A celebratory weekend

Back in May I bought two tickets to Beauty and the Beast at the Herberger Theatre and planned to give them to my mom for Mother's Day.  A few days before Mother's Day my brother Nick asked if he could go in on my gift because he was out at sea and hadn't bought anything.  I said it was fine but it seemed kind of crappy, since he didn't get to enjoy the show with us.  Then I suggested he pay for brunch before the show and he agreed.  Then, a month later, he asked if we could go in on a Father's Day gift together and we decided I'd take our father to a fancy dinner the night before brunch since they would be up here visiting us.  I gave my dad the option to go "up" or "down" for dinner.  He picked up.  

My parents came up last Friday night (the 14th).  They got here late, said hi, and basically went to bed.  The next morning, Saturday, my mom drove to the airport and picked up her cousin Greg who flew in from Austin.  He was here for a training for work and was spending the week in Scottsdale.  He got here two days before the training started though, so he could see all of us.  

I made a lovely brunch for us on Saturday and then took no pictures.  There were donuts and mimosas and a whole spread.  A real blogging fail to have no proof.

My mom and Greg and I ended up at a bar in a grocery store in the early afternoon. 

I had invited my friend Rob (with his family) over for swimming on Saturday afternoon.  It was all an elaborate scheme for him to see my dad outside from Boys State (Rob is on the staff). And then I didn't tell my dad who was coming over, just that it was a mystery guest.  The look on my dad's face when he walked into the hallway and saw Rob standing by the front door was priceless.  Totally priceless. 

After swimming it was time for our fancy dinner.  We ubered there and back.  I'm pretty sure it was my dad's first uber. 

The "down" option was the Salt Cellar in Scottsdale.  It's about three levels below the ground.  But he picked up, so we went up.  The "up" option was Compass Arizona Grill on the 24th floor of the downtown Phoenix Hyatt.  It's the only revolving restaurant in Phoenix.  

I took none of the next four pictures. 

The restaurant is the round, UFO looking building.

It takes 55 minutes for the restaurant to make one full rotation.  Our reservation was for 7:00, and that night sunset was at 7:38.  We were seated on the east side to begin so had there not been a HUGE dust storm right before we got there, we would have had a perfect sunset view when we made it to the west side.  

Alas, this was our filthy, dusty view. 

You could see the dust cloud slowly overtaking South Mountain. 

The sunset would have been lovely too.  If we could have seen it. 

The night time lights were really pretty. 

After dinner we walked over to Seamus McAffrey's (an Irish Pub) for a nightcap. 

This was a selfie.

This blurry monstrosity is what the bartender took of us. 

The next day, Sunday, was all about my mom.  

We drove to way far north Scottsdale for brunch at the Camelback Inn.  

The first three pictures were borrowed from Google. 

Our table was just to the right, out of view. 

We had plenty of time when we got there, but somehow we lost track of time and then had to rush to get to the theatre.  It might have been because of the sheer volume of food available to us. 

There was no photography allowed during the show, but I did sneak this one at the end. 

It was the last show before they moved out of the Herberger and a lot of the cast was crying at the end.  It was sweet. 

I did a rose themed manicure for the occasion, so I had to take a picture with the program. 

While we were brunching and theatreing, Michael, my dad, Greg and the kids went out to lunch.  Michael had very strict instructions to take Elliott's monthly picture.  He's 5 years 7 months, so he's now closer to 6 than to 5. 

Official

And then, it was just all over and there was no more fabulousness.