Highlight of my week in Scottsdale

What a fun time visiting friends and taking care of stuff! But looking back over my week a major highlight was having a fabulous dinner with very good friends on Friday night. An extra special part is all about their daughter, Shantel, and a very unique gift that I received from her.

Here’s a pic of Shantel:

And here’s the story:
After her mom came to visit back in the summer Shantel has heard all about NYC, the Gotham Den and Howie. (And of course my love of WINE and skinny vanilla lattes at Starbucks.) Since she is a big Starbucks fan herself she made me my very own Starbucks Fund Bank in her ceramics class. Love her idea that everyone visiting the den should contribute to the fund! 🙂

Shantel created “hippo” and painted her lips by dipping her right thumb into red paint and pressing it onto hippo’s mouth so she has lipstick just like hers. The bottom of hippo’s feet have flowers she created, in addition to teal poka dots on her body. She wanted hippo to have red nails so she would look “well put together” just like she has her mom paint her nails every Sunday for the school week. She insisted hippo have brown eyes like hers along with mascara to make her look pretty. (BTW, Shantel has the most beautiful eyelashes I have ever seen…) Now keep in mind that before I ever got to meet hippo she had already traveled back and forth from Arizona to New York compliments of a screwed up Federal Express system. (That’s all I’ll say about that since adult language is involved and I know Shantel will read this.)

After much thought Shantel and I named hippo, Ms. Champagne. Works for me since I LOVE champagne and Shantel LOVES the name. So now that we are back in the city, Ms. Champagne has met Howie and she is loving her new home in the Gotham Den. In addition, Shantel wanted me to let everyone know she created hippo WITHOUT the ability to see because she hopes it will inspire others to push themselves to do more than they think they can do. See why it was the highlight? PRICELESS.

Thank you Shantel for this very beautiful gift and it will always have a place in my heart!