Gardening projects
I really lucked into this one! I was sitting in our front room and this roadrunner hopped up on the wall in the back yard. He ran along the top and hung out just long enough for me to grab a picture.
It has been cold, by Tucson standards, and we have not seen a whole lot of critters, so this was a gift!
Have a great week everyone 🙂
We are still getting familiar with all the cool happenings that Tucson has to offer. One that came up on our radar was the Savor Southern Tucson Food and Wine Festival for charity, which was held last Saturday.
We really had no idea what we were getting into, it just looked like a lot of fun, food and a beautiful setting, as it was held at the Tucson Botanical Gardens. We have been to the gardens before and knew it was spectacular.
So we called UBER and set out on a fabulous 77°F day for four hours of indulgence! When the guests first arrived, we were all given complementary wine glasses, always a good sign.
There is no way to cover all that we experienced, so I am going to highlight our favs. The categories are: Bread, Sweets, Savory and Spirits!
Our first winner was Beyond Bread which is pictured above. In addition to showcasing bread letters, which were huge by the way, they sampled their creole shrimp salad and King Cake, in honor of Mardi Gras.
The creole shrimp salad was good, but look at that perfect baguette!
Toward the end of the day, I went back and sampled the King Cake and it was tasty too.
Moving right along, we went into Nothing Bundt Cakes. We may have made a technical error here! While we were tempted, we decided we should eat something closer to a lunch meal before indulging. Turns out we missed some rather impressive flavors, as others told us later.
We did loop back toward the end and we each sampled a different flavor, and wow! Not only are the cakes fantastic, but that butter cream cheese frosting was to die for!! I will have to find this store soon!
True to our first mantra of “eat lunch first” we hit a couple other stands. All the while, remember we are sipping libations! Wine, Moscow mules, margaritas and sangria for me. Any beer, whiskey and red wine for the hubby!
The Omni Chef from The Omni Tucson National Resort was our next stop. The line was longer, which we took to be sign of great things to come. We were right!
Their beef tenderloin with roasted red pepper coulis crostini. I could have had 20 of these!
This is their layered flan, several different layers. I don’t remember all of them but there is one with mint and strawberry and topped with chocolate pearls. I had two of these 🙂
They were delicious but small bites, so we needed to keep going to get our $75 dollars worth! It does get a little murky from here, so I don’t remember all the restaurants as I have now found the sangria stand! But I can tell you that all of this was delicious.
Top left; barbecue goat with spicy red pepper slaw, top right; the best barbecue pork ever! middle right: Frederico, that is what the server called him! Bottom image: a little cannoli that was really good! I say that with surprise because I am not usually a cannoli fan. I think the fact that it was just two bites and not a ton of cream filling was a huge plus for me.
We are now about 2 hours into the event and getting full! We decided to actually look around at the Botanical displays, and chat with people at the event.
A portion of the herb garden
As we were taking in the sights, we stumbled (me, literally) into the Spirits section. My hubby tasted a lot whiskey! And, we both went for the Tequila experience.
3 Amigos Tequila had three offerings complete with pairings! I have no idea which I had, but all three were awesome 🙂
We decided to take a seat and do some people watching while the glow of my tequila experience wore off! Along the way, I found another special dessert.
This was a deconstructed lemon bar. Shortbread crumbs on the bottom, lemon curd filling and lime caviar made through a molecular gastronomy process. The chef showed me how it was done and the equipment used, which was fun for this molecular biologist.
It was gooood, and I wanted another, but he ran out well before the event ended! I am not surprised.
We continued to look for a seat and took a few photos along the way.
Lots of people watching and fun conversations! Everyone was pretty chatty at this point.
Several people we met told us that this is the best food and wine event in Tucson, I think it will be hard to beat. The food, the people and the weather were all perfect!
We were also told it would take 3 to 4 hours to recover from this event. Um, ya, that was about right for me!
Who wants to go with us next year?! 🙂
Good Sunday morning everyone! My blog is also carried on Bloglovin’ where I have a very small following, but a couple bloggers are doing a fun link up in honor of Valentine’s Day so I thought I would share it with you here.
Many of you are extremely creative and I wanted to give you a chance to meet these other crafty, creative and impressive bloggers! I hope you enjoy 🙂
Source: Sunday’s Best Linkup: Love is in the Air – A Mama Tale
Another Monday, another critter! I was lucky enough to catch this desert toad while we were hiking Saturday. Well, I didn’t have to try too hard, he is in a terrarium!
There was a children’s animal program at Catalina State Park, near the trail head. They brought in quite a few critters that are commonly found in the desert here, near Tucson. It was a warm day and the animals were quite active inside their enclosures, but these two toads appeared kinda bored with the whole deal! Check out his fingers!
The feature image is where we ended up at the top of the hike. It’s a beautiful park 🙂
I hope I can find an interesting critter for next week 🙂
So I had to go all the way to Mexico to find a winter critter worthy of Roda’s Challenge! Well, perhaps I am exaggerating just a bit. But this little leaf guy really was quite friendly and hung out at our host home all day.
Enjoy!
It is Christmas Day and Monday, so I needed a special critter for the occasion! My son and I were heading out to go for a hike on Christmas Eve, when a pack (or herd, or squadron) of Javelinas came through our yard.
They had a couple babies in the group and I would have loved to have captured those too, but they are faster than they seem!
Merry Christmas!!
Now that I have returned to Tucson, Arizona I have been able to locate some critters again! The weather in Redmond, Washington is too cold, wet and dark for most animals to be running around but here in Tucson, I am having better luck!
Our son is done with his fall semester and he has not seen our new home here in Tucson yet. So he and I are setting out to do some rock climbing over the Christmas holiday, but our first stop was a quick hike in Sabino Canyon.
We happened across this road runner, who was stalking something and ran out in front of us.
He was moving fast, and this was the best of the two shots I got before he disappeared!
We are heading to Sheepshead to climb Ewphoria and I hope to see some more critters 🙂
I have a spot in my backyard garden where nothing will grow. It’s near the path and the sprinklers just won’t reach it, no matter how I configure the nozzles. I decided to find a Buddha statue to place there but have had little luck finding just the right size and style that I really liked. Then, while my daughter and I were in Leavenworth (where we were supposed to be purchasing Christmas gifts for friends and family) I saw it. Exactly what I had envisioned for the bare patch!
I will be placing it in the garden when the weather warms up, but for now here it is by the fountain. Black & White, or Color? Either way I am happy with it 🙂
Grab your camera or phone and join Linda from Everyone Else has the best titles and Take the “Black and White and Color” photo challenge!
One perfect Fall leaf!
We have had a few dry days here and the fallen leaves are finally drying out. I couldn’t resist documenting this rare occurrence in December in the Pacific Northwest.
Grab your camera or phone and join Linda from Everyone Else has the best titles and Take the “Black and White and Color” photo challenge!
Yesterday my daughter and I went shopping. That, by itself is not so impressive, especially this time of year when everyone is purchasing gifts for the holiday.
What was special about this trip is where we went to spend my money! We headed out to Leavenworth, which is a Bavarian themed town, 2 hours north of our home in Redmond, Washington. It is a special community located in the mountains and they know how to do Christmas right!
The drive took us over the mountain pass into the middle of nowhere, and then all of a sudden this town appears.
It was a clear day, but cold! 34F was the high, and a decent wind was blowing.
The views are spectacular!
The main street, which runs through the middle of the town, is in the Bavarian style and decked out in lights, garlands and holiday colors.
There are shops and plenty of restaurants.
We strolled along the street, stopping every so often to buy a gift or duck into a store to warm up!
We had lunch and lots of coffee on this chilly December day.
We marveled at the gorgeous decorations inside the stores
Finally, it was time to head home. We grabbed one more cup of coffee and climbed into the car for the 2 hour return trip, and this is where the gratitude part comes in!
An hour into the drive we were stopped on the road. We saw flashing lights about 100 yards ahead of us on the only two lane road out of town. No cars were traveling in either direction and we knew something bad had occurred. More cars came behind us as we waited for the accident to clear, but we didn’t move. An hour passed as we thought that we would be moving “any minute now”.
People around us began to leave their cars and walk over to the scene of the accident, and it was getting darker on this mountain road. I checked the map app on my phone and found that the only detour was to return to the town and head over two other mountain ranges to get back home. A detour that would take 3 hours and 20 minutes.
As a group passed our car, I rolled down the window and they told me it would be at least 4 more hours until the investigation was complete. There was a fatality.
A motorcyclist had lost his or her life that day. My daughter and I processed this differently. She was irritated that we did not leave earlier, assuming that we would have been through the area before the crash. I was not so sure.
As we turned around to begin the three hours detour she continued to be irritated at our misfortune. But I was grateful! What if we had left earlier and were in the accident? What if it was my daughter lying under that tarp?
We had just spent a marvelous day together and the worst that happened to us was that it took 5 hours to get home instead of 2.
But we were home, safe and sound. Eventually she came to the same conclusion and we both felt happy and safe at the end of this day, when another family had a horrible tragedy to process.
Our hearts go out to that family this holiday season.
Merry Christmas 🙂
Join the amazing Roda from Growing Self in her Gift of Gratitude series.
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