Today (Saturday) was the first full day of our annual Sister Weekend. Every time I come back from Scotland, my four sisters and I get together for a whole weekend of resting, relaxing, girl time, and just enjoying being together.
This time we stayed in Flagstaff, which is where almost all of us went to university. Flag is a small town, filled with small shops, organic tea cafes, trains, bicyclists, beautiful mountains, and on a good day, some of the best weather you could hope for. We got three good days in a row. Sunshine, blue skies, a few friendly clouds, a slight cooling breeze, and the kind of weather that you hardly even notice because it's just right.
Pin and I took a dander down to the town centre so I could take a few photos, and what do you know but that we ran into an Armed Forces Day Parade, complete with marching soldiers, small boy scouts, a multitude of different military vehicles, Harleys, waving flags, and red white and blue everywhere. I enjoyed taking some photos of the parade and the nearby train station, and then it was on to Macy's coffee shop for beautiful tea and coffee with my sisters.
Macy's is a classic, every-table-filled, straight-talking servers, a hundred different coffee varieties, little corners everywhere coffee shop. It was very tempting to try one of the amazing coffees, but I stuck with tea and chose the Organic Green Moroccan Mint. I expected it to taste a little 'greener' (being an aficionado of green teas), but the mint flavour swooped in and overpowered it, rendering it more of a mint tea than a green one. I liked it, but it definitely doesn't make my top list of amazing green teas. It's the kind of tea that would be good when you have a cold, or need your throat cleared out a bit. Pretty powerful!
We had a beautiful day - coffee was followed by pedicures, shopping at a surprisingly amazing little clothes shop, lunch at our little cottage, a walk in the sunshine and through the woods, and an incredible dinner at the local Thai restaurant, Dara Thai, where I had my favourite Thai dish, which I ordered the first time round simply for the name alone: the Evil Jungle Princess. And then chillax time with the sisters and bed!
Walk length: 1.25 hours
So I've been having so much fun with my sister and nephews in Chino Valley that these blog posts are going to be pretty short! 
As with all chai teas, milk or cream is required to make it taste like a 'proper' chai - so we added a Cinnabon Creamer that we had gotten that day at the grocery store. Amazing. Added that cinnamon flavour to the vanilla, just perfect for a chai. 
