Week 130: Girls' Trip - Scottsdale (Part 2)
- elenalilamartin
- Jun 27, 2025
- 4 min read
Week 130: June 22nd-June 28th, 2025
The yapping continues from last week's adventure as I tell you all more about my girls' trip to Scottsdale, Arizona. Like any overachieving group of young women, we put our creativity and our planning skills to work and came up with a theme for every day of our trip. As you saw last week, Thursday was a Tequila Sunset (think pinks and orange ombre), and Friday was Coyote Ugly (like Y2K with a western twist). The following days and their themes are below:
Saturday: 'Tinis and Bikinis (green like a classic martini, or brown like an espresso martini!) This theme was a classic that we found on Pinterest!
Sunday: Femininomenon Fantasy (all things pink!) This theme was inspired by the song, Femininomenon, by the one and only, Chappell Roan.
Monday: Mermaid Moment (shells, crochet cover-ups, anything ocean-inspired!) This theme was semi-inspired by a trendy bachelorette theme of "Last Toast on the Coast" that we found (also on Pinterest). However, none of us are getting married any time soon, so we changed it a bit.
Our trip was packed to the brim with different activities, as we paired off and planned itineraries for each day. We managed to have a good balance of excursions, good food, clubs, relaxing, and a whole lot of Love Island (both USA and UK, though I prefer UK!). I'll try to keep it short and stick to the key parts of the trip to avoid boring you all.
On Saturday, we ventured to Maya Day Club in our green and brown martini outfits and felt quite crispy at the end of the day after a long day drinking in the sun. On Sunday, we wore our pink for our Femininomenon Fantasy to brunch at Wine Girl.
There was only one woman working at Wine Girl, so we tried to keep things simple with our orders. Thankfully, we were the only ones there, so the service was still fast. I got a delicious frozen paloma that tasted more like pear than grapefruit, and we all shared charcuterie, whipped ricotta, and pizza. They're supposedly opening a Wine Girl in San Diego, so I'll definitely check it out when it opens.
After Wine Girl, we explored downtown and braved the Arizona heat as we walked between stores. A couple of the girls got permanent jewelry, which has always intrigued me, but feels like a risk of sensory-overload. I don't like wearing bracelets when I sleep. I also remembered the one time I went snowboarding, I had an anklet on and was greeted with a bloody, painful ankle when I peeled off my socks. I'll stick to the non-permanent kind of jewelry for now.
Between each excursion, we lounged at the pool to reset and relax before a great dinner at a woman-owned restaurant called Alma.
I got a great margarita flight at Alma, and we shared some great blueberry cornbread, rice and beans, and shrimp ceviche. Despite the 101°F temperature, I was weird and ordered pozole. Not sure why I thought HOT SOUP was a good idea, but I don't regret it. It was delicious.
Finally, our last hurrah was a nice dinner with our beachy, mermaid-inspired outfits at Toca Madera. We always like to have at least one "fancy" dinner where we can dress up on our girls' trips.
We got pre-dinner drinks at Zinque, resisted the urge to shop at Fashion Square mall, and enjoyed our final night in Scottsdale with some good food.
We all loved the shishito peppers and the hamachi literally melted in my mouth. It was so good. We joked about getting the $325 table-side flaming steak, but decided our money would be better spent elsewhere. I will always appreciate good food and good company, and even without a ridiculously expensive piece of meat, this trip had it all.
Teamwork made the dream work as we all packed our things and cleaned up at the AirBnb the next morning. Five of the girls drove back to San Diego and Los Angeles, and the three of us who flew got to relax a little. We watched another episode of Love Island UK and got a little breakfast at Prep + Pastry. I fueled myself for the plane ride home with some (very delicious) avocado toast and (very disappointing) salted caramel cold brew.
Overall, our Airbnb was great. While attempting to watch Love Island and also Aquamarine (on our mermaid pool day!), we had a couple issues with the Wi-Fi, but as the resident "tech person," I was tasked with figuring it out. Thankfully it wasn't anything crazy, just had to find the router and unplug it for a bit.
One thing that I thought was also a bit odd was that we ran out of toilet paper, trash bags, and paper towels at our AirBnb on the second day. You'd think a rental that can fit up to 12 (we were only 8 girls) would be better stocked, but apparently not. It's not like we were pooping up a storm or anything, either, so when I received a message from our host basically saying "Nope, don't have any more! Hope this helps!", I was a bit miffed.
Listen, there literally weren't "extras" plural. There was one (singular!) additional roll under the bathroom sink. I don't think its the end of the world to have to go out and get our own supplies, but it felt a little weird because you expect an AirBnb to be stocked for many days. I mean, they could literally just go to Costco, right?
I can't complain much, because I had a great time with my girls, even when we had to go on a toilet paper run. I wish I could hang out with my friends, chatting at the pool in the sun, every day for eternity.
Anyway, I'm quite glad to return to San Diego's more tolerable weather, but I already miss the feeling of being on our annual girls' trip vacation. We're all already looking forward to next year's adventure together.
Bonus: My incredible dad won the NBC Sports Bay Area All-Star Teacher contest!!! He was presented with a $30,000 check (here's a Facebook video!) for Sylvia Mendez Elementary School in Berkeley, CA this week. I am so proud of him and cannot think of a better way for him to start his retirement.
See you next week.
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