ARIZONA | PART ONE

here it is! after two weeks, i finally got our spring break trip recap up! i can't wait to share everything with you, and i've broken it up into two parts because it's reeaallly long. so, here's part one!

i suppose i should start at the beginning. we set our alarms for 4:30 am on saturday, march 28 so we could catch our plane at 6:05 am sharp. me, being the nervous hypochondriac freak that i can be almost had a panic attack on the plane because i had'nt flown in three years. i'm not even claustrophobic! i'm a lot of things, but not that. anyway, i calmed my sh*t down and we got on our way. during the perfect sunrise, i might add.

we landed safe + sound in AZ, hopped off the plane, onto a shuttle, and into a rental car, bound for our hotel. we stayed at the hyatt at gainey ranch in scottsdale. SO BEAUTIFUL. on the way there, i was taking pictures of every succulent/cactus i saw. which was a lot. with the occasional portrait of my sister. ^^

once at the resort, we headed straight to the pool to test out the new go pro we bought a few weeks ago! needless to say, the pool was amazing (as they usually are in AZ, having no beach) and the weather was perfect every day!

the hotel also had the prettiest/coolest/artsiest balconies overlooking the hot tub and pools with bougainvillea draped over every wall. gimme all the floral walls.

cactus candy. have you had some? no? buy some.

because of all the cacti and flowers and awesomeness, there were a lot of spontaneous photoshoots. lots. of. them. people.

like this one of our tattoos. (similar here, here, and here!)

this picture makes me heart eye + dancing girls emoji. ^^

or like this one during sunset. actually this one had a reason - it's a part of an upcoming DIY, so stay tuned my friends.

+

to change the subject, one of our favorite restaurants we went to during the first part of our trip was blanco tacos. really, really good tacos.

they had a whole wall of jarritos - only the best mexican soda ever created.

we also went to starbucks, because we are a basic white family. and we rode bikes. and recorded it with the go pro. so yeah. very basic. in our defense, we were going to climb camelback mountain, but then the hotel staff yelled at us because it was 2 pm and the sun was at it's peak and we how could we be so dumb and you should probably reschedule. so we waited until the next morning, and boy were they right. if we would have gone at 2 in the afternoon, i think i would've vaporized into thin air.

waiting for the hiking shuttle. ^^

before we even set out on our hiking adventure, i was already dripping sweat. boy is that arizona sun hot. but the views made up for the insane heat.

and so did the cacti.

once we finally made it to the top, we stopped to rest for about a half hour. it was sooooo pretty up there. these are just a fraction of the photos i have. such an awesome sight. i definitely recommend it. just make sunscreen and loads of h-two-oh a priority!!