It's February already?

In an effort to try and not get so far behind I'll try and remember what has happened so far this year. Of course, January 3rd was my birthday. It was my 30th and I'm afraid I've hit the point where they're not really special anymore. I will have a few pictures to post.



I had decided I wanted to do something NICE. I put together a nice dinner at a fancy restaurant. Stephanie did a great job of stepping it up and having her and I go get our hair and makeup done. It was a lot of fun and I liked the outcome. After dinner we decided to go back to Stephanie's house and just hang out. Lot's of ideas were thrown out but we mostly just hung out; apparently burning the Christmas tree in the pool like a beacon of light isn't a good idea....



My mom came shortly after that. I remember the night she came I was at South Pacific with Lisa. It was good and the music gets stuck in my head still! Didn't do much the week mom was here and dad came on Thursday. Ashton's baptism was that Saturday and Nick and Shar talked in church Sunday.

Oh yes, grandpa had his open heart surgery on my birthday which seems to have occupied much of the month. From mom's reports it was pretty bad at some points. Then just when we got him home he went right back. I have tickets to come home in March but decided I wanted to go and Delta had a sale to go that weekend. So on the 28th we went to the color run (amazingly fun, pictures to follow) and then Nick and I hopped on a plane, rented a car, and crashed the party. No one except Chad knew we were coming and it was fun. We got to see grandpa, Chad, Corrine, Mark, Annette, Russell, Chris, Jaden, AshLynn, Grandma Connie, Grandpa Len, Grandma, Mom, and Dad... I think that's it. Nope, it's not..we got to see Dwight and Misty, Morgan and Taylor too. That was Sunday when we made Grandma make us cheese waffles. Best thing ever!!

I'm glad that grandpa is doing better and gaining strength. I'm looking forward to seeing him in a few weeks when I go home again.

Since coming back from Idaho John and I also had our 10 year anniversary. I can't believe it's been 10 years. Hate to say, we didn't do a whole lot as it fell on a Thursday. It was the day we were eligible to upgrade our cell phones and we were more than happy to toss our Droids and go get iPhones.

Last Saturday Stephanie and I put part of her Christmas present to use and did a painting class. It was a lot of fun and we can't wait to do the next one!!

Tonight was a meeting of the BADC and it was at our house this time. I made lasagna and garlic bread. I think it turned out well!

August?

I already posted part of what we did in August with our trip to Greer, but there were a few more random things.

There are only two things I can really remember and I'm not sure which occurred first.

One weekend we met Bart, Stephanie, Maureen, and her son for As You Wish. We ended up going downtown to the Diamondback game. But we didn't get there till the game was already over. But we were really there for the concert (or so I'm told). It was Roger Cline and the Peacemakers or something like that. It may have been Roger Clyne and the Pacemakers.... I'm not sure.
All I know is that we had more fun riding around in the car than anything else.

This is the platter I painted. :-)

The other August event was I was at the Dr's. Now that certainly isn't new, but I was in the bathroom and something moved and scared the crap out of me. I got to look a little closer and it was this little guy.

Hmmm

So according to my last post I thought I was going to be really busy. I feel like we have been but not with anything SUPER exciting. But I've gone back through everything to try and get an idea of what all has been going on.

So I don't remember for sure when I did this, but I burned my hand pretty bad. I was frying fish for dinner one night and splattered grease on my hand. It was gross and it hurt.

I also have been getting some pretty awesome pictures from my mom. Pictures from when I was little. They're pretty funny.

These are some of the more random photos that I've taken recently. One of the things I love about this time of year besides that it is starting to cool down is that instead of it being light at 4 am, the sun comes up right after we get home from the gym. One morning I saw this out my back door and had to go outside and get a picture.

This last picture was again after the gym one morning. I would much rather play with Edward than get ready for work.

Soon

So it's been a while since I posted anything and I do have some stuff to post, but I've been trying to get through my last class. I have 2 days left. It would seem that then I will have all the time in the world. HA! I'm actually looking at my calendar and I think the next month is going to be crazy busy.

To give you an idea, next week, we're dropping the car off again to get worked on, going to a specialist appointment with John, trying to get stuff together to have a yard sale next weekend, dog grooming. That is just next week. Then I have to renew Joey's dog license and as much as I'd like to tell them he's dead so I don't have to pay it every year, that is just bad karma. Well, I can't even pay the fee and renew it without his rabies certificate and he's past due so now I have to get him into the vet. Plus trying to squeeze in a time to get my hair cut because it's driving me crazy.

So hopefully sometime in the next few weeks I will be able to give an update on the past 6 weeks.

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.