Thankful for a Weeklong Thanksgiving Vacation

This year for Thanksgiving weekend, I decided to take a whole week off and make a 9-day vacation out of it. :D Mike was here for the same amount of time, so we usually coordinate being in town at the same time. Here's a wrap-up of all the crazy crap I did last week.

Saturday: The vacation began with an awesome trip to Pamela's cabin near Payson: Forrest Lakes to be exact. We had a huge group at the cabin that included myself, Mike, Matt, Pamela, Kim, Claudia, Jonny, Jody, Alex, Doug, Cristina, Shannon, and Tom.We enjoyed plenty of good eats, smores, catch phrase, and did some hide-and-go-seek in the woods - a painful task for me since I was the seeker and had zero finds. :( Do you know how hard it is to find people in the woods when it's dark and all you have is the light from your iPhone?

This would also mark the beginning of my "bros icing bros" craze. The game is simple and you can refer to one of my earlier blogs where it first happened to me, but I'll restate it here: if someone stumbles upon a Smirnoff Ice, they have to get on one knee and chug it on the spot. The only protection is if you have a Smirnoff Ice on you, in which case you counter them and the person who attempted the ice has to do the chugging. :) Unfortunately/fortunately depending on how you look at it, girls are exempt from the game.

I iced Matt, Jonny, and Doug, but unfortunately the best ice of the night was Mike icing me. :( Just before I was about to hit the hay, I took my sleeping bag to the area of the floor I wanted to crash and out rolls a Smirnoff Ice. BOOOOO! I take it like a man even though I'm ready to go to bed soon. However, the best part is next: I go to my sleeping bag and start unrolling it and out plunks ANOTHER Ice! FML! Mike had somehow managed to sneak in another one while I wasn't looking. I really struggled to finish the 2nd one back-to-back since I was already hammered, but Mike was nice enough to help me finish half of it...probably 'cause he felt sorry for my drunk ass. Ugh, but I tip my hat to Mike, that might go down as one of the greatest icings ever.

Sunday: It snowed on Sunday at Pamela's cabin and so the bunch of us played in the snow that morning. Most of the fun came on a trampoline covered in snow that Jonny had found earlier that morning. I will say that this was the first time I've ever had to drive Lexi in the snow, but she handled it really well. Before this, it had really been a long time since I've seen snow like this...it was very nice and refreshing.

After the cabin trip, Mike and I somehow had enough energy to meet up with Nate at Yardhouse in Desert Ridge to watch the Eagles-Giants game. I was pleased to see Vick have another strong performance for my fantasy team. :)

Monday: Mike and I met up with Kyle K this night at Goldie's to play some Golden Tee and Buck Hunter. Mike also thought it'd be a bright idea to order a plate of the "Extra Hot" wings here, something we tried the last time he was in town. Their wings are made with habanero peppers and it definitely has a kick that not everyone can handle. We each ate 4 without much problem, although I always eat the them fastest but I might be able to handle them the best. :) Today was a pretty chill night, which was good considering how much else would transpire the rest of the week.

Tuesday: Tuesday was Kevin's birthday, so Mike and I took him out for lunch at the Tilted Kilt on Bell & Scottsdale Rd. I've never been but man, I am definitely gonna go back. Not only for the very good-looking girls in their cute Scottish kilts, but they have a great venue complete with pool, shufflepuck, and yes, Buck Hunter! The only downside is that it's not as close to home, but when you live where Mike and I do, everything's far.

We also made a casino run this day. I had told Mike about the $1 Video Craps game at the Talking Stick casino along the 101, so we decided to check it out. Mike was making a killing with his field bets and eventually was up $60, but that quickly went away after a couple $25 field bets that didn't hit, lol. I didn't have any luck on this game playing my normal style (2x odds on the pass line with 6 and 8 place bets) and ended losing $25 to the machine. But the good news is that we played some Blackjack afterwards and I ended up winning $60 there before heading home. :D

Wednesday: Mike, Nate, Kyle K, and I had lunch at Big Daddy's BBQ on Shea. After having hot-hot wings on Monday at Goldie's, Kyle suggested that we try the "Smokin' HOT Habanero Wings" at this place. I'll rate them as about as hot as the one's at Goldie's, give or take a few thousand scovilles, although the smoky flavor was a really nice taste. Mike had 3, Kyle had 4, and yours truly took 5. Definitely recommend the mac 'n cheese here by the way; it's good.

Later that night, I met up with Chris and iced him in the car when I picked him up, lol. Then we met up with Kyle E, Brian, and Kelly at Applebee's. Back in high school, our group would always hit up the Bees for late night happy hour. No big stories here, but I did ice Kyle before he went home by leaving a Smirnoff Ice on his windshield, haha! He didn't chug it there because he had to drive home, but he promised he'd take it like a man on Friday night at his place when I'd see him next.

Thursday: On Thanksgiving morning, I got up at 8am to play football in our annual Turkey Bowl. There are about 14-18 of us from high school and it's been a 12-year tradition to play football on this day before all the Thanksgiving festivities. I was held to 0 touchdowns on the day, but that doesn't say much seeing how our team took a bad 3-8 pounding. UGH.

I made it home by noon to have "turkey dinner" with the folks and my sister's family. The turkey, mashed potatoes, deviled eggs, and mushrooms are some of my favorites in this meal. But I would have to save some stomach because I also had dinner later that night with Mike and his family - turkey dinner #2 - where we had more turkey, more mashed potatoes, and stuffing.

Greatly stuffed with so much Thanksgiving food, Mike, Chris, Nate, Elizabeth, and I went over to Kyle K's house for desserts, another annual tradition we have on Thanksgiving day. It was a pretty chill night and we mostly just hung out in the gazebo next to the fire and reminisced about stories from high school and college, bachelor parties, etc, basically all our memories. Oh, and I found a way to sneak in some icing as well...yeah, finally got Mike back for his ices at the cabin. ;) Unfortunately, I didn't protect myself from getting iced when I could've easily just taken an extra ice with me, but oh well, just gotta step up my game next time.

Friday: On Friday night, Kyle E had people over to watch the UA-Oregon game and essentially watch our team get their asses handed to them in the second half. He and Jamie also arranged a Thanksgiving dinner do-over, which would be turkey dinner #3 for me on the weekend so far. I enjoyed watching Kyle chug his ice that he was supposed to have on Wednesday and I got Puza in the meantime as well. :) It was also nice to see Brian and Kelly one more time before they took off.

Around 11pm, I was ready to just call it a night, but Terry called me up and asked if I wanted to clubbing in Old Town Scottsdale. Terry's from Tucson and we had always talked about going clubbing in Phoenix, so seeing how this might be the one opportunity we'd get for a while, I figured I'd Make It Happen some more, so I met up with Terry to hit up Martini Ranch and Axis-Radius. Oh, and I'll mention that he brought me a plate of turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing from his home, lol; turkey dinner #4.

Saturday: Woke up and had lunch at home with the family and afterwards my sister and my brother-in-law played a round of Settlers: Cities and Knights. It was a dominating performance on my end mostly do to the lack of 8s rolled and my opponents were relying heavily on that number. In the late afternoon, I met up with Sam and we hit up the Cajun Seafood Corner in Tempe - fried alligator, fried okra, and fried quail was on our menu (try the alligator if you go there, it was the best of all 3!). Instead of trekking back home after happy hour, I made my way to Goldie's to meet up with Kyle K, Brad, Chris, Mike, and Nate for more happy hour, the UA-Kansas game, Buck Hunter, pool, and shufflepuck. Oh, and my drunk ass decided it would be fun to do ANOTHER order of their "Extra Hot" wings. Unfortunately, my friends were all "hot-winged out" from earlier in the week (can't blame them), so I ended up pounding down 9 of those f*ckers, lolololol! We also saw there a girl we knew from high school and eventually I said hi to Cilla and all of us spent some time catching up. It was a good end to what would be Mike and Chris's last night in Scottsdale.

Sunday: Today was fairly chill. I just went to dim sum with the parents and my sister's family, followed by watching the Eagles get worked by the Bears (booooo!), watching the Chargers run the Colts out of their own building, and eventually making a run to Senor Taco late at night to snack on when I got back to Tucson around 1am. :P

All-in-all, it was a great vacation and I just can't believe how much I was able to get in (and how I drank basically everyday from Saturday to Saturday...eek!!!). Anyway, be back to Scottsdale in a few weeks for Christmas and New Year's!!!

Veteran's Day Adventures!

I've never had a reason to really celebrate Veteran's Day in the past, but for some reason this year there was quite a bit going on. On the Wednesday before the holiday, a somewhat random group of us went camping on Mt. Lemmon. It's random because we were hanging out at the Hut on Sunday night for Day of the Dead and decided it'd be fun to have a camping trip later that week. So Jonny, Jen, Deanna, Vanessa, Carla, Eli, Matt, and myself (some of us who had just met on that Sunday) all made the trek up to Mt. Lemmon and camped overnight. I had never been to Mt. Lemmon before despite having lived in Tucson for almost 10 years, so this wasn't a trip I wanted to pass on. Unfortuntaely when we got there, it took forever to find a campground because it was so crowded due to the holiday. We literally drove up and down the mountain for 2 hours looking for a spot before we settled on a campground in Molino Basin, which was fine with me since it was dark and it wasn't like I could really tell what my surroundings looked like anyway. :) It was your typical camping trip: drinking, bonfire with smores, grilled dogs, and a fun group of random people. I also like the "Tent Projects" we set up for overnight where we passed out in around 3 in the morning.
On Veteran's Day, I woke up at 7:30am (I know I know, how's that even possible for me) to get ready for a road trip to Bisbee with Brooke and Courtney. Our trip started around 10 in the morning and we decided to take the route through Tombstone on our way to Bisbee. I'd never been to either city and among good company this was a real fun day!

There's not a whole lot to do in Tombstone, but it seemed like there was plenty to look at the few hours we were there. We stumbled upon the part of the city that has a bunch of museums, shops, and saloons. The girls were quite funny, running around all day like kids in an amusement park and at other times wreaking some havoc as well. ;) It was hilarious when the clerk at the Shady Lady told Courtney "don't bother on coming back." LOL!

Our ultimate destination was the city of Bisbee. I didn't really know what to expect of this place, but it's actually a pretty cool town! As you can see in the picture below, all the homes rest all over the mountains and that with the lush, green environment really give it some kind of old-European-town type of feeling.Bisbee only has a couple main streets where all the restaurants, bars, and stores reside. The rest is just enjoying the atmosphere and the small-town vibe this city emanates. :) I hear the city of Bisbee throws some bitchin' New Years and Halloween parties and I could definitely imagine them packing the few streets they have in town. A quiet little town that is just beautiful to look at. I'm really happy Brooke and Courtney invited me on their adventure!

I also don't know how I survived the rest of the night. After only getting 4 hours of sleep in a cold tent the night before and adventuring all day long, we still managed to hit up the bars on 4th when we got back to Tucson, hahaha. Great times with great people and loving every minute!!!

Indian Food: A Coworkers Treat

On occasion, my coworkers and I will bring in for lunch homemade leftovers for each other. One of my coworkers, Kaisar, is indian and him and his wife make the greatest meals. Well, not that the dishes from other teammates are any bit subpar, I just happened to have his most recently. The picture to the top left is some lamb curry that Kaisar brought for me and it was DELICIOUS! I am convinced that any food prepared correctly can be scrumptious - even eggplant. Yes, eggplant. That gross purple vegetable that nobody likes. ;) Well Kaisar gave me an eggplant that was cooked in lentil juices (I assume, I'm not actually sure and I'm probably way off here) and it was excellent! It's not shown above 'cause I ate it already. Haha.

The picture to the bottom right is another meal that Kaisar brought for me but that time it was fishhead curry. OMG, so freakin' tasty and although I know that Americanos will think that anything out of the ordinary is gross, like heads, stomachs, intestines, livers, etc. All I can tell you is that you're missing out. Like I said, anything prepared well can be good (although fishhead is good in any form) and everything in the world is worth trying at least once in my opinion. If I were to ever lose my sense of taste I don't know if there'd even be a point to living anymore. Anyway, thanks Kaisar and thanks to his wife as well. I swear, I'd marry that woman for her cooking alone! :D