Spicy Shrimp with Orange Brown Butter Sauce + Vacation Pics

First things first: IT’S FRIDAY.

Do you love Fridays or what?! Gee whiz gosh golly gee, I can’t get enough of them. I still work all weekend (bloggity blogga), but Friday nights are always my most favorite time of the whole week. I have always loved the feeling of working really hard all week and then Friday night knocking on my door and being released from the daily grind for two whole days. Better yet, there’s the anticipation of getting 8-200 hours of sleep. It’s not my best quality, but I have a little bit of a selfish time-hog mentality about Fridays – if we’re hanging out on Friday night or Saturday morning before 11am, you are probably my favorite person in the world. Fridays are my least favorite night to socialize like a normal person, unless you count books and TV and pizzas and stretchy pants as socializing. Sometimes I wonder-worry: what is going to happen when we have little people in our family and I can’t be a time-hog anymore? Oh, no. But oh, yes. Babies.

Anyways. Friiiday, Friiiday, gotta get down on Friday.

Also gotta get down with this orange brown butter sauce. Here’s the deal: we ate something like this on vacation, and now I’ve recreated a really simple at-home version, and now I’m going to show you the rest of our vacation pics. Fridays are just a little more buttery and a little more fun.

The first part of our Arizona trip was spent and my Grandparent’s house, and the second relaxation destination was Montelucia Resort and Spa. Pictures of part one can be found right on over here.

After a few days at each of these places, we hopped on over to our final resting place. Er, wait. You know what I mean.

Royal Palms Resort and Spa

We spent the last part of our vacation at the idyllic Royal Palms. This place was a garden paradise. Exhibit A: one of the private patios in our suite, complete with fountain, lounge chairs, and stunning greenery and flowery all around.

The resort has a boutique feel to it because of all the unique details used to decorate and create the vibe of the hotel. There were lots of great textures, like reclaimed wood and tarnished bronze and wrought iron and marble.

Plus, you guys. The flowers, trees, and natural beauty of the place was just out of this world. It’s a small resort so you always kind of feel like you’re walking through the secret garden and you never really know where you’re going to end up, but it wouldn’t even matter if you got lost forever because it’s so incredibly beautiful.

I tried not to obsess but I definitely obsessed.

There was, naturally, a lot of this going on, including unpictured cheese plates and cucumber waters, especially since this great patio was connected to the suite that we stayed in. HELLO.

Our gorgeous suite really felt like some kind of secret garden hideaway, with all the doors, arches, windows, vines, and flowers. And it was tucked back off the main flowery path just enough to feel extremely private and quiet. I like quiet. A lot.

And the resort restaurant – T.Cook’s. Get a load of this —> Parsnip Agnolotti with Lobster and Orange Brown Butter Sauce. That, my friends, was otherworldly.

And this is the part where I ate all the apple fritters. Oh my gosh. Fancy restaurant APPLE FRITTERS. I have a thing for fried food dipped in sauce.

I think our dinner was something like 300 hours long. On purpose. It’s so nice to just sit, and talk, and eat, and talk, and eat… The ambiance of this place made you want to just curl up and live at your little table. Outdoor patio with the mountain in the background, little lights strung around, a crackling fireplace, and FOOD. I think that’s all you really need to live, right?

What a great place to stay. Thank you for showing us a great time, Royal Palms!

(PS. This hippity hop hotel has a really fun Instagram account with lots more pictures of the resort – check it out! but beware. It will make you seriously contemplate booking a ticket to Arizona, like, now).

Back to real life and food. Here’s this barely spicy shrimp, drenched in that finger licking good orange brown butter sauce, and a free pass to do whatever you want tonight because, like we talked about, FRIDAY.

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