Livin' la Vida: EL PASO

Nuestro semana en El Paso ha sido fabulosa!  Here are the top 10 things we did (in no particular order)...

#10: Kinley's Coffe House

Amir cannot get through an El Paso visit without a trip to Kinley's!  It has a delicious Oreo Cookie Mocha Frappe that is to die for!  Imagine drinking an Oreo...enough said!  Its too sweet for more than a sip for me, so I stick to skinny vanilla lattes, but the one sip of Amir's Oreo Cookie Mocha Frappe make the trip totally worth it!





#9: Royally Sweet

This year-old boutique is founded and owned by Desiree, on of Amir's high school friends.  She sells adorable hair bows, tu-tus and accessories for little girls...there is also jewelry and soaps for the older than 10 crowd.  Everything in the store is pretty much hand-made by Desi or her mom and I personally plan to buy out the store when I have a little girl of my own some day!  Check out Royally Sweet on Etsy or Facebook!  So adorable!

#8: Hal Marcus Museum

Hal Marcus is a local El Paso artist, and we visited his new gallery in El Paso.  The gallery was awesome and features not only Hal's work, but art from other El Paso artists.  Its not too big, but definitely worth seeing!  We also met Hal Marcus' wife who explained how Hal's daughters inspire a lot of his work, as well as the history of Hal's career.  She was really sweet and gave us a ton of insight to his art!  If you're ever in El Paso and like art, this is a place to visit!

#7: Rain
El Paso received about 120 raindrops the second day we were here.  For drought ridden El Paso, this was super exciting!  Amir and I took the time to enjoy all 120 of the raindrops outside before they promptly evaporated.  I jumped on the trampoline while it was raining, and it was awesome!

#6: Cappetto's Italian Restaurant

After seeing Desi at Royally Sweet, we made dinner plans at an El Paso establishment called Cappetto's.  It was voted #1 Italian food in El Paso, with almost 50% of the "Best of El Paso" votes.  Olive Garden had about 30% of teh vote, but don't let this distort your take on Cappetto's...the food was truly delicious!  Our table at Shrimp Ravioli in Basil Cream Sauce, Chicken Pesto Linguine and Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce and everyone went home stuffed, with left overs!  Plus, there was a guy doing magic card tricks while we waited for our food!



#5: A Tour of Downtown, by Amir Roohi

Since downtown El Paso is changing, updating and gentrifying by the minute, the family went downtown one afternoon to check out all of the changes.  There are lots of renovated buildings and potential homes for hipster businesses to move in.  For the most part, El Paso is keeping the awesome facades of the old buildings, and simply gutting or renovating the insides.  Well done, Paul Foster, well done!






#4: The Wyler Tramway

If you're ever in El Paso, this is a little known, often missed gem!  The tramway takes 6 people at a time from a the parking lot (elevation: 4,692 feet) up to Ranger Peak (elevation: 5,632 feet) in a little gondola.  From the top, you can see almost El Paso, New Mexico and Juares (this is the easier version of a different mountain top where Amir proposed).



#3: Hot dogs & Hamburgers!

Nothing says America like hot dogs and hamburgers!  For 4th of July, the Roohis indulged me by grilling out and making corn on the cob.  It was a delicious way to say Happy Birthday America!







#2:Cupcake Contest

I decided to make cupcakes for 4th of July dessert.  However, "making cupcakes" turned into a 3-way cupcake decorating contest between Sarah's friend Carla, Sarah and myself.  We all decorated tehe 2 dozen cupcakes and let the rest of the family choose their favorites!  The 3 winning designs are pictured above.



#1: Fireworks? fail.

After a delicious meal, Carla, Sarah, Amir and I decided to trek up to Scenic Drive to see fireworks over teh city.  We figured by going to a high spot, we'd see at least one show.  Nope.  We saw some fireworks from New Mexico on the horizon, but they were about an inch big from where we were sitting.  The fireworks we waited almost an hour for had been set off about 15 minutes before we arrived so we went home only dreaming of fireworks.  I created my own picture of what they could have looked like had we executed our fireworks plan better....

Overall, El Paso has been good to us, and tomorrow morning we'll road trip back to Austin...