Jeff and Chel

Cannonball!

2011-06-23T12:38:00.000-07:00

Gage learned to cannonball in the bath the other day. He thinks he is pretty funny. Sorry for the immodesty. They are in the bath!

WOW...

2011-01-18T16:45:00.000-08:00

Wow...it's been awhile. Expect some catching up with some post dating. Remember, I am one of those weirdos that use this as a journal. We've had the basics: Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years. Plus all the extras: getting sick, vacations, getting sick, moving, getting sick, birthdays.

Now that Gage has a cousin his age around all the time, they get into more trouble then ever. They also have lots of fun. This was on Sunday. Gage was having fun. Getting pictures taken by his auntie Bethany.

Literally 2 minutes later. After the chair Landon and Gage were pulling tipped over on them.
We tried to put ice on his forehead, but he wouldn't let us.
Finally calming down. Gage really doesn't cry that easily, so when he was bawling (with the long pause after the initial cry) we knew it had to be bad. Notice the two goose eggs. One big one and the little one to the left of the big one.
Good view of both.

And once again happy. The bump finally went down but he has a scrape and bruise on his forehead. It was sad. Landon had a little bump, but Gage definitely got the worst of it this time around.

Sometimes

2010-10-25T14:50:00.000-07:00

Sometimes we like to play around in bed for a little while in the morning.
Sometimes Jeff takes pictures.

Sometimes it is still to hot to wear to many clothes.
Sometimes Gage makes messes.

Sometimes Gage tries to crawl away when found.

Sometimes he tries to crawl to the camera when he spots it.

Sometimes he gets distracted by something else.

But that’s just sometimes.

The Zoo

2010-10-24T09:24:00.000-07:00

We went to the Phoenix Zoo on Saturday. The city has a Culture Pass that you can check out through the library. If gives you free admission to different museums and places around the valley. The zoo is always checked out, but we finally got one. Otherwise it costs $18/person. The zoo is not cool enough for us to spend $36 to go to it. We had such nice weather. It cooled down so was only about 85 degrees. And it was their Pumpkin Palooza day. So animals weren’t moving too much, but we still had fun.

Gage didn’t really enjoy sitting on the lion. Even Jeff couldn’t get him to smile. He was a little tired.

As it was the Zoo’s Halloween Celebration, they had a little pumpkin area set up. We couldn’t resist getting some pumpkin/Halloween pictures.

This might have been Gage’s favorite part of the day. He actually got to play with something.

Here he was mad because we wouldn’t let him chew on the pumpkins or the straw.

Gage is funny. He would much rather look at all the people around, then the animals. Although the animals weren’t moving, and the people were, so I don’t know if I blame him.

This lion was posed on top of the rock. He also didn’t move, but it was a great picture. Too bad our camera is small, and kind of old, and doesn’t have much zoom.

I guess Gage did look at some of the animals.

His new trick is turning around in the stroller. You have to have him strapped in, with shoulder straps, or he turns around and says “hi.”

He starts sitting down, but will stand up. Even if we are moving.

And he has found the cup holders. I always store my keys and phone here when we go on walks. It did not take long for him to figure out that there is always something good in there.

Gage gets strapped in every time now. And we enjoyed our walk around the zoo.

Go Cougars!

2010-10-23T14:04:00.000-07:00

Gage finally decided to cheer on the Cougars.

He must be good luck because they finally won!

At least it's dead...

2010-08-30T12:23:00.000-07:00

When I went to do the dishes this morning, I opened the door and this is what I found...

Look closer and you can see a little better...

Yep, a scorpion. Squashed by the door. Next to clean dishes. Gross.

Doctor Visit

2010-07-12T18:03:00.000-07:00

We took Gage for his 6 month check up on July 9. He weighs 18 pounds (66 percentile) and is 26.5 (55 percentile) inches tall. We love our doctor, but the nurse was horrible. She seriously took about 30 seconds in between each shot that he got. He didn't cry for the first shot, he cried for the 2nd and he really was bawling by the last one. Usually the nurses get all the shots finished in about 2 seconds total.

The doctor was taking forever to come see us. So we decided to take some pictures. Gage was having fun with the paper on the exam table. As soon as we took out the camera he just stared at the camera.

Finally a smile.

And back to the paper...
We also took a video of him going at the paper. By the time the nurse came in there was no paper left!

Memorial Day Cake

2010-05-31T12:24:00.000-07:00

I've wanted to decorate a 'fancy' cake for awhile now. I decided to do it for Memorial Day. Then found out that everyone (Isaac, Caleb, Donavon, Amanda, and Amanda's family, Uncle Chris, Aunt Becky and Brandon) would be at Parker's on Sunday. So I made it a day early. More people to eat it means less for just me. It was great, it all got eaten.
Don't look too closely. This was my first cake and my first time even touching fondant, let alone making it. Inside it was yellow cake with cheesecake filling and fresh blueberries and strawberries. It was yummy! I think it might make a better 4th of July cake!

Gage Laughing

2010-05-30T12:36:00.000-07:00

This video is only six seconds long but it shows Gage laughing. He will go on like this for a couple of minutes.

Gage 4 Months

2010-05-03T14:36:00.000-07:00

We take pictures every month on the 3rd. Here Gage is exactly 4 months old. He weighed 15 lbs 4 oz. and was 25.5 inches long. He is such a good child and he loves smiling...even when he is tired.

Gila Valley Temple Open House

2010-04-23T14:15:00.000-07:00

We went to the Gila Valley Temple Open House. I picked Jeff up from school and we headed up to Central, Az. It was about a 2 1/2 hour drive. It was the deciding factor on wether I went to Utah or not. Gage was great on the drive. It was one of the last times Gage fit into his suit. It was cold and very windy. But the temple is gorgeous. Gage was so quiet the whole time we were in the temple. He would just look around and sometimes just stare off at things. He loved all the huge pictures of Jesus. After the tour we tried to get some pictures, but it was cold and windy and no one was out to help us.

Just before we gave up on getting a picture of all three of us, someone walked by and quickly took a picture for us.

First Haircut!

2010-04-19T19:22:00.000-07:00

Gage has needed a haircut for quite some time. Today I finally got sick of it and gave him one. It is really hard to give a 3 month old a haircut without any help. Here are the before pictures:

As you can see, it was getting really long. And here are the after pictures:

It is not quite as short on the sides as it looks. And it is a lot more even.

Duck Adventures

2010-04-17T19:32:00.000-07:00

There are a bunch of ducks that live at the "lakes" by our apartments. There are also some baby ducks right now. They are really cute. We like to go on walks to see them.

Our neighbor likes to feed the ducks food outside of their apartment. One of the ducks ran into our other neighbors window. It now looks like this. I am glad it didn't happen to our window. If you look closely you should be able to see the perfect circle.
And this is just a cute picture we took after one of Gage's bath this week.

Trying to catch up

2010-04-11T11:41:00.000-07:00

There will (hopefully) be a bunch of new posts with pictures put up. Many of them will center around one cute kid. These will cover the last few months to catch up so that it will be complete when I make it into a book. You can look or you don't have to. Just be forewarned.

Just Stuff

2010-04-09T20:19:00.000-07:00

Gage is getting big and is awake a lot more. And he actually plays now. He likes to grab toys and bat at them. He also really likes faces. When ever we go to the store all the old people will talk to him. He loves to look back at them and smile. They also always comment on his hair. He likes to look around on his stomach. He can also last a lot longer before he gets upset.

Especially if their is something to lick.

Easter

2010-04-05T19:34:00.000-07:00

Taking Easter pictures was a little harder than expected. Too much sun and two infants did not mix well. All the grass had gotten watered so we had to contend with wet grass. We finally found a dry spot and started taking pictures. This is how Gage really likes to be carried... I promise.

We tried to stand and make shade so we could get pictures of Gage and Landon in their matching outfits. It was hard. At least they like each other.
If we could get them to look in the same direction they would have weird faces.
Or Landon would try to sit up and Gage would stick out his tongue.

We attempted a family picture.
Then got smarter and moved out of the sun.
Trying to get a good picture of just one kid is a lot easier.
Lance was really good at holding two kids and they had fun.
Gage sleeping. He loves to sleep with his arms over his head. It is kind of awkward. Good thing Marcia doesn't mind.
We wanted to dye Easter eggs when Mindy and Lance were here, but we didn't. Even though the eggs were cooked. So we did it on ... Tuesday. Gage had a blast.
And got his egg that said, "Gage's 1st Easter!" He was kind of tired by then.

Swimming

2010-04-03T11:44:00.000-07:00

Mindy, Lance and Landon came down for the weekend. It was pretty warm so we decided to go swimming in between General Conference Sessions. This was Gage's first time swimming. He was pretty tired, so he swam for awhile and then got out and took a nap. He was almost asleep in the pool. It was so warm that he probably would have slept just fine in it. Too bad we made him get out.

Before the swim. Gage (3 months) and Landon (6.5 months) in their cool swim gear.

These two were so hard to get pictures of together. Most of the time they would look in opposite directions. Landon made it harder by looking everywhere but at the camera.

Gage is always sticking his tongue out. He loves licking stuff. Here he is licking the water off of his shirt.
Mindy and Landon. Landon had a blast and lasted a lot longer than Gage.
Gage was pretty much asleep by this point.
Mindy, Landon, Chelan, Gage
Jeff and Gage.
Gage either yawning or smiling...
Landon loving it.

Now doesn't this seem like the perfect way to spend a Saturday afternoon. It was a lot of fun.

Gage and Landon

2010-04-02T20:04:00.000-07:00

Landon and Gage liked to play together. It helps that Gage has some of the same toys.

3 months makes a big difference in size, Even with two big babies.

We bought a bouncer off of craigslist when we found for a great price. We put it together for Landon, and the put gage in it. His first time in the bouncer. He liked it.

Although his feet don't touch. So we had to put a pillow under it.
The next time he didn't like it so much. It was just okay.

Stuff

2010-04-01T20:16:00.000-07:00

Gage loves his fist. He is always sucking on it. He will spit his pacifier out in favor of his fist. He tries to get it all in, but he hasn't gotten it that far yet.

He also sleeps weird. You can't quite tell but he is on his side. Sometimes I worry that he is going to suffocate, but he hasn't.
He even has his feet crossed.
This was taken a week earlier. We could have so many pictures of him sleeping like this. He kind of arches back. I have tried to move his head forward, but he won't let me.

The first few days.

2010-01-09T17:32:00.000-08:00

Here are a few more pictures of Gage during the first few days of life. Here he is a day and half old.

And three days old. In the car and ready to go to the pediatrician for the first time. Because he had jaundice and was under the lights in the hospital the wanted us to go in and get tested to make sure he was getting better.
He doesn't seem to love the car, but he also doesn't hate it.

At the doctor.
And finally at home again.
Six days old.

And it's a....

2010-01-09T16:57:00.000-08:00

It finally happened. At 4:30 am, I woke up because my water broke and I started having contractions that actually hurt (all the ones prior to this didn't hurt at all). Although my water was just leaking so I wasn't sure that was what had happened. I was able to stay in bed for another hour or so and get a little bit more sleep but then got up and started timing the contractions. They started at about 10 min. apart and steadily got closer together. When Jeff got up at 8:30 I told him that this might be it. We had a hard time believing I was actually in labor because it would mean the baby would be a week early. I was so convinced that it would be a week late and I didn't want to go to the hospital to be sent home. We got ready for church but by 1 pm decided that we were not going to go. Instead we walked to Walgreens and returned our redbox dvd and then walked around the lakes for a couple of hours. The 70 degree weather made the walking very enjoyable. By the end of the walk my contractions had been about 3 min. apart for about 2 hours and they were really hurting so we decided to get ready and go to the hospital. We packed a bag and headed in around 4pm. We got checked in and they confirmed that my water had broken and we would be staying until we had a baby! Here was our last picture as just a couple (in between contractions).About 7 hours after checking in we had our baby. And it's a BOY!
He came into this world screaming at 11:36 pm, on Sunday, January 3, 2010. 7 lbs 1 1/2 oz, 20.1 inches long.
Here I am exhausted after 19 hours of labor with Gage Moses. And our doctor in the background.
He's already doing the one eye open thingy.
And our first official family of three picture. It's a great one.
Jeff did really well the whole time. He even watched it all, which was more than I wanted to see.

After getting cleaned up. He

He's got a lot of hair, which is what everyone comments on when they see him for the first time.
After exactly 2 days in the hospital and some time spent under bilirubin lights we were finally allowed to go home. Here's Gage all dressed and ready to go.
We were all exhausted and ready to go. I think I had about 5 hours of sleep total in the two days (and nights) that we were there. Jeff got a little more but only because he could sleep in through the nurses coming in to check on me and the baby.
Finally home and comfy with our own blankets.
It is soo nice being home. We still get no sleep and for someone who needs a lot of sleep I am doing pretty good. It was fun not knowing the gender until he came out, but it was hard to start referring to Gage as a him. We still referred to him as it or 'the baby' for quite awhile.

It didn't work...

2010-01-01T16:52:00.000-08:00

The blue moon came and here I was still pregnant. This picture was taken on New Years Day. I was hoping for a New Years baby. But it didn't happen.

It ended up being the last pictures I took while pregnant. This was Friday, gave birth on Sunday.

Christmas.

2009-12-31T13:59:00.000-08:00

We decided to build a gingerbread house. Because I am very pregnant, and we don't have my mom's gingerbread mold, we went with a kit. I think we'll stick with making our own. They are cuter and smell much better.

We decided to spend Christmas here in Mesa, and this was about the extent of our decorations. I wanted the rest of them, but we have no where to store anything. It is a good thing the top of the tree is cut off because we left the star in Utah. So nothing to put on the top. We made due with a snowflake ornament!
Christmas eve...38 Weeks pregnant. Hard to believe this picture is taken the same night as the next.
Don't really know why I am putting this one on here, but I look HUGE. We had Christmas Eve dinner with the missionaries and some friends. It was a great meal.
Our Christmas stockings. Santa actually showed up before we went to bed. Thanks to Mindy, who reminded us that Santa now our responsibility. Otherwise Santa would not have come at all.

Vegas Bowl

2009-12-22T14:11:00.000-08:00

On Sunday the 20, two days before the Vegas Bowl, we got a phone call offering us two tickets to BYU's bowl game. Vegas is only a 5 hour drive and we are coming from the south so no weather/traffic problems to consider. Jeff is out of school so this should be a no brainer. But because I would be 37 1/2 weeks pregnant we decided to go to my doctors appointment on Monday morning before taking the tickets. Turns out everything was still fine with no imminent signs of labor. So we packed up on Tuesday and drove to the bowl game. We decided to make the trip a little easier and got a hotel room which was a great decision. Especially cause it was cheap. Here was the game from our seats.

It was FREEZING! With winds of up to 55 mph right into our faces. Add in a little sand and trash to that wind and it was kind of miserable.
Most of the game was played on our side of the stadium because of the wind blowing the ball that direction every play. Oregon St. had two six yard punts which was great so that everyone could tell it was as windy as it was.
After BYU won 44-20, we rushed the field. And here is the picture to prove it to everyone who didn't believe us. Although if there hadn't been stairs down to the field I don't think I would have. Most people left the game early to watch the game in the comfort of their hotel rooms, but we stuck it out. Luckily I could still fit into my winter coat with a sweater on. And just in case you can't tell, Jeff really does have quite a few layers on.
The final score and every single fan left at the end of the game.
It was fun but it unfortunately did not send me into labor. I was kind of hoping. Oh yeah, we drove through snow about an hour outside of Phoenix on our way up there. And alot of extra traffic. Good thing we left early so that we didn't miss one minute of the game.

36 Weeks

2009-12-12T14:28:00.000-08:00

Here I am just past 36 weeks. Jeff was making me laugh while taking the picture...hence the funny face.

Thanksgiving

2009-11-30T14:30:00.000-08:00

We drove up to Utah for Thanksgiving. A lot family was going to be their, including my Grandpa, Uncle Dave and Aunt Vicky. Jeff also wanted to watch a couple of BYU football games, which was really the deciding factor. We split the drive up by staying in Vegas, where we took the only pictures of the vacation/holiday. Here they are. Can you believe we got the camera out for this Lamborghini and not the family, Thanksgiving, two byu football games, a hockey game and a baby shower?

Hopefully I can get some pictures from someone who has them to add to this.

32 Weeks Pregnant

2009-11-13T14:35:00.000-08:00

Week 32. This is what I look like most of the time. And what I wear to the gym. Thanks to a pair of XL shorts, they still fit.

Does somthing look different?

2009-11-10T14:40:00.000-08:00

There is no construction!! They have been working on this road since before we moved in. 1 1/2 years ago. They would move the cones all the time to so that you never knew where to drive. It is so nice not to have cones all over the place. If you look closely you can see the lovely pine trees they added to the center medians.

Halloween

2009-10-31T14:44:00.000-07:00

After a last minute change of plans for our halloween costumes, we decided to go with Erin's idea (mine apparently was not appropriate). Here we are a cook and an egg. And making that cooks hat was a lot more difficult than it should have been. At least it turned out fairly decent.

Don't mind our antenna. It works better when turned sideways.

Watermelon?!

2009-10-30T11:46:00.000-07:00

Today I received my first 'weird' pregnancy comment from someone. I was walking out of the market holding a watermelon under one arm and a bag of groceries under the other. As I left a lady said "Looks like you have two melons there." Well thanks. I'm glad that I am now as big as a watermelon and still have 10-11 weeks left. On the bright side I am glad I bought a smaller watermelon.

Here I am at 30 Weeks. Taken today right before I left for the store. Maybe it's the green shirt?

Yes, I am getting quite large. I know, I know, I'll only get bigger.

Here is 28 Weeks. See I took pictures to put up here...and then never did.

This was taken at 27 weeks. By Jeff this time so it's not in the bathroom. Same outfit so you can really tell the difference.
And this was sucking in at 27 weeks. Yeah. Didn't quite hide it.
And the cute baby robe I made. Too bad I gave it away. It's supposed to be size 12 months, but it seemed kinda big.

Toilet Problems

2009-09-25T12:21:00.000-07:00

Do you see what is missing?

If you look hard enough you might notice that our toilet is gone. Hmmm. That is not a good situation for a pregnant girl. No toilet in the apartment. Oh did I mention this was about 8 pm.
Yep our toilet started having issues, so we called maintenance. They asked how big of an emergency it was. Well with no working toilet and only one bathroom in our apartment it was a big emergency. Luckily they came within about 30 minutes to fix it. It took another hour and a half and now we have a different toilet. They gave up on ours and just replaced it with another. And then we just had to clean up. Yep. All those towels were dirty...

Week 24 and 25

2009-09-25T12:10:00.000-07:00

For those who said you couldn't see a belly before, look closely. This is at week 24 or as some say...6 months. Although I still have 4 months to go.

And if you couldn't see it in the above picture. Look here. This is exactly 1 week later. Week 25. It is there. This picture was taken approximately 30 minutes ago...very up to date. And a lot of growing in just one week. (Sorry it is blurry)

For Bethany.

2009-09-04T17:56:00.001-07:00

And only because you asked so nicely.

Here I am at 22 weeks. Yes I had to take my own picture. Jeff has been gone most of the last couple of days.

So there you go. You're welcome.

First day of School!

2009-09-04T17:50:00.000-07:00

Here is Jeff's first day of his second year picture. We got in really early from disneyland so we were tired when it was time for Jeff to leave. Too start off a great day, Jeff left to ride his bike to school...Only to find out it had been stolen when we were gone. So he was going to take mine. But the tires needed to be pumped up. So he took the car. By that time it was too late to snap a picture so I had to get it when he returned the car at lunch. I really needed to go grocery shopping and he had school and work all day. I'm sure we got a better picture at this time (in the car on the way back to school) than we would have gotten during our hectic morning.

Birthdays.

2009-09-04T17:43:00.000-07:00

On your birthday you can go into Disneyland for free. So we went one day for my birthday, and then again the next day for Jeff's. It was a lot of fun. We once again didn't take too many pictures. In fact this is all we got. It was two very long days of fun. Until we had to leave afterwards (with no rest) to drive home so Jeff could get back to his first day of class. It was one long drive ending very early in the morning.

At the end of the first day...don't I look tired. Well I was. Here is Cameron and Harrison in jail. Harrison literally ran from ride to ride loving. it.
And us with the classic Disneyland Picture.
All in all it was a great birthday celebration!

California

2009-09-04T17:33:00.000-07:00

We decided to go to California for our birthdays. My sister, Cameron, and her family (Tim and Harrison) decided to go at the same time. So it was fun to be able to see them. One of the days there we went to Laguna Beach and to the Pacific Mammal Rehabilitation Center. Here is Jeff, me and Harrison at the beach. It was great. Except for some sunburns everyone got. Harrison was safe (fully covered in sand at almost all times) and I had gotten a little burned the day before while swimming so I wore a shirt. So I was fine. Everyone else had some red shoulders and backs.

It was perfect weather. Not too hot, not too cold. And the water was actually very nice. Chilly, but not freezing. Tim and Jeff never got out of the water, and even Harrison enjoyed the waves.
And here were some sea lions that were getting rehabilitated.
All in all a very fun day.

Utah

2009-08-20T17:10:00.000-07:00

We were able to drive up to Utah and visit our familys. We took our camera but apparently neither one of us took a single picture. We stayed up there for 1 1/2 weeks and had a blast. We loved the cooler weather...just not the freezing weather we got. The first day we were there Provo had a record low of 70 degrees. That is a huge difference from the 115 we were used to.

We had a blast hiking, swimming, hanging out with family, driving the Jewel, spending time with family and shopping.

We were able to go see the Martin Harris Pageant in Logan. It was fun except once again we froze! Caleb, Jeff and I had to huddle under one blanket and try to last an hour and fifteen minutes in the wind.

If we could have stayed longer we just might have. But we had to a doctor's appointment to get back to. (and only a couple of days before we left on the next vacation.) And here it is. Our baby. If you look closely you might notice that the baby on the picture. That's right. We are not finding out the gender until the birth.And here is a little video of it they gave us.

It's Official

2009-08-04T17:06:00.000-07:00

Jeff has finished his first year of classes and his first clinical. What does this mean? He is now a second year and 1/3 the way done. And we now get to get out of the heat. 3 weeks with no school means vacation so we are out of here!

100 in 1 Year

2009-07-30T17:05:00.000-07:00

Yeah. We made it to 100 posts in just about a year. (Except for the fact that I am backdating this post!)

4 Years!

2009-07-22T16:51:00.000-07:00

Jeff surprised me on our fourth anniversery by bringing me home some flowers. I was wondering why it took him so long to ride his bike home. I was starting to get worried but he arrived with flowers. It really surprised me because we are taking 2 vacations in August, so we had decided not to get each other anything. Too bad we keep our apartment so warm that they don't last as long as they normally would.

We celebrated with Jeff's choice of activity this year. Me picking him up from his clinical (so no bike ride), and then dinner at In-n-out Burgers and a Diamondbacks game. We would have chosen something cheaper but Jeff lucked out and was given the tickets to the game.
Here are just a few pictures of the game, and Jeff at the game. And some famous players.

At the game we were so fortunate to recieve an Arizona Diamondbacks sunshield. We now proudly display it everyday.

Wicked

2009-07-15T20:19:00.000-07:00

We were finally able to use our tickets to Wicked. It really was a fun show. We both reccomend it. The only problem was it was the night before Jeff's last final so he was needing to study and a little more sleep the he got. I didn't really like the set up of the theater. The top level was above the top of the stage. So you are really looking down the whole time. We knew we had the cheap seats so we brought our little binoculars (the ones I got when I was little so we wouldn't borrow dad's nice pair) with us and it was a lot of fun to see their facial expressions. Made us feel a little bit closer to the stage.

Jeff didn't get the best pictures of me, but they are pictures and you can kind of see how steep the chairs were all put. We felt like we were on top of people. But it was soo much fun.
By the end I was glad that we keep our apartment so warm. Everyone else was hot and fanning themselves, and we didn't even notice!

Fourth of July

2009-07-15T19:58:00.000-07:00

The 4th of July isn't quite as exciting in the Phoenix area as in other places. There is nothing to do until the evening when they have a couple of events and fireworks. We decided that we did not want to roast during the fireworks, and wanted to get out of the heat for a little while, so we went up to Fossil Springs. It was awesome. It took a little over 2 hours to get there, and then about a mile hike in to a really good swimming area. But it was worth every minute we spent there. We went with Devin and Marianne and enjoyed being able to swim in water that was cool. Here was one of the closer swimming holes. And a picture of all 4 of us.
Furthur up there was a large swimming area with some waterfalls and areas to jump from. Jeff and I under the waterfall. It felt great to sit there with the cool mist from the falls.
And a picture of the waterfalls. You might also notice that there was a little more vegetation than just cactus! We were there until the sun dropped below the mountain, and it actually got a little cold. But I enjoyed every moment of feeling cold. I litterally have not been cold since I was last in Utah.
The Springs were in the mountains just past the town Payson. After swimming we went and got some food and waited for the fireworks to start. The fireworks lasted a full 43 minutes. There were only a couple of false endings but the were fantastic. This was the only picture taken there and yes, we did have food in our mouths.

It was a great 4th of July, until we got back to our apartment about midnight and it was still sweltering hot.

Papago Park

2009-06-30T20:18:00.000-07:00

We went to Papago Park, "hiked" hole in the rock, and had a picnic. It was fun. I say "hike" because it is literally a quarter mile. So not much, but really cool.
You can see the lake we picniced at. We found some shade under one of the palm trees and tried to cool down. It was great.

Here is the hole. You walk through there and then see the views like in the two pictures above.

Desert Botanical Gardens

2009-06-30T19:56:00.000-07:00

Mesa has a culture pass that you can check out from the library. It gives you admission to a few different places around the valley for free. There are a few restrictions but not bad. I got the one to go to the Desert Botanical Gardens. We went early on a Saturday morning. We pretty much walked around in the heat...looking at cactuses. Can it get any better? Some were blooming so that made it better. I don't know if I would pay $15/per person to see all the cactuses, but for free it was cool. It would probably be better when it isn't so hot outside.

We saw tons of thses lizards around.

And these birds.

Pinning Ceremony

2009-06-15T14:22:00.000-07:00

Jeff's school had a pinning ceremony. They had food, and a little ceremony for it. Afterwards they got class pictures taken. Here is a close up of Jeff in his class picture.

And Jeff's class. He is two rows up and three people from the right on the right side of the picture.

Here we are just after the ceremony.

And Jeff right after receiving his pin. You can see it on his pocket.
Jeff receiving his pin.

And Jeff's name before the pinning.

"The Pin is presented to students completing their first year of study. The triangular gold pin symbolizes membership into the physical therapy profession and also represents students' association with A. T. Still University. The pin is surrounded by an aqua border, characteristic of the color of the physical therapy doctoral hood. The triangular shape represents the integration of body, mind and spirit."

Las Vegas

2009-06-14T13:53:00.000-07:00

We went to see the Blue Man group at the Venetian on Saturday night. Thanks to Lances parents who forced us to use their tickets. We loved the show. Before we went in we walked around the Venetian Hotel for a few minutes. Here I am with one of the boats you can take a ride on. And then the whole group in the Venetian.
And waiting for the show to start. Looking really excited.

Our row waiting for the show to start.

Here we are after the show with one of the Blue Men.

We went and toured the Ethel M. Chocolate factory. No one was there, but we did get our free sample of chocolate. We also got to see the cactus gardens. Real exciting for those of us who live with cacti. This is really the only picture Jeff took while there. Can you see the similarity?

The first night we walked the strip. This picture doesn't really look like we are on the strip...but we were. Jeff in front of the fountains Bellagio. We got there right in time to see them start.

And some more fountains.

It was such a fun trip. We had a blast.

Flowers

2009-06-12T13:46:00.000-07:00

Jeff always takes pictures of flowers, and these were so pretty I decided to put them on their own. These ones were taken at the Jacob Hamblin House.
And the next couple were at the Brigham Young house.

St. George

2009-06-11T13:21:00.000-07:00

Jeff's school break just happened to coincide with Mindy and Lance's and Lance's Family's vacation to St. George and Las Vegas. We were lucky to be allowed to tag along. And it was soo much fun.

The first night there we went to the Tuacahn theater to see Annie. Jeff didn't even now what the story was about, but could (unfortunately) sing along with every song. It was windy, but the weather turned out to be nice and they did a really good job with the play. Here is the group. Well mostly me, Mindy, and Lance.

And here is Jeff and I before the show.

Here we are at the Jacob Hamblin house. They kept telling us it was out in the middle of nowhere and that it was just some shack. It was way better than I was expecting from that description! Here is the group that was there for that portion. Lance's Parents, his nephew Daniel, sister Donny, Lance, Mindy, Jeff and Me.
Jeff and me in front of the same building.
We also got to visit the Brigham Young house. This is the traditional picture taken in front of the traditional tree. We had to wait for an old lady to get out of the way before we could finally take the picture. She took forever but finally moved. And we got the picture.

Jeff and me in front of the Brigham Young house. For such a small building the tour took forever.

Jeff wanted to see where his grandma was buried. It took forever to locate. We finally found his great grandma's headstone. Norma is Jeff's Grandma. I thought that since we found his grandma's name on a headstone in the same cemetery we could count that. Nope.

We looked for over an hour for this one. Grandma Norma.

And a close up.

We spent a lot of time in the pool. We seriously went swimming twice a day, every day. We spent every night in a different hotel, 4 total, so we were really able to judge which ones had the nicest pool. And which ones had the nicest continental breakfast. Lance really enjoyed the hot tub, while Mindy and I worked out.

Memorial Day

2009-05-25T13:05:00.000-07:00

Jeff's school had a deal where we could get some cheap Arizona Diamondback tickets. So Jeff decided to get a group of people together and go to their game on Memorial Day. We got there really early so we were able to get free parking and then into the game in time for all the festivities. It was a really hot day, and a 1pm game, so we were glad they had the roof closed.
Here is some famous player. They played the Padres.

And here are some more famous players.

They had to home runs hit to left field and we were in left center...so about 20 feet from us.

Jeff showing off the field. Our seats were actually much closer. Then he is in the picture.

And Jeff outside of the Chase Field...Too bad the Diamondbacks lost in 10 innings.

Reality TV

2009-05-20T20:11:00.000-07:00

Arizona does NOT observe daylight savings time. This is a great thing. We love not changing time twice a year. However, this means that we are on Mountain Standard time, which is the same as Pacific time. So when it is 7 here, it is 10 on the East Coast. What does this have to do with reality tv? A whole lot. We can look up who won each show before it even starts for us. The American Idol Finale was tonight. I googled it, and found 3000+ articles on who won. At 7. When the show was supposed to start. And that was really only how many articles were similar to the one I actually looked at. This happens with every competition. Jeff likes surprises. I want to know as soon as I can. It is a source of contention in this household. Oh well.

Donating

2009-05-19T17:45:00.000-07:00

Jeff donated blood. They had one of the mobile blood donating trucks at our apartment complex. They were offering free ice cream. So Jeff did the right thing to get our ice cream. As you can see in this next picture, the loss of blood made him a little crazy.

Just kidding, it's just a weird picture and a weird view. And of course he picked a blue bandage. See, he really does look a little more normal.

Our Date Night...sort of

2009-05-16T17:26:00.000-07:00

For Mother's Day, Jeff said he would get me tickets to Wicked. It is coming to Phoenix in July and I wanted to go. I had already looked up the prices and checked to make sure that they still had tickets. Unfortunately, the convenience fee for buying the tickets online or over the phone is $8...a ticket. For two of us that is $16. So we had to wait a while before we were able to make a trip to ASU to purchase them. We didn't think too much about it being graduation weekend when we went. We got there just as the Law school graduation finished. After weaving through everyone we finally purchased our tickets. The only bad part is that it is taking our entertainment budget for the next 3 months to be able to go. So after getting our tickets, to finish our date we went to Bass Pro Shops. We had fun drooling over all the boats they had and laughing at the little teeny Treager they had (although we still wanted it). Jeff said he wants this mailbox. I don't think I could justify $100 to put a fish out as our mailbox.

We also liked this truck. Thinking either Caleb or Lance might really like it. All I can say is I am glad I did not marry a hunter.
By the way, I like Cabela's better. They don't have all the creepy mannequins standing around, and they have better dead animal displays.

It's that time of year again...

2009-05-12T21:50:00.001-07:00

Where we have to keep everything in the fridge. The good thing is that any food not quite ripe, ripens really quickly. The bad part is that what is ripe spoils really quickly. We have had temperatures over 100 degrees for the past two weeks. They are forcasted to stay that way until, well at least for the next ten days. It is such good swimming weather. We have already had a couple of pool parties and will continue to enjoy the pool until it starts to feel like a hot tub again. They really need to cool them down during the summer. Oh yeah, if it makes any of you jealous (it should not) to keep cost down we keep our apartment at about 83-84 degrees. That is really warm for the inside of an apartment. Its hard to cool the apartment down because the night temperatures only get down to 74 degrees or so. It is 10:00 pm and still 92 degrees outside. Oh well. That's what we get for living in Arizona.

Trip to Utah/ Triathlon

2009-04-30T21:27:00.000-07:00

A friend was traveling up to Utah with just here two kids. She asked if I would come along and help drive. So I did. It was a fast trip but a lot of fun. Mindy had signed up for a team triathlon and when the found out I was going to be there that weekend they had me do the run. It was a cold, cold, rainy day. The swim was indoors, but they started the girls way to close together so they were bumping into each other with no way to pass. But she still did a good job, especially since she is pregnant. Caleb did the bike. It was a mountain bike trail and was sooo muddy. They were sliding all over and everyone was so muddy when they finished. I did the run. It would have been more fun if the second half wasn't straight uphill. It was on the University of Utah's campus and the last half of the run was up the huge long hill in the middle of campus. And it was altitude. I am not used to altitude (or cold). It was hard but fun. We waited around for hours to hear the results, but the had trouble with the timing so we finally left without hearing them. Too bad we didn't stay because we took third. Yeah for us.

Easter

2009-04-12T21:19:00.000-07:00

Every year Jeff fills my Easter basket, and I fill his. He did great even going to Micheal's to find the chocolate-hazelnut carrots that I love. This year he also got me some lotion. One was a vanilla buttercream...it smells like frosting. I happened to wear it to church on Easter which was fast sunday. After sacrament meeting one of our friends came up and asked if it smelled like frosting to us. She said she had "smelled it the whole meeting and it smelled so good." I had to admit it was my lotion. Since then there have been several comments when I wear the lotion about it smelling like frosting.

Jeff was also excited for his basket. He got upset the night before when he thought that I had forgotten to get peeps. For those who don't know Jeff LOVES peeps. Luckily he got three boxes.

Easter Pageant

2009-04-10T21:04:00.000-07:00

The Easter Pageant is held every year at the Mesa Temple. As we live so close to it, we decided that we would attend it the Friday before Easter. It was a really fun experience. I packed a really good dinner and we got there pretty early. Early enough to get seats on about the third row. We were so close that you could actually see the actors mouths moving. Here is a picture from the end of the program. They do a really good job portraying the life of Jesus Christ and it was a great way to remember what Easter is about.

We were there so early that we ate dinner there to take up some of the waiting time. I packed great sandwiches (with meat and everything), we had veggies and dip, kettle corn, and drinks. It was all so good. Most people had fast food, so our meal was definately better. We weren't jealous or anything...until we were eating our carrots and broccoli. The ladies next to us just had to pull out there chocolate covered strawberries. Oh my goodness. They looked so good.

Here's Jeff showing just how close to the stage we were. It was actually a fairly cool night. We had jackets and everything. When we got home the news said they canceled soccer games and that you needed to stay inside because of the weather...it was in the 60' and the wind was blowing around 30 mph or so. Not breaking news worthy.

Conference Weekend

2009-04-06T20:54:00.000-07:00

This weekend was kind of fun. Friday we went out to lunch with some friends that are in Jeff's class. We followed that up with some shopping. It is fun to go shopping with money that has to be spent. We got a $100 visa gift card for finding our apartment on rent.com. We have to use that money by the end of the month. We ended up getting a frame for a picture my brother gave us forever ago. We also watched a lot of conference. It was good. Especially because we missed out on so much last conference...St. George Marathon was that weekend. We woke up on Saturday to go to yard sales. There were a lot but we didn't find anything. We were also able to spend a lot of time with friends and family. It was good. I had an opportunity to go up to Utah and visit family, but Jeff wanted me here. I didn't want to stay if he was studying the whole weekend. So he took the weekend off and I saw a lot more of him than I have in long time. It was fun. Unfortunately he now has to make up for the missed studying. He has a test everyday this week. Oh well.

Vacation!

2009-03-31T20:23:00.000-07:00

It wasn't our vacation but it almost seemed like it was. Mindy and Lance took a few days off of work and came down for some sun and relaxation. Instead of the snow, they got sun the entire weekend. Luckily we also had cooler temps, it was only into the 80's. While they were here we had a lot of fun. We ate some good food, mainly mormon muffins (which we finally finished a week later). We also did some shopping and tried to go to the farm. But it was closed. We also got to go to the temple. Here are the temple grounds. Don't they look great right now?

Here is Jeff and me. Mindy and Lance got pictures but they are on their camera. Sorry.Here are some pictures from the Spring Training baseball game we went to. The Brewer's vs. the A's. We were going to go the the Mariner's vs. Angels but the game was sold out. We could have bought lawn tickets for $15 (the sell retail for $7) but decided we would rather go to another game.
Here is the sausage race. Entertaining to say the least.

The sausages walking right past our seats. Mindy, Lance and Jeff lucked out getting seats in the shade. It was a little cooler.
Here we are after the game. Right next to the field.
Jeff and me at the game. You can see we got some pretty good seats. We lucked out and got 4 tickets for $6. We bought one off of some guy and the were able to get three tickets free. These tickets were for seats. Not the lawn like we were expecting.
Some famous people. I would ask Jeff, but he is studying.
We also went to Tempe Towne Lake. It was a fun little walk. Here Mindy and Lance are posing in front of the Office Buildings. The lakes behind me...the picture taker.
And that was that.

A/C

2009-03-25T18:38:00.001-07:00

We are glad we have air conditioning. We were not glad that we had to turn it on so early. We finally gave in last Friday. The temperature hit 90 degrees several days in a row, and started to make our apartment unbearable. When it was 87 inside at 8:30 pm, and no hope of cooling off, we gave in and turned on the a/c. We only left it on for a few minutes, because it started to feel amazingly cooler. That was at 82 degrees. We have appreciated the slightly cooler temps this week.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2009-03-17T22:36:00.000-07:00

Every year I have made a different meal for jeff that ends up entirely green. Some years there is a little more dye used than other years. This was a year for a little more die. Mostly because I wanted breadfast burritos. They were on spinach tortillas, with cheese dyed green and some eggs that were a little bluish but still green. When I was making the eggs I thought all the way back to elementary school where I learned if you mix yellow with blue it makes green. So I decided to add blue to the eggs to get them green. Didn't work. It just turned them blue. Then I added some green and a little yellow. But they still turned a little blue. I also colored the orange juice. It was funny because Jeff hadn't picked up on the green theme yet (I know crazy?), so when he looked at the juice he said "what is this crap?" I had to tell him that it was all green before he clued in. It was pretty funny. And here was the mess afterwords. If you look closely, the only die you can see is the blue one!

Baseball

2009-03-15T22:25:00.000-07:00

The last day of Jeff's spring break, we decided to go out and watch a baseball game. There are a lot of teams in the area who are playing all of their spring training games. The weather was great 85 degrees, we got cheap tickets, and we had fun. Tickets for the lawn are $7, and I was able to grab a free ticket from someone who was giving it away. So even though my ticket was for a seat, I sat on the grass with Jeff. Luckily we had on the sun screen because it sure was sunny. We saw the LA Angels beat the Chicago Cubs 6-4.

Look closely and you can see Alfonso Soriano, star player for the Cubs.
And once again Jeff. Our game was cheap. But we were amazed at how much others payed on food and alcohol. The people in front of us spent over $100 on beer. I know because I counted the containers. And the guy next to us spent at least $50 on food...just for himself.
We were grateful for our friends Devin and Marianne who invited us over for dinner that night. They made a great meal, which we really enjoyed. And we also enjoyed some fun games. It was great Spring Break. Thats for sure.

Another hike

2009-03-13T22:04:00.000-07:00

We went on one last hike. This hike looped around but we cheated and cut through because we were freezing. Too bad once we cut through we could see the end of the loop. We really didn't save any time or distance. But still fun.

Here is Jeff when we got back. If you look closely you should see that it was snowing. It snowed one other night, but that 1/4 inch melted really quick. We enjoyed the cooler weather, sleeping under a blanket, and drinking lots of hot chocolate.

This was right outside our room the morning we left. The most snow we've seen in a while. Good thing we were leaving!

Feeding the Ducks

2009-03-13T21:54:00.000-07:00

We decided to feed the ducks, so we went to Safeway and bought some duck bread. It was fun, a little chilly, but we think that with anything under 85 degrees.

Jeff had a lot of fun feeding the ducks, until the big ones got a little close (read within 5 feet of him). He used the excuse of some agressive duck a neighbor had when he was little.

Jeff had a lot of fun feeding the ducks,

Indian Ruins

2009-03-12T20:01:00.000-07:00

We drove out to some Indian ruins close to Whiteriver, Az. It was a scenic drive. Here are some mountains we passed on the way out there.

And the city of Whiteriver.
And here are the ruins. It was a little windy but a fun place to explore.

Here's Jeff standing in front of some of them.

And the only other people up there took this picture for us. Notice the clouds behind us. They were sure getting dark. It actually started raining right after we left.
Just another view.
And Jeff...again. Here you can clearly see the two floors.
And me. Showing the ruins from a distance.
We would have explored a little more, but we didn't exactly have the permit you were supposed to pick up in a the town 15 (give or take) miles away. It was also at a danger of flash floods and there was a storm coming in.

About 5 miles from the place we stayed were the Reservations. It was funny because it looked like the middle of nowhere, but right passed the border of the reservation was the casino. You went around the corner in the mountains and there was a huge flashing sign and a huge building. Nothing else around at all. Too bad we didn't win anything. Actually we didn't even try. We have so little money that we can't take the chance of losing it. We wandered around for maybe 5 minutes before leaving and we smelled like smoke the rest of the night. It was awful.

2009-03-11T19:51:00.000-07:00

We went miniature golfing on a nice, sunny, warm day. If you look closely I won both games. The first one was 51-57 and the second game was 46-43. Par was 45. I got 3 hole in ones. Jeff got one. On the second game.

One of the reasons Jeff lost. His ball stopped in the middle of that hollow rock!
Me with my first hole in one.
Another reason Jeff lost. He is just too strong. His ball is way off course.
Showing off my great form.
And Jeff's great form.
Jeff is much better at most anything that requires a ball. Miniature golf is the only thing I can beat him in. Which is why I have to take advantage and brag the few times I beat him.

Snowflake Temple

2009-03-10T19:39:00.000-07:00

Pinetop is close to Snowflake. So we decided to go to the Snowflake Temple while out there. It is one of the smaller temples but was very pretty. We also loved the location. It is literally on top of the mountain. You have to drive up a huge, steep road to get there. There are a few houses but really not too much around it.

Here is the front of the Temple.

And us in front of the fountain.

And a view from the side. If you look closely you can see that it says erected 2002.
This is the back of the temple. Once again with Jeff. I think there were some awesome pictures places here. And remember, its winter here, snow had just melted.
Another view of the side...and Jeff.
We then went and got ice cream at McDonald's and explored Snowflake a bit more.

Spring Break cont.

2009-03-09T19:21:00.000-07:00

We got to Pinetop on Friday and were all prepared to search for a church to attend on Sunday. We ended up not looking to far because there was one a mile down the road from where we stayed. The dilemma was then "do we attend the 9 o'clock of 11 o'clock ward?"

We went out searching on Monday for some volcanic fields. We found the area, but not the exact place that the guy had told us. Here you can see the road we were driving on to get there and the rock on the left was volcanic.

Here is some more rock with Jeff standing in front of it.
And just a little view from not very far off the road. We were freezing so decided to skip the hike and just go back to the resort and play around.
Did I mention this place had two t.v.'s. One in the living room and one in the bedroom. That means I got to watch a lot of Food Network and TLC, while Jeff watched basketball. On Wednesday we watched the Syracuse vs. UCONN game. I watched quite a bit of basketball with Jeff but I agreed to stay up with Jeff and watch the end of this game. Unfortunately it went into six overtimes. Too bad my team lost.

Daylight Savings

2009-03-08T19:33:00.000-07:00

Funny thing. We were watching a little bit of CNN, trying to catch up on current events. When we saw the time on the bottom flash through. It said MT and then the time...which was an hour later then we were. We were confused as to why they had put the wrong time up. Turns out we didn't realize Daylight Savings time had ended. We completely missed the time change. It wasn't until a few days later when my dad was telling me a story about his spinning instructor almost missing class that we realized the rest of the nation had changed time.

Spring Break

2009-03-06T19:13:00.000-08:00

For Jeff's spring break we were lucky enough to get out of Mesa and head up to Pinetop, Az. We had lots of fun. The place we stayed had swimming, ping pong, pool, racquetball courts, basketball (inside), horse shoes, bocce ball, miniature golf and bbq's. All available without a charge. Needless to say we did all of it. We also did a bit of hiking. This was a hike around the Woodland Lake. It was nice to get out in the mountains and hike without dieing of heat. This hike was great because it circled around the lake with a few trails that went off from there.

My project.

2009-02-21T22:47:00.000-08:00

I found some sturdy fabric at Walmart for $1.50 a yard so I bought two yards and decided to make some cloth shopping bags. Not only am I sick of plastic bags, but you get 5 cents back for every reusable bag you bring to the store. I looked at them online and then modeled them after a bag I had. I got six bags out of the two yards and I think they turned out pretty cute.

Bike Ride

2009-02-15T19:00:00.000-08:00

We decided to go on a bike ride. there is a lot of construction around us (it's been going on since we moved in) so we put our bikes in the car and drove down to the canal. This is the same canal that we run on. When we were training for our marathon we would run south on the canal, all the way to the end. Sometimes we would have to back track to get our full mileage in. We tried the other direction, but at 3:30 am running in the dark under the freeway was a little sketchy. So we decided to ride our bikes the other direction and see what we were missing.

We found out we definitely picked the prettier direction. But it was fun and a pretty ride. Too bad the pavement ended and it was a little bumpy for a street bike. Good thing I got new bike tires for Christmas. They sure made it an easier ride.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2009-02-14T14:04:00.000-08:00

We like Valentines Day. It is one more excuse to go out and have fun. We received a gift card a few months ago (Thank you Bethany!), which we decided to save and use it for a special date. So we went out on Friday. We actually got "officially" engaged on the Friday before Valentines Day four years ago. So we like to do something big on the Friday before, this also helps to avoid crowds. So anyways here we are going out to dinner at Macaroni Grill. It was really good. We enjoyed going out to a nice restaurant for once. I think this is the first time since moving to Mesa that we have gone out to eat at a place without ESPN playing on the T.V.! It was great. We also went to the temple this morning with some friends. It was really fun. I told Jeff that I wanted a poem, chocolates, and flowers for Valentines Day. But really just a poem. Jeff's not the type to really write poetry. And he doesn't usually do what I tell him to do, but this time he did. I thought it was pretty funny so here it is. He actually made me a copy that had some pictures for the background, but it would take longer to put that up here (and we are wanting to leave on a bike ride.) Sooo, here it is.

My Valentine

I love the way you smile so big

You make me laugh so heartily

You’re my all-American quarterback wife

Who sits on barstools and feels like ice

At buffalo wild wings and hopes

And prays that BYU wins so a happy husband she may see

You put up with all my shenanigans

Even if you want to kick me in the shins

My life would be in disarray

But my wife always saves the day

You are the nicest person I know

And would not trade you for the world

Not even a BYU football game

The hikes, the rides, the walks, the talks

The very, very rainy marathon

These are some of my memories

I hope you will be my valentine for life

Studying?

2009-02-14T13:55:00.000-08:00

A lot of the stuff Jeff is learning in school is hands on. Which means he needs to practice on someone. That someone is sometimes me. He made me do it the other day when I was looking at the pictures on the camera. Normally he does all this without his book. But this time he was looking something up, and I got bored. This is what he looks like when he is studying. You can see that he needs a haircut. But he is studying too much to get it done. (If you look closely you can also see that he has a bit of grey hair. The grey hair doesn't show as much when he has shorter hair.)

Exploring

2009-02-14T13:40:00.000-08:00

We went exploring up in the Mountains last Saturday. It was funny because one of our friends drove by and saw us, He then called and asked if we were lost. We weren't, because we didn't really know where our destination was. Our mountains are not what we are used to be we did find some cool places to go hiking. Which we need to take advantage of now while it is only 85 degrees and not 120.

We decided to take a couple of pictures this was right by the sign that says Phoenix. It was apparently used to show pilots where the city was before there were air traffic controllers.
We have been having fun out by the pool, running, and biking, playing at the park and all of those kinds of things while the weather is nice.

Flowers

2009-02-05T13:12:00.000-08:00

When I got back from my loooong trip. All ten day of it. I told Jeff to meet me at the airport with flowers. I was surprised when he actually did (Remember I got in close to midnight after Jeff had been studying and taking tests all week.) But I was very excited that I got a dozen pink roses. The only bad thing...We don't have any vases. So we had to use our plastic pasta container. It actually didn't look that bad. In fact, Jeff asked me where I found the vase.

Filing.

2009-02-04T13:23:00.000-08:00

We have moved almost every six months since we have been married. Fun in ways, bad in others. Every time we move, we get our filing system set up and all the paper work organized. And then we move and everything changes. This move we did not have access to our little file boxes, so nothing got taken care of. We are planning on staying in this apartment for a couple of years until Jeff is done with school. So I (with the help of a couple of Christmas presents) decided to get everything super organized. This is what it started out with. Two small file boxes and one huge pile of unfiled papers.

And like everything it has to get worse before it gets better. I was smart enough to get this cleaned up before Jeff got back from school so he never saw it like this. I was really hoping that no one would stop be, because this is what you would see with the door open.
When we moved to Mesa, we knew we would be here for a while, so I wanted to find a little file cabinet. I searched Goodwill, Savers, D.I. and yard sales, until I found this one. It was in the best condition and the cheapest (even has the key with it), only $5. I got it the end of October and it has been sitting next to our desk just waiting for stuff to be put into it.
Thanks to some file folders and a label machine we got for Christmas, I felt obligated to get everything cleaned up. And It is soo much nicer now. Everything is taken care of and easy to find.

Washington

2009-02-04T07:57:00.000-08:00

I went up to Washington for my Grandma's funeral. It was a little crazy getting everything worked out so that we all could get there, but it all worked out. The viewing was a little interesting. In the funeral home they had another viewing going on at the same time. But it was for a young black guy. When people arrived, you could definately tell whose viewing they were there for. The funeral went very nicely, my sister Cameron, and my dad were the ones who spoke and they both did a great job.

It was really cold the whole time I was gone. It is really weird to have to get my coat out of storage to go on a trip. But, it was nice to see some more snow and get to wear all of my winter clothes that I don't get to wear. It was also fun to spend time with most of my family. Isaac and Julene weren't able to make it, but I was able to spend time with everyone else while I was there.

Catching Up...

2009-02-02T19:58:00.000-08:00

I have been meaning to update my blog but...I went out of town...Jeff studied alot (on the computer)...I would get sidetracked surfing the Internet...and really because I am lazy and it seemed a little overwhelming to type everything out. I really did have some adventures. It all started out on the 11th of January. I got a phone call that my Grandma (my dad's mom) had passed away. My grandparents live in Washington State, and I live in Arizona. Making it difficult to drive to the funeral. There was no way that I could take our only car here and make a 24 hour drive by myself. Flying would cost around $1000. A little out of our budget. We really felt like I should go, so we looked into any other option. It turned out that I could get a flight to Utah for under $100. That was doable. So I flew to Utah on Monday night.

Too bad it was a crappy flight. I had to fly to Las Vegas, and then up to Salt Lake, arriving at 11:30 pm. Thanks to my brother in law Lance for picking me up from the airport. While I was flying, my sister Bethany was driving to Utah from Colorado. The next morning (Tuesday) I met up with my family and we drove up to Washington, a twelve hour drive. Because Bethany and I had both hitched a ride we had a packed van with 5 adults, 2 kids, and a toddler bed we were taking up to my sister. It was a long drive and we were all tired by the time we arrive at my sister Cameron's house in Washington.

We then attended my Grandma's viewing and funeral, spent another day visiting with Cameron and her family, and drove back to Utah on Sunday. When I left Arizona, we didn't know how I was going to get home. Jeff looked at the options and we decided that I would drive out to Colorado with my sister (7 hour drive), Bethany so that she wouldn't have to make the drive alone. I would stay with her for a couple of days and then fly back home out of Denver, Colorado. It was actually the cheapest flight we could find.

I was gone for a week and a half. I left Arizona and traveled through Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Colorado before getting back home. That was 6 states in 10 days, a whole lot of traveling if you ask me. This might seem like it was all about the traveling, well trust me, it felt like a whole lot of traveling. So check back tomorrow (those who bugged me about posting more) I promise I will get some more up quickly, and they might just be a little more interesting.

Superbowl!

2009-02-02T19:55:00.000-08:00

After church and all of our meetings were over, we went over to some friends house to watch the superbowl. As we are now huge Cardinals fans, it was a dissappointing end. But it was tons of fun to watch. It was even better because I bet that the Cardinals would go to the superbowl...way back before the playoffs even started. The end of the game was exciting, and made it harder to watch them lose. Still, we had a fun evening.

Groundhogs Day!

2009-02-02T19:48:00.000-08:00

On a more recent note, Happy Groundhog's Day! Now Punxsutawney Phil's shadow was not seen, so six more weeks of winter. But.....the groundhogs in the South and Southwest all saw their shadows. Does that mean that winter is almost over here? I sure hope not. The last few weeks we have been seeing temperatures in the 70's. Today the car said it was 81 degrees (at 5:30 when I left the gym). Last Saturday, Jeff and I spent the afternoon out by the pool. With the sun shining and no breeze, we got hot. So we ended up walking down to the gas station and splurging on Slurpee's. They were really good. But it was pretty warm. It is only February. We can't afford to have to start cooling down our apartment yet. Therefore, I hope we get six more weeks of winter.

Fiesta Bowl Parade

2009-01-08T20:40:00.000-08:00

The Fiesta Bowl is played in Phoenix, and they hold a parade a few days before it. This year we were down here, having just gotten back from Utah, and decided to attend it. It started at eleven and we got there at about noon. We were at the very end of the parade route and enjoyed the warm weather and fun entries. They have a marching band competition, and so marching bands from around the nation were in the parade. It was a lot of fun. Here is Jeff with his favorite cheerleaders. If you look closely you might be able to tell that they were all 80 years old...or older! I know my eyes are closed, but this guys famous. I don't know his name, I could look it up if I really felt like it, but he is the guy from the Disney channel. He's on the show Wizards of Waverly Place.
And here we are together.
And Jeff with THE Ohio Sate University Marching Band.
And with Bevo. You could see him better in person.

Skiing!

2009-01-02T20:06:00.000-08:00

We went Skiing on New Year's Eve Day. It was soo much fun. Jeff and I went with my Aunt Alma, Uncle Mike, Donavan, Amanda, Brandon and Caleb. Amanda and Brandon had never been before so it was interesting. Luckily we had a couple of pros, Aunt Alma and Uncle Mike, there to help us. Here we were getting ready to go.

And here we are all ready to head on out. From L to R: Donavan, Amanda, Uncle Mike, Aunt Alma, Chelan, Jeff, Caleb, and Brandon.
It was fun, except for when Brandon hurt his knee and had to be taken down on a stretcher. He was fine, although no more skiing for him. Caleb and I went down a pretty scary slope with Uncle Mike and Aunt Alma. It was icy and windy, and exactly what I don't want to be skiing in. It was funny when I fell though. I got my ski stuck in the snow about a foot deep. It was so deep that I couldn't pull it back out without a little help. Luckily we all survived. And arrived home to a great meal that my mom had ready when we walked in the door.

We followed our day of great skiing up with going to a party at Aaron and Kareth's house. Unfortunately we were there for a couple of hours before I stated feeling sick. So Jeff and I went home. And while everyone celebrated the New Year, I was throwing up with the flu. Not a fun way to end a vacation. I even missed the party that I had planned on New Year's. Jeff never got sick so we were able to make it home on Friday, the second of January, as planned.

Christmas Presents

2008-12-25T15:22:00.001-08:00

Most of the Christmas presents we gave people were handmade be Chelan this year. Because of that not as much time lately has been spent on anything else. Even the 12 hour drive up to Utah was spent sewing. We were finally able to put my sewing machine away and get our dining room table back. The how-to books have finally been returned to the library and it was fun to give everyone their gifts.
I quilted a wall hanging for the parents. That means that I had to make two of these.

Here is a picture where you can see the back.

And a close up of the snowman.

These were a little harder than expected because I have sewn and pieced quilts but I have never done quilting. So I had to read up on how to do it properly. I also have not sewn on too many buttons, and between these two, I had to sew on 32 of them. It is lots of fun to see the finished product. Unfortunately I have not gotten the other presents to all of my sisters, so I should not post pictures of those until I get them.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-25T15:15:00.000-08:00

This was taken before opening presents on Christmas morning. It has been fun to be with family during the holidays and to get a little bit of cold weather. We had a week of 55-60 degrees and rain right before coming up and decided if it was cold, we might as well have snow. We are also glad to have another break in school, and to finally be done making Christmas presents.

Snow!!

2008-12-22T14:52:00.000-08:00

We are in Utah for Christmas. We made it through in between storms. Pretty lucky since even Las Vegas had 3 inches of snow and there were multiple road closures that could have made it difficult to drive up. We made it right before it started snowing and it has now snowed 15+ inches. The first day we were here we decided to go outside and play in the snow.
Here's Jeff all bundled up.
We made a huge giant snowball and then decided to turn it into a slide we could sled down. It was so much fun and so big. Here is Jeff getting ready to slide down, Caleb showing how tall it was, and Gabriel and Thomas so you can see the slide.

The slide was soo much fun. After building it, you still could not see the grass. We fought about who's turn it was, and this time I won.

We also built a giant snowman.

We had trouble keeping the arms in. Suzy kept wanting to take the sticks and play with them.

We have since gotten even more snow, making it difficult to get anywhere. Apparently no city has any money, so they are not plowing any of the streets. But at least we have gotten a very very white Christmas.

Christmas in Mesa

2008-12-15T14:09:00.000-08:00

The Mesa Temple puts up lights every year. We went to see them the first Sunday in December and really enjoyed getting into the Christmas Spirit. They also have groups that come and perform every night at 7. It was lots of fun to hear a choir singing and to look at all the lights.

As you can tell by the way Jeff is dressed, it wasn't too cold. Although there were people who were wearing coats, hats, gloves, and scarves. A little overboard for 70 degrees.

They do lights a little differently here. They put lights on the palm trees.

And plant flower lights.

And add extra palm tree leaves to the palm trees. These look really cool in person. And water to the fountain.

All in all, the lights look really cool and make a fun night.

Christmas Party!

2008-12-13T14:38:00.000-08:00

Two years ago, Jeff decided to grow a beard for the first time. He happened to do it right before Christmas. Our ward decided that because of the beard we would be the perfect couple to be Mary and Joseph in the Ward Christmas Party Program. I then told Jeff he was never allowed to grow a beard around Christmas again. Well this year he decided not to shave over his Thanksgiving vacation. When we got back from California, he had a beard. And we were promptly asked to be in the Ward Christmas Party Program. YEAH! Jeff was a shepherd and I was an angel. It was worse this time because we actually had to talk.Above is a picture of just us, and below is everyone who participated in the program.

And Jeff is really not allowed to grow a beard in the winter. Ever.

Even Worse!

2008-12-10T20:05:00.000-08:00

I don't know how the swimming pool at the gym could get any worse but it did. Here's why:
1. No markings on the wall, so you can't tell where to turn. Normally you can go by the line on the bottom of the pool but...
2. No line to follow on the bottom of the pool. Only little 4 inch diamonds that are 3 ft. apart. You can swim straight, but no help being able to tell where the wall is.
3. No lane lines. They say they put in the lane lines but I still have not seem them in the pool.
4. There are three "lanes" but one corner has stairs and the whole wall has a built in bench. So no swimming in that "lane."
5. The pool is so short you think you have been swimming forever. You turn about 20 times and realize that only 2 minutes have passed since you got in the pool.
6. Because the pool is so short and there are no lane lines you are swimming the waves that you made. Add anyone else to the mix and the waves get so huge that you breathe in water. It's like swimming in a lake...but with a wall every 4 ft.
7. You only get 3 butterfly strokes, 4 breastroke strokes, 6 backstroke and 7 freestyle strokes before you have to turn around.
8. Remember how the guy told me that the pool is 14 yards long. That was a lie. It is actually 14 meters. You think they could get that straight.

Everyone in Arizona owns a pool. You would think that a 'high' class gym would build a pool larger than all the backyard pools around.

Bikes.

2008-12-03T17:07:00.000-08:00

Jeff's parents and Becca were kind enough to bring our bikes to California where we got them and continued to Arizona with them. It has been perfect bike riding weather. Jeff now rides his bike to school and I ride my bike everywhere else. At least I did. Now my bike has a flat. I was riding it to them gym, got 1 1/2 miles away and then had to walk back home. With my bike and its flat tire. Luckily my bike weighs nothing so the walk wasn't too bad. I just called my Mom so that I wouldn't be bored. Too bad it was right past the construction, so I had to walk back past the construction workers where there is no road. The roads around here are a little hard to ride on because there is no shoulder. Literally. The white line that marks the edge of the lane is right next to the gutter. Oh well. Now I just need to fix the flat so I can take advantage of the great weather.

Soccer and the rest

2008-11-30T12:44:00.000-08:00

Friday morning was a huge game of Soccer. It started out great with Jeff's dad kicking a soccer ball into the back of Chelan's head. She decided to play with the little kids after that. The field was kind of wet and muddy so there was a lot of slipping and sliding around. Jeff was so proud of himself when he made it through the game without falling. That lasted until he was walking off the field and his cousin tripped him. Jeff ended up just a little less muddy than everyone else.

It was colder in California so we were able to wear our jeans and jackets that really don't get pulled worn in Arizona. After spending two summers in cold Alaska, we have a lot of cold weather clothes, and not very many warm weather ones. So it was good to be able to wear something different.

We also spent a lot of time visiting with everyone around. We don't get to see everyone very often and now it will be even less with us here in Arizona. But we enjoyed our trip. We made it back in about 9 1/2 hours of driving. Which was pretty uneventful except for the gas station Jeff stopped at to let me go to the bathroom. They either never finished or are remodeling and so the bathroom had no lights. The options were to either leave the door open and chance someone walking by, or trying to find the toilet in the complete dark. It was quite an adventure.

Thanksgiving

2008-11-28T12:09:00.000-08:00

Every Thanksgiving since we have been married has been spent in a different state. This year was California. Jeff has two brothers, an aunt, an uncle, cousins and all their families, and grandma that all live in Fresno so we headed out there. Jeff's parents and sister were also out there for the festivities.

We started out the day with a 5k turkey trot. Here is everyone before the race. I forgot pants to run in, and it was way to cold for my shorts, So I wore Jeff's. They were definitely longer, thicker, and warmer. The goals for the race: finish it, enjoy it, and stay warm.

Here is Jeff and his dad finishing the race. 27 minutes. Great for such old guys.
Here is Chelan and Moroni. 35 minutes.

Here is Becca and Brendan, and Jeff trying to encourage them? Brendan sure looks energetic for just finishing. 40 minutes.

Eric, Jacob, Jeff's mom and Judson were there but didn't run. Instead they chose to get some sleep, cheer us on, and take pictures.

We then had a great breakfast at Uncle Doug and Aunt Melissa's. We stayed with them all week and had a lot of fun.

Thanksgiving dinner was at Aunt Debbie and Uncle Mike's place. It was really good. It got a little crazy at the end with the siblings reminiscing about all the crazy things they did growing up. There was definitely a lot of laughter along with a lot of food. The tradition in Fresno, is to get together with everyone (49 people total) and have pie at the church. There were some great pies along with some rousing games of volleyball, basketball and peanuts.

By the time we got to sleep, we had endured a long and fun day.

Yosemite

2008-11-25T12:03:00.000-08:00

While in Fresno, California we tried to find something to do. Fresno is apparently a geographical oddity because everything is 2 1/2 hours away. We decided to brave the driving and go to Yosemite National Park. It was fun to go hiking among all the giant sequoia trees. There were quite a few people there but we hiked far enough that we stopped running into other groups. We really enjoyed wandering around the place. Unfortunately we brought our camera, but someone forgot to get the battery that was charging. With no battery our camera did us no good. We would have gotten some great pictures if we had it. We also saw a few different groups of deer. They were only about 10 feet away and were a lot of fun to watch.

Football...again.

2008-11-24T11:45:00.000-08:00

We headed out to California for the week. We went out early enough to see Jeff's sister Cindy and her family. We drove out on Saturday and had to leave early enough to get there before the BYU-Utah football game. Plans to watch the game at Jeff's brother's friends house fell through and we were stuck trying to watch it at a sports restaraunt. We called to see if they would be showing the game and they told us they had the channel but it might be blocked, and they wouldn't know that until the start of the game. So we went down there and they gave us the run around about whether the game would be on there. Well they finally changed the channel and the game was on...SIX different TV's. We were able to watch the game with Jeff's brother Eric, and his son Jacob. It was actually quite fun, until BYU started making quite a few mistakes which led to an easy Utah win. Hopefully they can redeem themselves next time.

Hotel or Gym?

2008-11-21T09:27:00.000-08:00

We've been working out either outside or in the little workout room that our apartment complex has. Jeff gets a free membership to one of the gyms around here (you have to sign up before Dec. 1) so we went to sign him up. As a spouse I would get the membership at a reduced rate, so we went to check it out for me. The first thing we noticed was the guy who was trying to get me to sign up was really really annoying. He drove both of us crazy. He was trying to make it the best gym ever, which it isn't. The two things I was wanting was a pool and a yoga class. They don't really have a yoga class, it's some weird body flow thing that is a combination of a bunch of other junk. And there pool. This is the real reason I am writing this. Get ready to be amazed. The pool is 14 yards. WOW! Please sign me up to swim laps in that. It is literally smaller than a hotel pool, and definately smaller than our apt. pool. Although it is a square. They have water aerobics classes, swim lessons, and family swim time in the morning, afternoons, and all day Saturday. In a pool that is 14 yards x 3 yards, where and when am I supposed to swim. He tried to convince me there would be room around all the little kids, but I am not buying it. There is just no room. But seriously who puts a pool in a gym thats only 14 yards long. At least make it a nice round number like 10, 12.5, or 15.

YEAH!!

2008-11-16T20:11:00.000-08:00

Jeff hasn't been around much because he has had to study for finals. We really didn't see each other at all, but he has now finished finals. And he did really well on them. Jeff now has a two week break. Yeah!

New Foods

2008-11-15T19:44:00.000-08:00

There is store by us called Superstition Ranch Market. It's not the fanciest store around, and they mostly sell produce. It is always crowded in there, but you can find the cheapest produce around. Lately we have been able to get strawberries and blackberries really cheap, so we have eaten a lot of those. They have also had other things very cheap, so we have bought and tried a lot of things I've never cooked before. These have included such things as egg plant, sweet anise, brussels sprouts, kale, and mini kiwis. The only ones I would probably not buy again is the sweet anise. The recipe I could find anywhere said to cook it with garlic. Well it just tasted like garlic black licorice....not necessarily the best combo.

Buffalo Wild Wings

2008-11-08T19:54:00.000-08:00

We have spent many, many, many, many hours in this lovely place. 4 hours x 12 BYU Football games=way too many drink refills. We are very fortunate that Steve and Ashlie got directTV and have since invited us over to watch a few of the games with them. There are a few good things about watching the games at Buffalo Wild Wings:

1. It is worth the money to buy a drink. Normally we get water, but in four hours you can definately get your money's worth (especially when we share!)

2. We get to watch all the games that are on at the same time.

3. You get to know the waiter quite well and give them plenty of time to earn their tip.

4. We usually ask and get the game on the BIG tv.

There are also a few downsides:

1. Sitting on a bar stool for 4 hours is tiring.

2. You get to watch the BYU game, but have to listen to a different one.

3. You order when you get there, and then by the fourth quarter you are ready to eat again.

4. While watching the BYU game, we usually here the ASU game.

Amazing!

2008-11-06T17:42:00.001-08:00

To celebrate Jeff's last day of class, he came home early and we went and played wiffle ball at the park today. Our playing was cute short by the fact that Chelan split the ball into two pieces. An amazing feat! Although, Jeff did break it first. And broke it a little more later on, he was kind of enough to let me take the last hits. And I successfully broke it apart. We tried to keep playing but two halves of a wiffle ball do not work as well and one whole wiffle ball.

Voting!

2008-11-05T09:01:00.000-08:00

Our apartment complex is one of the places people go to vote. They have it set up in the clubhouse which is one building away from ours. Our apartment is right by the 'public' parking, literally ten feet from the cars. Normally the little parking area is pretty empty. But while everyone was voting, it was full. It's not such a big deal, except all these voters have keyless locks. You know, the ones that beep when you lock or unlock your car. Since our apartment is so close to the parking lot, we were the lucky ones to here beeping, constantly, all day long.

Other than that it was good. Jeff wanted to watch the election results, so I made strawberry freezer jam. It turned out really good. And I figured out that it really was cheaper, and better, than buying it.

Daylight Savings

2008-11-02T12:45:00.000-08:00

Arizona is not on daylight savings time. That means we do not have to switch our clocks. Enough said.