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| Lon's at Hermosa Inn for Dinner |
Shawna's mom (Honny) finally decided to come visit us for a long weekend. She had been hesitant for a while as she was concerned about her blood pressure. She arrived on Thursday afternoon with no issues - Shawna met her at the airport and they went to the house to do the tour and get settled. That evening, Shawna cooked lemon chicken with cauliflower. Keith had been out of town so he arrived later that evening as well. Since Honny had been up quite early that day to get to the airport, we all went to bed rather early.
On Friday, we had a leisurely breakfast outside on the patio and then ran a few errands in the morning. We then had lunch at home and went shopping in the afternoon at Talbots where Honny bought several items, including a few things for Shawna. That evening, we met Keith at
Lon's at The Hermosa Inn where we sat outside for dinner. It was a beautiful evening and Honny was ecstatic to see all of the flowers! For dinner, we shared a salad and seared tuna for appetizer and duck breast for an entree. Dinner was delicious!
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| Lon's at Hermosa Inn |
On Saturday, we had breakfast again outside and then spent most of the day doing a home garden tour that was arranged by Phoenix Home and Garden magazine. We went to four different houses and saw a variety of styles of homes and landscaping. During the tour, we were only allowed in the gardens. The first house (up near Carefree) was our favorite as it had mostly cactus/succulent landscaping - it was beautiful! The other homes had more traditional landscaping. In between visiting the houses, we stopped at
La Grande Orange for lunch where we had salads and were finally able to use some of the gift card that Graham had sent to us two years ago! We returned home to relax a bit before heading out that evening for dinner at
Sassi (which sadly is closing in the Summer). We shared the prosciutto and squash blossoms for an appetizer and the veal for an entree. Unfortunately, Honny was not feeling well so we took our entrees home and ate them there. Before bed, we watched a Disney documentary on pandas, monkeys and snow leopards in China.
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| Lon's at Hermosa Inn for Dinner |
On Sunday, we had breakfast again outside (yes, this was a tradition of the weekend) and then went to the
Musical Instrument Museum. We were amazed at how many displays they had from every country - it took us about 3 hours and even then we rushed through several of the displays. It was very interesting but as Keith said, it was also "too much". We had a late lunch back at home and then relaxed that afternoon. For dinner, Shawna made a Moroccan stew with meatballs, chickpeas and spinach served over cous cous and then we watched The Second Best Marigold Hotel - we had both seen it but Honny had not yet seen it (she had seen the first one).
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| Musical Instrument Museum |
On Monday, we had breakfast outside and then went to Dillards to pick up a few things for Honny and to one of the nurseries to see if we could buy a replacement ocotillo. The nursery was very large and catered more to landscapers - the ocotillos did not look any better than the one we had so Shawna decided not to get anything. We stopped at Whole Foods to show Honny what a real gourmet grocery store is like (her options in LA are very limited) and then returned home to have lunch. After lunch, we ventured out again to an upholstery place to try to get estimates to re-upholster our living room furniture and to pick out some fabric samples. However, they were just about to close so she asked that we send in pictures to get the estimate. We returned home and did a little gardening (or rather Honny did the gardening while Shawna watched) and then Shawna cooked a fish curry for dinner.
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| Home Garden Tour |
On Tuesday morning, we got up early and Shawna drove her mom to the airport. After seeing her off safely, she returned home to get back to the grind stone! We had a great time and are already planning on her return visit next Spring!
