The Southwest Weekend: Casa Grande AZ

William's parents came all the way from Siberia just to celebrate his birthday . . . well, that was a good part of it. I mostly think it was to escape the FRIGID weather they have. So what better place to go than Casa Grande, AZ to get some sunshine and an even better bonus of William's grandparents! His grandparents are true snowbirds- the live in Idaho in the summers and come down to AZ in the winters and they live right next to a golf course. I think it is pretty sweet that they can just park their golf cart in their yard. But, watch out- you can't go too fast in that thing in the retirement community as William's grandmother was pulled over for going over the 10 mph speed limit! William's grandparents were very kind hosts as they housed William's parents and us- and kept us very very well fed!

After a delicious breakfast of cinnamon spice pancakes, homemade syrup, and sausage, we went out to random community college nearby that had a hiking "trail" up this little hill to a cool looking water tower. It turns out that we initially didn't walk far enough to take the real "trail" so we ended up off-roading the first part of it. Needless to say, it was MUCH easier going back down when we found the real gravel trail. The offroading did provide this great photo op-

Here's William at the top of the hill in true "King of the World" fashion

The view from the other side of the hill was beautiful as well- check out that shadow

And here is a cute family photo with the designer water tower in the background. This photo also shows where William gets his sense of humor

And if that shot wasn't proof enough, these definitely will convince you as to their many similarities, as they both like to "model" jewelry.

Ok- a little background to these fabulous photos. Dennis is wearing a few of the MANY pieces in Norrinne's collection including the squash blossom one. William has transformed these magnetic bracelets that Lynne, Norrinne, and I all got at the arts street fair into these unique earrings and doesn't he look so excited he is wearing them

The gentlemen went off and played pool while the ladies did what we do best- SHOPPING. The street fair was fun- it wasn't too big but had just enough to keep us entertained for an hour. Besides the magnetic bracelets, we also got the AMAZING candied nuts. The company is called Nutz About Nuts and they have the BEST cinnamon coated pecans I have EV-ER had! We managed to eat 4 bags of their nuts throughout the long Presidents Day weekend. And I am so happy that they have a website so that I can satisfy my craving for them whenever I want. Here's a shot of the street fair- they had a lot of Native American jewelry, pottery, and other handicrafts.

We then picked up the men and headed out to dinner at Macayo's Mexican restaurant where I got these DELICIOUS shrimp fajitas and we shared sopapillas for dessert. William was so excited because we haven't been able to find them at the Mexican restaurants we have most recently frequented.

Then, after some digestion time, we headed off to the movie theaters to see The Spiderwick Chronicles. The theater itself was clear out in the middle of nowhere in this shopping district that has recently sprung up and it had the most rank smell of all time. I have been on several farms in my life, but this smelled like 4,000 of them combined. Even William's mom who was raised on a farm thought that the smell was unbearable. Fortunately, it didn't smell like that inside or it would have been a LONG movie. We thought it was cool that we were eating popcorn from a Spiderwick Chronicles bag while watching the movie.

Let me tell you that I LOVE William's family- they are definitely my kind of people as they kept us stocked with potato chips (a whole cupboard full since they were only 76cents per bag), these yummy chocolate pecan brownies, our flavored nuts, ice cream with homemade caramel sauce (which you can see us with below). Grandpa and I were the ones who had the most ice cream since it is our favorite

And if all these sweets weren't enough, there was ALSO William's homemade birthday cake. Complete with 30 candles on top- and I'm happy to report that he blew them all out. I always knew he had a lot of "hot air" to him :-) (J/K sweetie). And no, the smoke alarm didn't go off.

Our first two days in Casa Grande literally flew by as we had such a great time talking, laughing, telling stories, looking at old photos, and learning a bit more about William's ancestry from Grandpa and his childhood. But, there is still one more day to report on about our family road trip to Tuscon