in Minneapolis. This house was shared by 7 people in the lower half, and 5 in the upper (I think) and for 4 glorious months, I subleased from Kimberly while she was studying abroad in England, before my own stint in London. I like to think it was fate that I ran into Mindy on the Washington Avenue Bridge the spring before and happened to mention to her that I needed a place to live fall semester, or I never might have really known these ladies the way I do now! (Except probably still for Mindy and Chelsea, since we went to high school together). Even though I only spent 4 months there, these girls are some of my best friends! Here are a few pics of us through the years...

This is the only one I have of the group (minus Maria, who must have been out of town) when I actually lived there - this was New Year's Eve. If you look VERY closely, you will notice that my nose is very crooked (broken, in fact, due to be "fixed" in 2 days) and I have some heavy concealer to cover up my black eyes from the broken nose. I am actually surprised at how relatively good I look considering that! (This is one that actually shows the black eye and broken nose much better if you are interested :) Yeah, there was one random guy that lived with us. I don't think I ever talked with him, and no one keeps in touch with him now (other than facebook maybe)

September 2003, our very first girl's weekend trip to Laura's cabin! (I was taking the pic)

This was in January 2004, during a progressive dinner we had as all of us were living in 3 places at that time. Laura was in absentia, but we honored her as you can see.

(There were many things that happened in between these 2 photos - weddings, dinners, trips, etc, but I am too lazy to search my external hard drive for those photos. Going to the basement to scan pics was enough for me for the night!)

And finally, this is us on our last girl's weekend trip, which happened in May 2008... and then we all started popping out kids and that was the end of those trips for awhile :) We went to LA to visit Maria, and this is us at Sunstone Winery in the Santa Ynez Valley (HIGHLY recommended - this was all of our favorite of the day we did wine tasting!)

FINALLY, last spring, we decided to try to plan an actually weekend away. We'd all vaguely discussed going to Vegas for our 30th birthdays - right now is right in the middle of all of them, but since several of us had hopes to be pregnant around the time we'd go, and one would be nursing and need to pump, we nixed that idea. That left us to find a location that was pregnant friendly, and a reasonable flight from LA, Billings, Montana and MSP. I think it was probably me who suggested Arizona, since I figured we could do something spa related there and it would be cheap to fly into Phoenix at that time of year.

Once we settled on Scottsdale, I did a bit of research, found us a nice house to rent, a spa to go to, and gathered recommendations from anyone I knew who had knowledge of the area. Special thanks to Lisa for all her great recommendations! We all booked our flights and I reserved us a minivan that I was told would seat 8 and we waited.

One week before leaving, I got an email at 7pm from the house rental agent telling me there was a "problem with the house and it couldn't be rented" and asked if I'd like a refund or another house. Uh, yeah, we're leaving in a week... what am I going to do with 8 women and no place to stay? Thanks, I'll take the other house. They handled it well, and found us a "comparable house" that was still very nice, albeit WAY farther away from the center of town now that I look at a map. They actually handled it well, but it was not what I wanted to hear a week before leaving! The only other hitch that came about was that apparently Alamo has no minivans that actually seat 8 - they only have the kind with 2 bucket seats. I still hesitate to believe this as most have a little 3rd seat in the middle you can use, but whatever. We had to make do with a huge suburban, as well as an upcharge for the larger vehicle which was annoying. All I have to say is if you have a large group, have someone actually call the rental agency and confirm - I just went on my AAA agent's word and research but should have gotten more confirmation. Oh well.

We got into PHX on time, around 10:30am, and got the rental car and met Maria, who flew in from LAX. Rebekah had drawn up a rough schedule, which I think is pretty key when you are traveling with 8 people, so there wasn't a lot of wondering what we were going to do. We headed to Fashion Square Mall to find lunch and do a little shopping.

We ended up going to Grand Lux Cafe, which felt very similar to Cheesecake Factory. We then opened the menu and discovered that they are owned by them - so that explains that!

My lunch - they had a lot of good lunch options! Of course, I couldn't finish all this...

... but Rebekah and I still split peach cobbler for dessert!

We spent most of our time at Charming Charlie, where I got a wallet and a necklace!

We then stopped at Sprinkles Cupcakes (no matter where I am, I can never resist a cupcake!) to pick up dessert for that night, which we ended up being too full for, sadly.

We then were finally allowed to check into the house (at 4pm) so we headed up there, unpacked, went grocery shopping, and got pizza for dinner after trying to find a local place that actually delivered. I don't even remember what we ended up with, it was fine but nothing amazing. A low key rest of the day (which is the theme for the weekend for sure :) We were all up and at 'em by 7am the next day, after complaining about having to leave by 8:15 to go to the spa. Uh, guess that wasn't an issue for us!

We then went to the spa, aka HEAVEN! Camille dropped us off (the spa isn't her thing) and headed to a casino to spend the day there :) Rebekah, Kimberly, Laura and I had all gotten the "Desert Nectar Honey Wrap" for our service, and Rebekah and I were first at 9am. We got there just in time so were ushered in quickly. I've never done a body wrap, what this one entailed was stripping down, laying on a bed that is covered in a thick plastic sheet, getting smeared with an oatmeal mixture all over, then getting wrapped up in the plastic and towels while a conditioning treatment is applied to your hair. You then lay there while they elevate your legs (very nice!) for about 10 minutes for it to soak in. There is a shower in the room, so after you are unwrapped, you shower all the oatmeal mixture off, then lay back down and get a nectar moisturizing lotion applied all over, wrapped up again, and then get a facial. It really was heavenly. There was kind of a little massage, and basically a full facial, so it felt like a lot of bang for the buck! They offered us some kind of heat wrap upgrade but you couldn't do that when pregnant, so Rebekah and I had to pass. You also were supposed to end in the sauna, but again that's a pregnancy no-no, so we decided to sit out in the women's "solarium" (aka cabanas outside) for about a half hour eating the complimentary apples and drinking lemon water while we soaked in our hydration :)

I was a bit confused when I was booking the spa, because it said you could use the spa all day with the purchase of a one hour service, but then they also offered cabana rental. I thought that meant the chairs by the pool, but was pleasantly surprised to find out that it actually just meant full cabanas that were set back (you can kind of see them in the pic above) but the chairs by the pool were open to anyone. Totally awesome that you can hang out here really all day along with your service!

Had to get in every so often to cool off! It was about 96 (cool for them) when we were there.

We then ordered some drinks and an appetizer from Sprouts, the restaurant at the spa - very refreshing and it was really nice to not have heavy food after feeling so full the day before!

We hung by the pool for quite awhile - loved those chairs... I could lounge there for a week!

Mindy really just loved the cacti :)

Then we had lunch in our robes :) Ha!

Loved my meal! It was a special, chicken cranberry panini

We then enjoyed some of the amenities inside - I took an illicit (due to pregnancy) dip in the hot tub, but only stayed a few minutes. They also had a steam room and a sauna, but I did avoid those. Took a LONG shower, cut myself a few times with the provided razor, and then got ready to go!

While we were outside again for my belly pic, had to take some more of Mindy and the cacti!

Bellies! Yeah, Rebekah is 3 weeks AHEAD of me but my belly is like 6x bigger :) I hope she enjoyed being taller than me for once!

Grabbed one group photo since Camille was back to pick us up after her time at the casino :)

We then went home, had our cupcakes, napped, lounged by the pool, some watched movies, etc - then got ready to go out for dinner at Olive & Ivy.

LOVED my cupcake (I got lemon and also tried black & white and something else I can't remember) but I think they definitely would have been better the same day. Oh well!

Testing the light before our real group shot :)

I only had my iPhone at dinner, but most of us really loved this restaurant! Don't expect to be able to have much of a conversation, because it is loud, but has a fun vibe and the food was delicious. I was again pissed because I always get full so fast and the food was so tasty!

The next day was really low key - just lounged by the pool all morning... went into town for lunch and made dinner at home! Very relaxing.

Did a timer shot so I could get in on the pic :) in my glasses even!

Out to lunch at sand-wich-club, not very good (although my rueben was pretty tasty) and the workers kept kind of harassing us about not eating our full meal and asked if things were ok like 30 times which got really old.

It's the 3 pregnants! :) Even in "order" (Laura is 14 weeks, I'm 17 and Rebekah is 20)

Old Town Scottsdale - lots of art galleries and shops... not exactly my thing, but fun to walk around!

Me alone, since I wasn't in the last shot :)

We then went to Sugar Bowl ice cream, which I thought was really fun - the ice cream was good but nothing outstanding but the ambiance was really cute and they had tons of fun things on the menu!

Staging of a good facebook pic :)

Our super glam dinner at home, complete with Funyons in the background :)

Our final morning, we just lounged by the pool, packed up and got the house ready for checking out, went to brunch at The Good Egg (which I really liked), and then headed to the airport with tons of time to spare. All in all, an awesome trip - I hope we can make another one happen in a few years!!