November 21, 2016 - Butterfly Wonderland

Elisa's Daily Scoop

*ELISA IS ON A BRIEF HIATUS AND WILL RETURN SOON.

Tanya's Daily Scoop
NEXT TRIP DEPARTS IN: 46 DAYS

A Scottsdale Recap

Well helloooooo there!

Happy Monday to ya. Happy Thanksgiving week to ya!

Are you ready for the big day? 

Will you be hosting the holiday and doing lots of cooking?
Or perhaps you're having a potluck?
Maybe you decided to make reservations somewhere and let a restaurant do all of the cooking...and the clean up!
Maybe you will be bopping around and doing lots of eating and visiting on Thanksgiving?
Or are you protesting the holiday altogether and going to someplace like the evil empire of McD's?

As for me, my life will pretty much be all about Thanksgiving from now until all of the left-overs have been eaten! 
Quite honestly we'll have a HUGE Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, and then realize that we've barely made a dent in all of the oh-so-many dishes that I'll be preparing and then we'll have a second Thanksgiving meal on Friday (heck at least I don't have to cook on Friday!)
By Saturday we'll still have lots of food to munch on, but some of the favorites will have vanished into all of the bellies that I'll be feeding.

So can you guess what I have to do now...finally make my shopping list and hit some stores. I was hoping to get all of the shopping done today - but considering that we just got back home around midnight last night and I've yet to compose of the oh so long list - I figured that so what if I need to continue the shopping tomorrow. I'm not gonna stress about it...
Unless of course I'm not ready to prep and start cooking come Wednesday. There is just waaaaaaaaaay to much work in the kitchen for me to tackle in just one day. Cross your fingers for me!

Now how about a bit of Scottsdale SCOOP??
We started yesterday out by going to have a loving brunch at Green New American Vegetarian. Then once we were on our way to
Butterfly Wonderland I found myself yawning like crazy. Sure it was a busy and active week, but I got enough sleep the night before and yet my eyes were feeling' kinda heavy. What gave?! ​

Upon our arrival we had watched a 3D movie and then saw the Chrysalis before entering the pavilion.

Once we stepped inside indoor rainforest conservatory we stood there in awe - this pavilion happens to be the Largest Butterfly Pavilion Conservatory in the United States.
Where more than 3,000 butterflies from around the world flutter among the lush tropical plants and flowers. And boy were they happy and active little butterflies just about everywhere you looked.

I've never seen so many butterflies fluttering about in my life!

Cosette stood there next to me and was way beyond impressed (that's saying a lot for a teenager).     She took back anything she might have negatively said about this place and she raved and raved  about how stunned she was and how absolutely amazing and wonderful it was!

She really really loved it and had never seen anything like it.
We wandered about the pavillion round and round, over and over again, because we just couldn't get enough.

We've been to other butterfly pavilions and as fun and lovely as they were, just know that this place really takes their butterflies serious and although we just left from there - we would totally go right back again!
After Butterfly Wonderland, we headed on over to Old Town Scottsdale - which definitely had quite the cowboy flair!

 Afterwhich, I figured that we could all use a break before the long drive that was ahead of us and so we went back to our hotel for a recharge. Good thing I opted to book the room for an additional night so that we'd have a "home base" on Sunday. After our recharge, we checked out and I was full of energy once again.

Oh and speaking of going back, before taking the drive back home we picked up a very unique burritos for dinner at Cafe Sunbar (a loud and very busy bar down the street from ASU). By unique I'm talking we got Chinese Take Out Burritos - weird right???
Well let me tell you just how ridiculously good it was! Holy crap we enjoyed it so much and can't wait to head back to Phoenix to be able to go order these Burritos again! We also made stops for coffee drinks and then back to Nami to get yet another Tsoynami - darn these are good.

In all seriousness if I come to Sky Harbor on a layover - I'm leaving the airport and going for a Chinese Take Out Burrito and a Tsoynami!

​Well, it's time for me to get serious and get the shopping show on the road. Plus since it's Monday the kids have choir later tonight. It'll be a busy few days - but I'll stop by and see ya tomorrow.

Ciao 4 Now,
​-T