Now for a post in code

Beans - I miss you! I'm proud of you! I'm happy for you! I value you! I love you!

Just wrong

So at Sunrise you can pay to ride the lift up and they'll haul your bike also and then you can ride, hurl, walk, fall, etc. down the mountain. Bart was all over this like Australians on shrimp ;-)

There were a few people who had apparently hit their heads too hard and told us that we would be ok taking our cruisers on it. I quote "If you make it half way you'll be fine". The question is, how do we get down the first half??! We decided we would just ride up and scope things out without the bikes first.

Going up (have I said that I hate lifts? Up, down, snow, no snow. Hate them.

Luke, I am your father

It was a gorgeous view from the top and the weather was nice. We hooked Bart up with a nice biker dude who said he'd sort of ride down with him and we sent him to his death, I mean on his way. We hung out up top a while longer and then decided to head down. We didn't want to get stuck on top of the mountain if there was lightning.

Great, I got that “excited/scared” feeling. Like 98% excited, 2% scared. Or maybe it’s more – It could be two – it could be 98% scared, 2% excited but that’s what makes it so intense

Guarding the bike!

Headed down (still hating it)

While we were headed down we passed Bart on his way back up. We decided to go wait at the 'lodge' for him (you can't really call it that. Think Pomerielle Idaho people). So 20, 30, 40 minutes pass and we're starting to wonder where he is. We came up with 3 options. 1. He came down and went back up without us seeing him 2. He wrecked (this was my option, not nice I know) 3. Someone else wrecked and he was helping them. Well, shortly after we spotted him....walking down the hill. Blown tire. Boo. Biking adventure over.

No, he said he had a lot of fun, he would do it again, and he thought we could all handle it with mountain bikes.

So from there we headed home. We knew we were going to need to stop and eat. That was a great idea, however, apparently every place not McDonalds closes at 2 pm on a Saturday in Show Low. Stupid! So by the time we settled on Pizza Hut there was a group of hangry people.

After food, we headed home. It was nice to actually see the scenery that we missed on the way up.

This last picture is the lovely dust storm we drove home to in the valley. Such a change from the nice mountain air we'd enjoyed all weekend.

Still holding

After our drive we came back and crashed. I think we all took a little nappy. Then we decided to go to the happy our that the restaurant right by us did. We sat out on the porch, had a snack, and played dominos.

There was much debate about where to eat dinner and I can't even remember the name of the place. It was in another lodge down the road. It was nice and we had a good time as always. The plan was to roast marshmallows after dinner. Problem - no skewers. The lodge had some thing they tried to let us use but basically, it wasn't big enough for the gargantuan marshmallows Steph got us, the fire pit was about 10 feet too big...

So basically we ended up burning a lot of them, throwing more, and eating a few. There were only minor casualties.

I have good authority that it washed right out

We went back after the marshmallow failure and watched the Olympics for a bit and then went to bed.

The next morning we ate breakfast at the grill and went and checked out, grabbed a coffee, etc. and hit the road. We had plans to go to Sunrise for a bike riding experience.

Continuing

After breakfast we rode our bikes up to the check-in to sign our paperwork. We got rejected because it was in our room and they wouldn't just give us new papers. So we went back and got it. Then they wanted John there (only Steph and I had gone back). They finally let us go and we headed to the coffee shop. We sat out on their back porch and enjoyed some iced coffee and root beer floats. We decided we were going to go kayaking. However, upon further inspection we realized that would be lame. There was a tiny trout pond that you can kayak on.

Instead we decided that we would go for a drive and check things out. We drove around and looked at the other cabins and up the other side of the creek? where there was a fire recently.

The tree stump has the address to identify where a house had been

We drove through a campsite and ended up down some road where there are a bunch of lakes or reservoirs. We decided to get out and walk around at one of them.

I don't think any of us touched the water to know what it felt like. There were too many crab skeletons and snakes!

There were some rocks and stuff for us to climb on and throw. It kept us entertained for a while. We even got some artistic photos.

This tree had so much sap running down it we thought it would be pretty to add some flowers.

Camping

I don't care what anyone says. When you leave the sweltering hot city and go to the mountains, to relax, cook marshmallows, ride bikes, and sleep in a log house; it's camping. That is what we did this past weekend. I have been dying to get out of town. I have such a wandering soul and I needed to get out and do something! We were able to coordinate things to where we would leave Thursday night and come back Saturday. Stephanie and Bart went up earlier Thursday and we got up there about 1030 that night.

We stayed in Greer at the Greer Lodge. It's about a 4 hour drive from our house and it was pitch black driving up there with sporadic cell service. When we got up there we basically just unloaded and went to bed. It was so quiet we were afraid of getting in trouble for talking.

The next morning John and I were both up early and we sat out on our front porch and enjoyed the cool air and sunshine. There were trout ponds right out our front door that we watched people fish out of and watched birds; especially a hawk catch fish out of. We had tried to be good and bring food with us. So for breakfast we had cherries, bagels, and hard boiled eggs (gotta have your protein).

Stephanie's birthmonth

The Fray

 I've already talked about the first few days of Stephanie's birthmonth. Well, here is a pic. We went to the Kelly Clarkson concert with Carolina Liar, and The Fray. I didn't get a good picture of Kelly Clarkson. It was a good concert and we had a good time.

Birthday dinner

 On Stephanie's actual birthday it was a Monday, so we went to Oregano's for dinner. We love that place.

I'm awesome

I tried to get Stephanie a birthday tweet from Kelly Clarkson, but apparently she has better things to do that tweet her awesome fans. So I started asking some of my other "famous" connections. My favorite singer came through for me.

More!

I think these pictures brings me up to date on my last writing.

Here we are on the 4th at Joe and Heidi's playing some Apples to Apples.

I will probably get yelled at for this picture, but it's the only one I got from our pottery outing in N. Phoenix.

After the pottery we went to the bike shop and then Oregano's. We were sitting outside enjoying the weather and this happened.

Then we went to Frost. This whole weekend started with Nick and I talking about him trying to get a tweet from someone "famous". I checked in on his efforts Saturday afternoon (which makes me think that this wasn't the same weekend as pottery. They all seem to run together...... Anyways, Nick told me that he had a better chance than me getting Chris Mann to tweet me. So I put it out there and went on our way. Yes, it was a different weekend because we ate at Blue 32 and then went to Frost to play around. When we got home, I had this tweet! Totally awesome!!

 

This is random, but it fits Stephanie and I.

Another random photo. I love this car. I dream about this car.

Let's add some pictures

Going back to graduation here are some photos:

Here is Heidi and I! She is the biggest reason that I walked in the ceremony because we had discussed it probably 2 years ago that we would be able to and it was extra special to be able to do that.

Dani, Heidi, and I. I work with Dani and she also graduated with her Master's in Psychology. Another nice thing was having someone to sit by and talk to while we were waiting for the ceremony to begin.

Stephanie and Bart came, which was super nice of them. I didn't get to see this until after, but she was definitely having a BLAST!

Bart looks really happy.....

Nick and I had a good time texting and tweeting during the ceremony. He was supposed to get me a tweet from Chris Mann (update on that coming!), but I thought this was cool

Oh boy

Well... I guess I should try and get this written down or else I won't remember what has gone on. It's only been just over a month too; how pathetic. Well, probably the biggest thing is that I walked in the graduation ceremony for my Master's the last weekend of June. That was a busy weekend. My dad showed up Friday and they tried to surprise me. We went had the family over for dinner and then we went to Ted. Oh my, it was hilarious!!

Saturday was the ceremony and Heidi and I rode out together. We didn't get to spend a lot of time together because we were different degrees, but it was fun to have a friend. Martha Stewart was the speaker. I wasn't super impressed with her and I thought Condolezza Rice for my bachelor's was much better.

Then we went to Oreganos and it was awesome as always. I can't remember what else we did, oh wait, we spent pretty much all Saturday night at Apple trying to get John's phone to work. This is why I will never drop my phone in water. What a joke.

Sunday we went to Crackers for breakfast and then hit a movie later. Girl's went to Magic Mike, boys went to something else. Then we went to Frost. We actually went Saturday too I think. We love Frost. I think we've been at least once a week since then.

4th of July - it was an overcast, rainy day and it was pretty awesome. We ran some errands with Stephanie and Bart and grabbed some lunch and then mostly hung out at their house. We had some craft projects we were working on. Then that night we went to Joe and Heidi's for dinner and played games. Pretty awesome day overall!

I think we had a couple of boring weekends without a lot going on. Then about 2 weeks ago we used a groupon we had bought for pottery on the pottery wheel. It was clear in North Phoenix and it was a little creepy but we had a good time. We talked about investing in a pottery wheel but I think our problem would be sharing.... and I don't know how we would fire the pottery.

Now it's Stephanie's birth month. We started it out the 1st with the Kelly Clarkson concert. It was actually Kelly Clarkson, The Fray, and Carolina Liar. We had a good time, although it was a late night for a work day! Saturday was dog grooming at our house. I made homemade fettuccine alfredo and we had a little snack from Frost as dessert. Today we met Stephanie, Bart, and her parents for lunch and ..... Frost!

Oh yeah, last weekend we went to Batman The Dark Knight Rises. I loved it. I was seriously crying at the end. One because I loved it and two because there are not plans to make another one.

I know there's more, but I'd have to go through my bank records or something to figure it all out. I know we've had a couple good dust storms and such. I'll check and post anything extra with pictures.