Eating, Shopping, and Cooking(?!) In AZ!

My wonderful visit to AZ was jam packed with stuff, so I'm going to break it up in a few posts =)

Straight off the plane, with a quick bite to eat, I volunteered to help make a pasta dinner at Sky Harbor Air National Guard. With Janelle in tow, we met Chef Carl who quickly put us to work in his huge kitchen! We were dressed inappropriately, so he fitted us with jackets, aprons and hats (though there wasn't much he could do about our open toed shoes). For the next four hours, we backed, cooked, washed, and served. Phew. By the end, I was a zombie. I had had only 3 hours of sleep and was still on medicine from being sick. So after Chef Carl brought us in front of everyone and made them believe we did all the cooking (we were really just helpers), we got to leave. We were making/serving food to those who were participating in the Pat Tillman Run. They got to have pasta, meatballs, lasagna, salad, garlic rolls, cookies and cheesescake. YUM.

This part is going to be especially for those of you who have not been to Arizona in a while.....

Shopping! Does anyone realize how nice it is to have all the stores you need in one place? Not to mention that this happens several times throughout the city! It was amazing. Of course I went to 5 malls during my visit! Here are a few new ones we went to...
link. Go check it out! They had these two huge fire pits with waterfalls. They were awesome. I looked up to see what they would do about shopping in the summer time and sure enough, Tempe Market Place- It's outside and reminds me of The Block at Orange (CA). Several people had already told me that before I finally went. We were there during the day, so we missed out on the Vegas lights! The "mall" like shops are all on the inside, while the bigger department stores, were on the outside, sort of surrounding the island of shops. It was very L.A. if you ask me. I have no clue how many shops there were total, but here's the there's a who sprinkler system. Even so, I wonder if they're busying during the summer? There were really neat looking restaurants, so I hope I will get a chance to eat down there next visit. Apparently, the Harkins Cine-Capri is there too.


SanTan Village- Another new outdoor shopping mall that looks, actually, a lot like the Waterfront here in Pittsburgh. Only larger, of course! We found ourselves at this Gilbert mall because we had been looking for the new Disney Store. That's right, we shop by Disney Store locations =p It was really weird to see a free standing Disney Store. There's also a Victorias Secret's Pink- totally separate. I hardly ever see that. There's a lot of window shaded protection for this outdoor mall, and a few sprinklers. There's store front parking and then a larger parking lot towards the back. There's another shopping villa close by incase you needed... oh... a Walmart! Lots of label stores too if you need a new Coach bag =p Here's there store listings. CLICK







Here are more pictures of that lovely new Disney Store, in case you were wondering =) Not only does it have a sparkly pixie dust floor, but it also has a fitting room with a Mickey chandelier.




Eating- Oh my, I finally had Mexican food! I purposely ordered a tostada because nobody has any clue what that is out here. I wasn't that hungry, but man, Garica's food was just sooo good, I ate it up! Luckily, there's a new Garcias within walking distance from my Dad's house. For those of you who have been there and remember nothing but an alfalfa field, it's now Fulton's new beautiful community with lots of restaurants and stores. Isn't amazing how fast AZ grows? Janelle's sister, Justine, conveniently works at a restaurant we had never been to, which gave enough reason for us to go. It's called Heart Attack Grill. Jody, Summer, and Leah, quit reading now. OK, so it's sort of cute because it has this whole hospital theme. But lets not dance around it- it's sort of like a Hooters. The girls are nurses and the guys are doctors. You can not get anything heathly there. Infact, there isn't even any lettuce for the burgers. Each burger is called single bypass, double bypass, triple bypass, or quadruple bypass. If you eat the quadruple bypass, you get a free wheelchair ride to your car. Over 350 pounds? If you let them weigh you in the middle of the restaurant, you get to eat for free. Everything is dipped in lard. Everything is fattening! While you're there, you have to fill out patient cards, get an I.D. bracelet, and can wear a hospital gown if you choose. Janelle, her brother Kato, my Dad and his girlfriend Sue ate there for lunch. I'm pretty sure we weren't hungry for the rest of the day! Go to their site. Apparently there's talk about making a reality tv show there! I purposely did not put a picture of Justine up, for fear she might be embarrassed, so if you want to see her, you will have to go there yourself!