Pining for the Fjords

Need to read the first part of the story?  Click here . When last we blogged (we’re all in this together, after all), while our morning started out on a somewhat disappointing note, we ended on a great one with Mom, Sara, and Megan at the Wickenburg Christmas parade.  Although the temps had been pretty mild over the past few weeks, on Friday, some clouds blew in and things dropped by a good ten degrees.  Since Mom decided to visit, we had been planning to head to Flagstaff for real winter, but it seemed it was going to be a bit more legitimate than we realized. We slept in on Saturday morning (12/12) and bummed around the house for a little while, finally setting out on the road around 1:30.  We stopped for pie in Rock Springs, which was somewhat of a letdown; while their pie was good (we’ve had it before, mainly in “to go” form), our service was really awful, and I don’t know that we’ll bother to stop again.  At least we got to meet this cool dude in the parking lot:

Recently, Chris and I were lucky enough to host a visit from my Mom, Gwen, in the weeks leading up to Christmas.  A few years back when Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, she started making a “bucket list,” and one of the items that’s always been on the list was a hot air balloon ride.  Since we have several companies in the Valley offering them (and there’s always a Groupon or two for a ride), we figured her first morning with us on this trip was a perfect time to take her.  We decided to keep the ride a surprise, and we didn’t tell her until we picked her up from the airport on Thursday evening and were having a late evening snack at Pita Jungle.  Although the thought of waking up around 5am on a vacation day wasn’t thrilling, we were all excited for what the next morning would hold. We started out the day (Friday, 12/11) with a quick run through Starbucks, as caffeine was desperately needed.  We also grabbed a snack; while the balloon adventure was to end with breakfast, it

Okay, technically, Peoria Artisan isn’t a new brewery per se, as they’ve been open out in Litchfield Park for a few years now.  However, they just opened their North Peoria location a few weeks ago, which happens to be about 4 miles from our house!  Score! The growler centerpiece on our table On Wednesday, the night before Thanksgiving, we headed to the new location and met our friends Matt and Kristie as well as their daughter Kailyn.  Since we’re old people and are hungry all the time, we met them there at 4, so we had our pick of seating options.  The weather was pretty lovely, so we picked the outdoor patio, although the inside seating also looked great.  This location had a wide variety of beer on tap – around 20 handles or so, which is pretty impressive.  However, most of those were not Peoria’s creations; 5-6 of the options were their own and the rest were made up mainly of other Arizona breweries.  I suppose if you can’t fill up a tap list, it’s best to source