40th Birthday Trip - Sedona, AZ

 Nate and I got away to Sedona for a weekend to celebrate my birthday! We flew out of Chicago at 5 am and arrived in Arizona around 6:30 am local time! We got our rental car and began the 2 hour drive to Sedona, stopping just outside of Phoenix for breakfast and coffee!

First stop when reaching Sedona was hiking the Fay Canyon Trail! It was an easy main path with a rocky scramble up beyond the end of trail sign and again on a side trail up to the arch!

We got smoothies and acai bowls at Local Juicery and then headed over to see the Chapel of the Holy Cross.

We got mid afternoon coffees and checked into our hotel (we had amazing views from our porch and living room window). We grabbed pizza and salad at the cutest Italian restaurant, Vespa before heading over to Airport Mesa to watch the sunset. We had a late dinner afterward at Elote Cafe!

We were up bright and early the next morning and hiked the Devils Bridge Trail which was about 4.5 miles round trip!

We had a big breakfast at the Coffee Pot (I loved that mug so much I bought one to bring home) and then headed to uptown Sedona for the Broken Arrow Pink Jeep Tour. The views were incredible and the tour finale was a nearly vertical descent down a natural rock staircase! 

Afterward we grabbed an early dinner at Creekside American Bistro and then set out for an evening hike along the Long Canyon Trail to the Birthing Cave! We ended up meeting some people at the cave (who took this awesome picture of us) and ended up staying there almost until sunset!

We had a gorgeous view of the sun starting to set over the rocks on our walk back to the car and enjoyed the rest of the sunset while eating ice cream!  

We woke up super early the next morning to hike Cathedral Rock at sunrise! This was by far my favorite part of the trip! The hike was challenging and the views were gorgeous!

We squeezed in one more quick hike up Bell Rock before checking out of the hotel and heading back to Phoenix! We made a quick lunch stop at In-N-Out Burger on the way! 40 is off to a great start! :)

Starting Summer

Jade kicked off summer with her 8th Grade class trip to Washington D.C. We dropped her off at the school at 3:45 am on a Thursday and picked her up at 11:00 pm on Sunday! They crammed so much in and she had a blast! No parent chaperones, only teachers got to go with.

While Jade was gone, I took Jemma and her bestie Liesl to the SlooMoo Institute in Chicago! They had so much fun playing with slimes of all textures and scents and even got to make their own slimes at the end!

Mom and Aunt Mar treated me (and Jemma) to lunch at Cooper's Hawk for my birthday! It was so good!

The day after Jade got back from D.C. was my 40th birthday! She spent most of the day recovering while Jemma and I cashed in on several of my birthday freebies! For dinner I picked a new Mexican restaurant to try and it was so good! We rounded out the day with cookie cake and ice cream! Nate and I celebrated my birthday with a weekend getaway to Sedona (separate post coming on that).

Katie and Lauren treated me to a day in Lake Geneva! We made our own candles at the Candle Mercantile and then had a waterfront dinner at Pier 290 in Williams Bay.

We had our annual strawberry picking day at Heider's Berry Farm with Grammy! This year we picked some raspberries, too!

Nate and I went to our second Morgan Wallen concert of the year, this time at Soldier Field in Chicago with friends! We got to see Ella Langley as the opener this time, which I loved!

We celebrated Nate and Grampy with a Father's Day lunch at Station One Smokehouse in Plainfield! SO good!

Jemma and I went on a hunt for all the painted dogs in downtown Naperville! We found all except for one, which we later learned was inside a store.

We saw Toy Story 5 and successfully completed our quest to finish a large popcorn so we could get a refill. :)