Saturday Cruisin'

These past few days have been gorgeous in the Valley.  Highs in the 70's and lows in the 50's.....it doesn't get much better that that!  To take full advantage of our beautiful weekend, we decided to take the bikes out for a spin.  Pat bought me my bike a few years ago for Valentine's Day and over the past few months he's completely taken it apart and shined her up!  Today was her maiden voyage and she got a ton of compliments.

Here she is in all her glory

Of course since the bikes had been sitting through our 118 degree summer, the tires needed a little pick me up.  And of course we don't want to leave Pat's cooler than cool bike out of the spotlight.  Hope you're enjoying your weekend as much as we are!

Relay For Life

I have a friend at work whose family is incredibly involved in Relay For Life. Last year, I was only able to help out a little bit and we could not actually walk in the event because mom got in that same day. This year I am very excited to be involved with the planning committee and Patrick and I are both planning to walk in the event.

Almost everyone has been touched by cancer, either through their own personal battle or through someone they love. You all know our cancer story.

Every day, the American Cancer Society is helping us stay well by preventing cancer or finding it at its earliest, most treatable stages. They assist families in finding the best resources to help their friend or loved one deal with a diagnosis and their journey to get well. The American Cancer Society is also rallying communities (like ours!) through events like Relay For Life, to fight back and find cures for this disease.

So now, we need your help! Pat and I have both set fundraising goals and we would love if you could support us in whatever way you can. You can find Pat's personal page here and my page here. Thank you guys in advance for your help in creating a world with less cancer and more birthdays. Together, we can help make sure that cancer never steals another year of anyone’s life!

Coming 'Round The Mountain

We spent last night in Show Low, AZ visiting Uncle Jack and Aunt Kathy.  We had a great time and it was fun for me to meet Kathy for the first time!  We went out to the middle of the woods and had a little bbq, but the best part was when it got dark, Uncle Jack took out his elk bugle and we listed to the elk call back and forth to each other.  We didn't get to see any elk, but they sure were talkative!

White Mountains

This past weekend, Chris and Adam flew in and the three of them went off for a man's trip on the Apache Reservation in the White Mountains.  Aside from the beginning of the trip which included Patrick's jeep breaking down on the side of a mountain and me having to pick all of them up and bring them back to the Valley, they seemed to have a pretty great time.

Patrick and the boys spent the weekend camping and fishing.  They were able to catch some Rainbow and Apache trout which only live in this area of the country.  They also tried to spot some elk, which they didn't find, but instead came across a black bear.  Don't worry moms, they didn't get too close!

Home Alone

Pat has two of his best buddies in town.....Chris flew in from KY last weekend and attended a work training all week and Adam arrived from FL today.  They head out bright and early tomorrow morning to the White Mountains for a weekend of camping.  Which means I have the house all to myself!  Anyone care to join me in a HGTV marathon?  Pedicures are also on the agenda....

Wish me luck and pray for their safety.  Heaven knows they'll need it!

365 Days...

The first year of marriage is said to be the toughest.  I don't believe it.  Aside from moving across the country and leaving all of our friends and family behind, it hasn't been so bad.  It's actually been very healthy spending the greater part of our marriage alone.  Just the two of us.  No one else to rely on.  It can make a person incredibly grateful for being wise enough to marry their best friend.  We were lucky enough to spend our first anniversary surrounded by people we love.  We drove back to Phoenix from Lake Powell on our anniversary and had Gregg, Lindsay, Monica, Izabel, Indigo, Sophie and Sebastian staying with us.  My mom was sweet enough to let the top layer of our cake take up residence in her freezer for the last year and on my latest trip home, I carried it on the plane all the way back to Phoenix.  We were pleasantly surprised with the results.  The kids actually ate a decent amount of it.  Pat wasn't able, or allowed, to smash cake in my face per my loving mother's intense hatred of that particular tradition.  So, he took full advantage of the fact that she was 3,000 miles away on our year anniversary.

Haboob

We've been getting lots of haboobs lately. At first we thought they were monsoons, but, we were wrong. Oh Arizona, you have some big haboobs!

Lake Powell

A few weeks ago we went to Lake Powell and words cannot explain how beautiful it is. Probably one of the most majestic places I've ever been. Instead of writing about it, here are the pictures. Enjoy!

Home Improvement 2

We are lucky enough to have very generous family members who have donated/loaned/given various pieces of furniture to help us in our first home. However, I love to re-do whenever possible! Case in point:

It's Only Been a Month.....

....since I last posted. I know I say that every time. But, I've made a deal with the blogging gods to try to be better about posting more frequently. If I don't, they get my soul. Here is another picture board I put together on Photoshop, my new best (worst) friend. We were able to hang out with two of the Wells' boys and their significant others at La Jolla beach.

The First of Many!

Ok, so I've conquered my first two photoshopping adventures. I tried to conquer about six, but two was all I could get. If you were paying attention, you'll see that I changed the header on our blog and learned how to post multiple images in what the professionals call a storyboard....who knew!

The below photos are from our trip to San Diego over the 4th of July and I will try to get some more posted once I can find enough sanity to do this again!

Obsessing and Updating

Ok, so I have decided to take on the beast known as Photoshop and although I'm sure a lot of you are very familiar with my new nemesis, it is pretty new to me. I've found an awesome website with a ton of helpful tutorials so my goal is to make this blog a little more fun to visit. Wish me luck and stay tuned!

The O.C.

We had the great pleasure of visiting the newly engaged Garrick and Marisa last month. We had such a great time and we couldn't have asked for better hosts. They showed us all of the hot spots from Huntington Beach all the way to Laguna Beach. The weather was gorgeous and the food was incredible. We even made some new furry friends! We hope to go back soon but if we can't get there, we'll definitely see them again at their wedding in Palm Springs!!

The beautiful couple.....

Garrick and Marisa's awesome house in Corona del Mar.....

A tad bit windy in Huntington Beach.....

So what did you did you do this morning? Oh not much, just had brunch at a rooftop restaurant in Laguna Beach :).....

Bo even stopped by on a layover and we got to spend some time with him.....

And our newest friend, little Mia.....
All in all, we had a great trip and are so blessed to have such wonderful family!!

Home Improvement

We've been dealing with the issue of our incredibly large TV fitting in our pre-determined wall cutout since we've moved in. We have a TV stand, but it's too tall for the cutout which makes our incredibly large TV hang out too high. Plus it doesn't exactly match our other decor. I feel like I'm not doing a very good job of explaining this situation, so as they say, a picture is worth....well, you know.


So....



.....today, as Pat was once again perusing his most favorite website, he stumbled across exactly what we've been looking for to hold our incredibly large TV. For the low cost of $45, we were able to create the space that we were hoping for.......here comes the eye candy.

Grand Canyon

This was a great trip! Pat and I hadn't been to the Grand Canyon since we were kids and Jimmy had never been. Needless to say, we were definitely in awe.

Visitation

We've had a lot of visitors in the last few months, which has been great! Pat's parents were the first to visit and unfortunately it rained most of their visit so we didn't do anything exciting and we didn't take any pictures. Terrible, I know. But, we had a great time while they were here and the next time I promise to take pictures!

Our next visitors were the Nashville Barnett's. They stopped through on their way back home from Tahoe. It was fun to be able to extend our time spent with them. Of course, we didn't take any pictures during this visit either since we had taken so many while we were together in Tahoe.

Next up was my mom who came in for the week prior to Easter. She and I took a day trip up to Sedona and that was really the only time we took any pictures.



While my mom was in town, Pat's buddy Chris Hawkins stayed with us for a few days after he finished up some work training in Phoenix. The three of us met up with one of their high school friends who lives here now. He took us on his boat to Saguaro Lake and it was beautiful. Saguaro is actually pronounced Sa-WA-ro and is the name of the large cacti that Arizona is famous for.



Most recently Jimmy came to visit and we had a very adventurous weekend. We spent a night camping and hiking in Sedona and then a night camping and hiking in the Grand Canyon. We took a TON of pictures during this trip, so I'm going to post them separately.

Next up is Pat's cousin Garrick who is coming into town for work and staying with us. We have an open door policy, so just let us know if you want to visit!

Tahoe with the Fam

We were lucky enough to spend some time with Clay, Jamie, Rob, Mon and the kids in Tahoe for a long weekend in March. We had planned to ski for 2 or 3 days, but due to the amount of snow that fell, 52 inches in three days, we were only able to ski one day. We spent the other days eating, having snow ball fights, playing games and working on puzzles.

Canyon Lake

I apologize for the lapse in posts. Keeping up with this isn't as easy as I thought! We are both so busy right now that free time is at a minimum. But, here are some pictures from another little adventure we had. We drove out to the Superstition Mountains and up to Canyon Lake where there is also a ghost town where we had lunch. The town was an actual functioning town at one point and it was pretty interesting.

I do....Now go

Patrick and I had been married exactly 5 months when we picked up and moved from sunny South Florida to sunny Arizona. We moved for Patrick's job and I've never experienced anything like it. Pat's moved a few times but I had never moved anywhere. So now it's just the two of us taking on Arizona like it's no one's business.

I don't know if you know this, because I didn't, but Arizona gets snow. That's right, the white fluffy stuff that falls from the sky. Now, obviously not all of Arizona gets snow, for instance, we don't get it here in the valley. But a short 3 hour drive north and you're in beautiful Flagstaff, which not only has snow, but it also has a skiiable mountain. You can imagine this Florida girl's shock.

So, once we were all settled into our new townhouse, we hit the slopes. And when I say hit, I mean hit. Hard. On my butt, face and any other appendage that came between the rest of my body and the mountain. Pat's great because he's been skiing since he was little, but I'm more accustomed to sand than snow. Here are some pictures of the weekend.

Hello World!

I've created this blog to keep our family and friends abreast of all of the adventures we are having out here in the wild wild west. We've been in Arizona for exactly 3 months and so far so good. We've done a lot in our first months and I'm going to try and get everyone up to speed over my next few posts.

Stay tuned!