Tracy's Birthday Celebration in Arizona {March 25 – 28}

Just a little recap of the background of this weekend.  In early January Stephanie reached out to a few of us Auburn ladies about needing to talk to us about “top secret stuff” – we set up a zoom call and she informed us that our friend’s husband wanted to fly all of us down to Arizona to surprise Tracy for her 50th birthday.  He was insistent that he cover all the expenses and told us he would organize some fun activities for us to do while we were there.  How could any of us say no?  We were all so excited for the weekend and really hoped that it would stay a surprise and Tracy wouldn’t get suspicious.  Over the last few months we planned a few additional surprises for her.  Tracy did reach out to us during that time and ask if we could plan a girls trip but we blew it off and suggested we wait until covid calmed down more.

 

Thursday [3/25]:  I was so excited that I woke up at 5:30am and struggled to get much sleep after that so I got up and got ready and was completely packed and ready to go well over an hour before I needed to. I was so excited that I went to the airport early and hung out in the lounge snacking and relaxing before heading over to my gate to meet up with the other ladies on my flight. There were four of us on the same flight. Tara, Camille, Nannette, and myself. We sat 3–1 and visited quite a bit of the flight. Because Nannette was across the aisle from us we had to talk a little louder to hear each other and we got shushed by a lady sitting in front of us – wearing masks the entire time didn’t help with our volume I’m sure. The Biddulph’s ministering brother picked us up from the airport and chatted with us the entire 45 minute drive to the clubhouse where we were meeting everyone at. He sure does adore the Biddulph’s and was so happy to be a part of the surprise. The four of us were well over an hour early and entertained ourselves by putting together a Scrabble board in our reserved room. We were so proud that we were able to use all the pieces making words about Tracy… until we realized that two of the letters were mistakenly left off of the word “incredible” so we had to reconfigure that entire portion of the board to make up for our mistake. It was actually quite fun and made the time fly by. 

Oops, missing the last two letters of "incredible"

The rest of the ladies met up with us as it got closer to reveal time and brought some decorations which we set up. We decided to surprise Tracy by doing the can-can on the stage that faced the windows she would have to walk by to get to the private room. Her reaction was absolutely priceless! We weren’t sure if she knew anything about us coming to town.  When we saw the shock in her face we knew that she was completely surprised.  It was the best!

Of course she was incredibly thrilled that we were all there and surprised about all the coordination it took to keep this a secret. Her husband Brian sure did go above and beyond putting this weekend together. We enjoyed a great dinner at the club and some yummy strawberry cake Brian had arranged to have made.  

We compiled 50 things/memories we love about Tracy and read those to her after dinner.  I couldn’t tap into any memories or fun stories (darn that memory) but it was easy to think of traits and characteristics I love about Tracy.  We stayed up until around 2am chatting and laughing back at her house.  

Fun to see all of our suitcases lined up by the front door when we arrived at the house.

One of the surprises we planned was matching pajamas for the weekend. Nannette picked them out and they were cute in theory, but they were much thinner and revealing than I would have preferred. It was so funny to see everyone walking around in our “blue smurf“ pajamas. 

Friday [3/26]:  We surprised Tracy this morning with some fun party tees – “50 and Fabulous” for Tracy and “50 Party Crew” for the rest of us.

We were up fairly early this morning so that we could fit in a nice breakfast at Hash Kitchen in Scottsdale before our electric bike tour. There was some talk about sleeping in and doing a much simpler breakfast but I am so glad we didn’t. Everything on the menu was amazing and I would go back in a heartbeat. It did make us slightly late for our tour but JR, our tour guide was very understanding. 

The electric bike tour was a blast. As much as I like biking on regular bikes, electric bikes sure are a lot more relaxing! We rode for two hours along the Scottsdale canal. It was pretty in a desert kind of way and we even spotted a coyote and some prairie dogs. On several occasions our guide would announce that it was Tracy‘s birthday and the pedestrians so were so nice to give her congratulations and birthday wishes which made her feel so special.  We got rained on at the very end but otherwise it was quite nice.

After the bike tour we were supposed to go on a food tour that Brian had put together. But after our big breakfast people weren’t that hungry so we only made it to a few of the spots. Our first was to a Barrio Queen, a Mexican restaurant where we ordered some of their famous guacamole, which to my surprise had pomegranates in it which was surprisingly delicious. We also ordered some queso and drinks. We stayed for well over two hours. 

After appetizers we headed across the street to the Culinary Dropoff. We visited a different location of this restaurant three years ago when Justin and I were in town and met up with Brian and Tracy. It has a very fun vibe with fire pits for your group and ping-pong tables and corn hole for guests to enjoy. 

We ended up playing a super fun game of around the world ping-pong. So hilarious to have our group of middle-age women running around acting like teenage girls. We had our meal here  - I ordered pretzel bites. Nobody was hungry after which was a little disappointing because I always have room for dessert and can put down more food than most women as it turns out. 

We headed back to the house and presented Tracy with our gifts that we had brought and watched a slide show of all the photos we could round up from the years past. The gifts were supposed to be along the theme of aging however only myself and Nannette followed that. It was still fun to see what everybody brought and to have Tracy try to guess who’s gift was who’s. She did a terrible job at guessing but to her credit the gifts really weren’t representative of anyone’s personality per se. 

Tammy was feeling sick from all the food we’d eaten so she headed to bed early and the rest of us headed to our rooms around 11pm since we’d stayed up so late the night before. Tara and I ended up chatting until around 2:30am. She was my roommate back in Catalina in 2016 and I remember we had a similar late night / early morning chat session then as well. After we finally cut off the chitchat it still took me a long time to fall asleep so I was awake until after 3am.

 

Saturday [3/27]:  We woke up early again this morning so that we could go on a hike. Tammy decided to stay back since she still wasn’t feeling well. We decided to do a moderate 3 mile hike called wave cave. The drive out there is a long windy dirt road and several of the ladies get carsick. Today was Stephanie‘s turn to feel queasy. She made it until we parked at the trail head and then immediately got out of the car and tried to rebalance herself. The next thing we knew she was flat on her stomach, unconscious on the dusty ground. We ran over and rolled her over and I will never forget the look of her unconscious eyes. Thankfully she came to pretty quickly and after she threw up and drank some water she felt much better. Definitely quite the scare for all of us! She wanted to proceed with the hike so we did so at a very slow pace. 

About a mile in Nannette started to feel sick and have issues with her vertigo and overheating so she stopped, took off her shoes and said she wasn’t going any further. Stephanie decided to wait with her while the rest of us continued to the top. From that point on it’s a very steep uphill climb and very loose rock so we saw several people slip and fall including some of our own.  Thankfully nobody in our group got hurt but we did see one lady sprain her ankle so bad that she was going to crab crawl all the way back down the trail. The effort was worth it and offered very unique viewpoint. 

Wave Cave

The five that made it to the top!

We headed back to the house to change into our swimsuits to head to the club and enjoy some sunshine poolside. It only reached the low 70s today so not quite warm enough for me to get in but the sun felt fantastic and it was so fun to be there with the ladies. 

Apparently we need to take a selfie at every location ;)

Tracy is a member of the club so we were able to order lunch there at half off. When everyone had had their fill of the sun we went back to the house and cleaned up for dinner. Selecting a place for dinner was quite the process considering it was a busy Saturday night. Brian went out and got us on the waitlist for the Mexican restaurant that we enjoyed yesterday for appetizers. We ended up backing out though and heading to Joe’s Farm and Grill which was where we went to breakfast for Carly’s birthday. It was just as mediocre tonight as it was back then. We had a fun time though eating at the picnic tables outside and chatting.

Sunday [3/28]:  We all had very early morning flights this morning so we had to be out the door by 6am. Stephanie left even earlier than that. 

Tammy’s gate to Austin was right next to our Seattle flight

We were flying Southwest and didn’t check in online right when it was released yesterday so we ended up in boarding class C which meant we were one of the last people to board the plane. By the time we got on the plane all the window and aisle seats were taken so there was no way for any of us to sit together. I found a middle seat open in an exit row, between two gentlemen. They introduced themselves and were quite nice. The gentleman by the window was from St. Louis and the gentleman in the aisle said he was from North Bend. We chatted for a few minutes and he asked where in Snoqualmie I live so in return I asked where in North Bend he lives. He told me that he lives just off the road near Rattlesnake Lake. I told him we have some friends out there so he asked what their name was. My response was “Dunn”. I will never forget the look in his eyes, because of course he was wearing a mask, when he declared “I’m a Dunn”. My immediate response was to ask if he was Carter’s dad and when he said he was I introduced myself as Abigail Fletcher’s mom. Carter was one of Abigail’s close high school friends.  The super funny part is that I’ve only met this man once (if at all) in my entire life and yet I referred to him as my “friend”. After we had talked for a while and laughed about the situation I very casually explained how it was easier to say “friend” then to say something about knowing someone from church that’s in a different ward that lives out in that area. He seemed to not think anything of it. We talked the entire three hour and 15 minute flight which made the flight fly by. He’s a really nice guy. I should probably be more embarrassed about it than I am but instead it cracks me up every time I think about it.  

 

I was pretty useless the rest of the day having not gotten much sleep at all during the weekend. But I hung out with the kids and play a game with Drew. Katie gave a great CFM lesson today which she had prepared all on her own. I sent to myself to bed around 9:30pm and slept great.