9 Years and Counting

Our 9th anniversary came on February 28th.  We decided that since we have a baby on the way we should get out of town for a day while we can.  Mark's family all pitched in to help us make that possible by watching the boys, including getting Dallin to and from school.  We are grateful for them especially since they had already taken care of Dallin and Adam for two days a couple of weeks prior when Owen was in the hospital.  It was nice to get away and spend some time together.

The day before our anniversary I put this up in our bedroom to highlight our nine years.  The first picture is from one of our first dates.  I love looking at this and will keep it up for a long time.  It reminds me of what a great life we have.

(inspiration from here): 

Here's a closer shot: 

We decided we'd hit up the Arizona Salsa Trail for our anniversary trip.  Basically, it's a collection of Mexican restaurants in the Safford/Thatcher area.  They already had a great conglomeration of Mexican food there and so they made a gimmick out of it.  It worked, at least on us.

We left town late Monday afternoon on the 27th and headed to Miami, AZ for dinner.  Miami and Globe are not part of the salsa trail but they are also well-known for their bounty of authentic and tasty Mexican food.  First stop, Guayo's El Rey!

 

This spot is perhaps the most memorable for me.  But perhaps it's because the pregnant lady had to wait until after 7pm for dinner by the time we got there.  My food was great, and Mark enjoyed his.  He tried menudo for the first time and wasn't too impressed with that though.

 

 He also doesn't quite know what to do with himself when I try to take pictures of him eating.

After dinner, we continued our drive to Thatcher where we stayed for the night.  We stopped at the new Gila Valley Temple to catch a view of it.  

The next morning  we were off on the official salsa trail.  For breakfast we hit The Manor House in Safford where we split a meal of hash browns and chorizo. 

They even let us have some chips and salsa at 9am which was nice of them.  Next we stopped at a more fast-food kind of place called Taco Taste and just tried their chips and salsa.  Not our favorite.  Then we stopped at the Graham County Visitors' Bureau where we met a lady who was a very enthusiastic supporter of her county and was so bummed that we would only be there one day and we were not going to be able to see everything. 

  

We spent some time driving and enjoying the countryside.

There were a couple of spots on the Salsa Trail that we made besides restaurants.  One was the San Simon Chile Company.  We called ahead of time since it is off-season for their fire-roasted green chiles and we heard that we should make sure they would be open.  Turns out, it is a farmhouse with no business office or storefront and the lady told us to stop on by, she was painting her kitchen and would be home all day.  There were no green chiles for buying, but we got to sample some of her canned products and purchased a few sauces to take home.  Our next stop was one of my favorites, Mi Casa Tortilla Factory.  They make and sell fresh, preservative-free tortillas every morning.  We loaded up with 5 dozen each of corn and flour tortillas, a big bag of chips, as well as a few additional packs of tortillas to take to Mark's family who were watching our kids.  Now, a month later our tortillas are all gone and I am wishing we'd bought 2-3 times as many.  But, they did tell us that they are working towards online ordering so we have that to look forward to.

 

 For lunch we ate at La Paloma in Solomon, AZ.  We also stopped at a historic Catholic church and stepped in to look around. 

Many of the restaurants we went to had two different styles of salsas, and it was interesting to see all of the different styles of tortilla chips too.

We spent some time strolling around downtown Safford (that didn't take us very long), then we headed to Casa Manana for dessert.  We both ordered the fried ice cream to have alongside our chips and salsa and were very glad we did.  This stuff was awesome, but it did gross me out a bit because on the bottom of the dish was quite the pool of grease.  This is not the kind of food you want to eat very often, but it was sure delicious. 

 After lunch we had some down time so we went for a scenic drive up a mountain path.  We eventually parked the car, rolled down the windows, and decided to catch a little nap before our drive home.  We stopped for dinner on the way home in Globe at a famous little place called Libby's El Rey Cafe.  The food was really good, though the restaurant was dirty and a little questionable.  This is the kind of place that if it were in town we would never go there by the looks of it, but we had to stop and try it because it's kind of a legendary spot in Globe.  One of the reasons is they pour butter over their tortilla chips.  It was good, though I am still not convinced this extra level of fattiness is necessary to enjoying a serving of chips and salsa.  I am pretty sure Mark liked this place more than I did. 

By the end of the day my dinner consisted of just one taco and some rice and beans. 

Here's the outside view of the place.

We thought ahead and brought an ice chest with us and bought a few containers of our favorite salsas to take home for us and for Mark's family.  It was fun to get away just the two of us and of course was nice to get back to our boys.

Happy ninth to us.  It's been the best years of my life for sure.