There was a gorgeous view behind us here but…guess for our eyes only.

Here..that’s the view we were going for.

Another fun weekend in Sedona with my dear Steve.  It turns out it was a bit of a celebration for both his birthday and a farewell as he leaves tomorrow for two months.  While Steve has been recovering from brain surgery, he’s been doing things to help others (like me) and this time he’s headed to Southern California to live with his friend’s 82 year old mother to help her prepare and recover from a hip replacement.

If he wasn’t so good at his profession, this would be a perfect job for him.  He comes in and organizes any environment and is very naturally nurturing and patient.  They are so lucky he was available to provide this assistance in this way for the entire family.  But I sure will miss him over these two months.  It will be rewarding for him in many ways and he’ll get to ride his bike to the beach again. 🙂

The timing is also kind of perfect as, finally, it looks like my dear Alfonse is going to be discharged tomorrow.  This has been a long and grueling hospitalization for him.  But it’s given me time to look in to other resources and set up a new game plan.  He requested to come live with me for awhile which of course I am happy to do.  His asking for this support is a sign of his mental health.  He sounded so much better when he called this evening to chat.  I’ll be attending a staffing in the morning to discuss these plans and I suspect he will be discharged the next day.  Steve and I will be both caring for people in need.  Thank God for technology is all I can say.

We had a fun drive up as always.  I swear I get an abdominal workout hanging out with him from all the laughing.

First thing Steve noticed when we got there was a praying mantis greeting us on the back patio screen door.  He convinced me this was a sign of luck. So we named her Lucky.  She stayed there all day then the next day he found her again on the side of the house.

We got to unpacking and creating a little shelfscape above the kitchen cabinets, some of which you can see in the photo below.

I got another aerobic workout going up and down the stepladder arranging and rearranging these items.  We almost got in a fight over a glass apple which Steve finally conceded I was right about.  The lemon/lime argument at his birthday dinner was a different story though..stay tuned, it was dramatic.  Now that I write this out, I realize he and I have some issues around fruit.

You can see our little arrangements in this photo…now pay attention to the white owl on the left as I’m gonna freak you out on that in a minute.

We decided that night to go out for Thai food then to see “We’re The Millers” which was freaking HILARIOUS!

There was kind of an unusual “message” that came our way at dinner.  We really just zipped in and out of there in about 40 minutes for soup in order to make the movie on time so imagine our surprise when one of the waitresses came to our table, and in a thick accent said “you have a twin flame connection”.

Steve and I both looked at her with these confused faces and said “What?” and she repeated it “you have a twin flame connection” then smiled and walked away.  I’d say this gal was no more than 19 years old.  We just kind of looked at each other and shrugged and laughed.

Hey Steve, you were wondering if we got fortune cookies there, well there was your fortune, hand delivered.  😉

After we got home from the movie, Steve realized, it was actually his birthday that evening, Munich time, where he was born.  So we decided to run back out for more wine and cheese after setting the timers on the stove for his Munich birthday.  At 10:28 (I think) we celebrated Steve’s Munich birthday.

I thought this was the perfect time to give him his gift which he’d found at the antique store we went a hunting at a couple weekends ago.  He fell in love with this stein with “Munchen” inscribed on it (he collects them) so I rushed him out of that booth, bookmarking it in my mind and returned a few days later to pick it up.  He loved it.

Sunday morning we woke up early and decided to go for a neighborhood walk and burn off the calories we planned to eat later with the birthday Poppin Fresh cinnamon rolls…ohyeah.  So bad, but so good.  I went off my wheat boycott for those cinnamon rolls and well, reminded myself why I’m off wheat. : /

But what the morning really turned in to was an entire bottle of champagne and orange juice and laughs and dancing to Annie Lenox in the kitchen then Mumford and Sons in the living room. Mimosas and dancing….kind of a perfect way to start off your birthday if ya ask me.

At about noon we finally got around to eating breakfast and Steve whipped us up some bacon and eggs and this is where the freaky owl situation came in.  See if you note anything unusual in this photo.

Just take a look at the direction that owl’s head is turned in this photo, the one where Steve is cooking his bacon.  Can you see how his head is turned to the right, watching Steve at the stove?

Well let’s revisit this one…taken just a half hour or so before.

No one had been up there touching or moving that owl since the day before.  Muahahahaha…the ghost stories already beginning….

mmmmm…bacon

We spent the afternoon doing a few small projects, like getting my feminine bedroom set up with the mirror hung, the swag draped and the *whateveryoucallit* fabric flowing thing over the headboard installed.  Here’s a little collage I made..it’s the only feminine looking room in the entire house so I kind of went for it.  Steve calls it “The Barbie Room”.  Ok there, Ken.

After brief catnaps, we headed out to Jerome, AZ about a 45 min drive, for dinner in a Haunted Hotel.  We got there and did a little Jeroaming in Jerome then up to the creeeeeeepy haunted hotel and waited for a table right next to the window.

We shared crab legs and sea bass and laughs and the only argument we’ve ever gotten in over a heated, ok beyond heated, a stubborn digging in my heels debate over lemons and limes.  Somehow we ended up on the topic of tequila shots and Steve insisted it was lemons used with them and salt and I insisted limes.  Oh boy, this got serious.  We even pulled out our phones and started googling. We agreed to drop it, then Steve went up to the bartender and asked him, who he claims agrees with him (lemons) but I asked our waiter who agreed with me (limes).

I finally blamed the entire disagreement on the Haunted Hotel and a ghost was messing with us.  Then on the way home, it was dark, I mean seriously DARK and suddenly I felt something land on my lap.   If you see “We’re The Millers”  you will know just why this freaked us out so much.  I screamed, Steve slammed on the brakes and we never found out what it was although had convinced ourselves a Tarantula had climbed in via the moonroof and was going to crawl up our legs any second.  I rode the whole last half hour with my legs up on the dash and my dress tightly bound around my legs.  Steve kept looking down at the floor.  Of course we never found the culprit but I surely did feel something land on my lap…something sinister, something weighty. 

I ended up blaming it on a ghost.

After some couch cuddling and Dexter (now that sounds kind of sick in the same sentence), we crashed and got up this morning and came home.  Dropping Steve off knowing he’s leaving in the morning for two months was sad and happy at the same time.

Sad because I’ll miss him.  Happy because I have someone to miss.

What a good man.  A sincerely good man.

Happy Birthday Steve!