Phoenix Zoo

Grandma and Grandpa Speth (Brandon's parents) came for a visit in November. They were coming for Brandon's cousins sealing. His dad Larry came for 3 days, but we were lucky enough to have Brandon's mom, Maxine, come for a whole week!

SHE IS A BLAST!! I really love her! By far, the best mother-in-law in the world! He is kind, helpful, understanding, funny, great with the kids, and she loves me and treats me like her own daughter. Mazine and I could stay up late laughing like we were best friends & shop all day like we were sisters! She is fabulous!

While Grandpa and Grandma Speth were here, we went to a baptism, attended a sealing, did a lot of shopping and eating out, and headed to the zoo for a day!

Once again, I slacked on taking pictures while they were here, but I did get a bunch of us while we were at the zoo.

Enjoy!

The kids watching a peacock getting fed...up close!

Turtles having sex...HILARIOUS!!! I had just given "the talk" to Noah, and so he thought this was disgusting! But us adults couldn't stop laughing...especially as the turtles moaning got really loud!! (The guy was on top and he was smashing the poor girl down into a muddy hole!)

Prairie dogs

For anyone thinking of visiting this zoo...which by the way is apparently rated #5 zoo in the U.S...DON"T WASTE YOUR TIME! Everything cost extra...the train, the carousel, petting the sting rays! They nickel and dime you for everything! And since we live in the desert, all you see are tons of  "plains" animals. No arctic animals, or sea creatures. It really made me miss the Indy zoo...we LOVED the polar bear and petting the sharks there!

Halloween

The kids each picked out their own outfits this year, without any promptings from me. What happens when they get complete control...our four year old decides to be 'Darth Vader.'

She is such a Tom Boy, and her costume totally shows it!!

Lily picked a cheerleader costume, and Noah decided on an 'Optimus Prime' one.

They were a cute bunch!

Did you notice the lack of Lily's candy bucket? Yeah, the little stinker was not nice all week! She got in trouble at school, and was less than agreeable at home. So, her punishment? No trick or treating. She got to get candy from grandpa and grandma harrington, but then the rest of the night she had to stay on the sidewalk with Brandon and I while Noah and Ash got to go up to the houses begging for candy. She actually didn't mind, and handled it very maturely. She walked hand in hand with us the whole time, and by the end of the night she had learned her lesson!!

Pathetic Children's Museum...seriously.

A friend from my ward and I took our kids to this "great" Children's Museum up in Phoenix.

IT
WAS
PATHETIC!

Oh, how I miss the Indianapolis Children's museum!

This place only had two rooms.

One for arts, crafts, and dress-ups.

And one for imagination play.

PATHETIC!!

Needless to say, I will not be going back! It took one hour to get there, and it costs $8 to get in. Neither of which was worth it.

Ash could certainly play dress-up and do crafts at home for much cheaper!

Lesson learned.

I did get a few cute pictures of Ash though...it's hard to believe she will be 5 soon!

Our beautiful girl!

Ash and her little friend playing dress up.

My LOVE/HATE relationship with Arizona

When I was first searching profiles on an LDS singles network after my divorce, I only searched locally...because

I.

DID.

NOT.

WANT.

TO.

MOVE!

I LOVED Liberty, Missouri. I loved my friends, my job, my ward, the kids school, my neighborhood, and even my little townhouse. 

BUT, there were slim pickings with the local boys!

So, I broadened my geographical search, but got more picky and tightened my search criteria for the men.

When I came across Brandon, and I saw he lived in Arizona I almost quickly dismissed him, but I then I remember thinking, 'as if anything will come of this.' I wasn't trying to be pestimissmistic, but who really finds there soulmate and their eternal companion online?? Well, I did.

Within weeks we were madly in love...yeah, we feel hard and quick.

When the topic of marriage came up...so did the topic of moving to Arizona. It really was more logical for me to move here, than for Brandon to move to Missouri. He had a great job that he had been at for 8+ years, he had a house, a rental house...moving for him would be much harder! I was only in a lease, not a mortgage. My job was part-time and I had only been there one month when we got engaged.

So, Arizona, here we come!

After being here 7 months, these are a few of the things I have noticed and that I either LOVE or HATE about being here...

the HATE list

*It gets so hot here in the summer that the large water tanks that are above ground heat your water of course. So what does this mean? For about 4 months of the year, you can't get cold water from your tap! It comes out of the tap steaming hot instead. Nice.

*The sand storms. I HATE THEM!! They are these HUGE, giant storms that blow sand. You can't even see the house across the street, and is covers your car, and everything outside in a nasty sand film.

*It's brown here! The only things here that are green here, is my yard, and the entrances into the housing editions.

*In the summer everyone keeps the house dark to keep it from getting too hot and your electric bill getting too high. That means that for several months of the year, I can't open any blinds and let the sunshine in!

*It's sunny everyday...boring! (although this is also on the LOVE list)

the LOVE list

*It's sunny everyday. The good thing about this is that you can plan parties, and picnics and not worry about getting rained out. The weather is very predicable. Sunny everyday.

*The winter is heavenly. I can still wear flip flops, and it's jeans and t-shirt weather everyday. That means no shoveling snow!!

*All the highways and shopping centers are so clean and so well kept. No pot holes. No trash on the sides of the highway, and no roadkill. I literally have never seen such a clean city.

*The large number of LDS people. They are building a third temple here in the valley, and just in our city there are 8 stakes!! There is a brand new beautiful ward building every mile, and each building has 3-4 wards in it. I LOVE it! It's doesn't have the 'keeping up with the Jones's' mentality. Everyone is just really easy going. Happy with where they are in life, and happy with where they are going.

*We are close to a lot of fun family vacation spots. We are 6 hours to Vegas (Hoover Dam), 5 hours to the Grand Canyon, 5 hours to San Diego, and 6-7 hours to Disneyland in Cali. All less than a days drive away.

*Having my parents just two blocks away...it's a heavenly perk!

I am sure this list will continue to grow the longer I live here, and hopefully I will remember to come back and add more. But, really, I just hope that the LOVE list gets bigger and the HATE list doesn't.

Our home sweet home.

Backyard campout

First off, I am totally slacking in the photo taking department! I hadn't blogged in so long, that I almost lost my motivation to take pictures! Now I realize that this post only gets three pictures, and yet there was TONS more that I could've taken!!

So, my New Year's resolution...take more pictures, and try to keep the blog more up to date!

Moving on...

Here's what's weird about Arizona...they have two kinds of grass.

Winter grass

and

summer grass.

Winter grass is just like the midwest grass that I LOVE! It's long, luscious, and you can sink your toes into it. Summer grass is nasty! It's short...short enough that you have to have a special lawn mower just to cut it. It has hardly no root bed, and feels like tiny weeds...not soft at all!!

Well, at the end of summer, you have to thatch your yard to get all the old summer grass up, and then you have to plant the new winter grass seed. Yeah, you read that right. You have to plant grass in your yard twice a year! And once it's planted, you can't walk on the lawn for 6-8 weeks while the grass takes root.

SO FRUSTRATING!!!

 I guess it's worth it to have green grass year round, but I am definitely still adjusting to the desert!

The day before Brandon was going to plant the new grass seed, and we would be quarantined to indoor play only for 6+ weeks, I decided to put together an impromptu campout with the kids in the backyard.

We put the tent up, had hot dogs on our grill, and ate smores!! At around 8p we climbed into the tent to get some shut eye...and instead we just laid there...and laid there...and laid there. Why? Because our neighbor's

 3 dogs

were constantly barking!!!! Come to find out, our neighbors were gone for the weekend and the dogs missed them so much they decided to bark ALL. NIGHT. LONG!!! At around midnight we came in, and went to sleep inside our nice, warm home. The dogs finally stopped barking at about 3am...glad we didn't try to wait them out! We would've been miserable!!!

Nevertheless, the kids had fun, and I learned that I now need to coordinate our next campout with our neighbors!

Noah and the two boys I babysit for. They were with us for the dinner and smores part of the evening. 

VEGAS baby!!

At the beginning of September our family met up with Brandon's parents at the halfway point...VEGAS!

The first day we met up with them we went to lunch, and then went downtown to a live lion exhibit, and then we spent hours in a GIANT M & M store.

The kids were spoiled rotten by their new amazing grandparents!

The kids constantly wanted to be by grandma and grandpa, and hold their hand. Ashlyn even climbed up on Grandpa's lap during dinner and almost fell asleep...and that is rare!

It was a quick trip...and I didn't get any photos of the actual Vegas part because I forgot my cameras in the hotel. But I will never forget how much fun we had...we are all still looking forward to another weekend like that!


Hoover Dam...a fun, fast stop on the way home from Vegas.

Ash getting an easy ride back up to the car.

Beautiful desert landscape...it's a different kind of beautiful than the green from the midwest. But I have learned to love it's beauty.

Ashlyn's Sweet Ride

The fun thing about the two big kids being in school most this day, is that during that time it's just me and Ashlyn! She gets lots of one and one, and sometimes one on three...meaning her, and lots of attention from me and her grandparents.

One of those days Ash got to take a ride in Grandpa Harrington's corvette. It was just a ride around the block, but she thought it was SO. MUCH. FUN!!

Have I mentioned she has an obsession with cars, and specifically corvette's?

First Week of School Pictures

The kids are enrolled in a charter school here. Brandon and I really love it, and the kids are really happy with it! The education is amazing, and it has really pushed the kids to achieve more and get better grades. In fact, Noah is on the honor roll for the first time in his life! The best part, it is privately owned by an LDS couple and so the school has about 50%-60% LDS kids and faculty.

LOVE IT!!

The perk...they wear uniforms, and so picking out clothes each day is a breeze!

A Saturday at 'AMAZING JAKE'S'

There is this really cool place about 40 minutes from here up in Mesa, and Brandon suggested that we spend a Saturday up there with the kids and just enjoy a day as a family. My response? "SWEET!"

Picture a place similar to Chuckie E Cheese's...but better...and more expensive! It has a giant lunch/dinner buffet, arcade games, bowling, golf, and some carnival-type games.

When we first got there we ate a buffet lunch & we watched a Disney/Pixar movies on big screens. Then we went and played for as long as we wanted, and went back to the buffet for dinner. Two meals for a family of 5, and a day full of fun...really, it's priceless.

Me and my sweet baby girl...Ash

Noah golfing

 

Noah in his bumper car

 

Lily bowling

Brandon took this butt shot of me and Ash

My payback...his butt shot, although he posed!

 

Me and my sweetie

Noah bowling

 

The girls in a tea cup

On the train

Bumper cars

All three on the mini roller coaster

 

Ash and Lily before going on the 'Frog Hopper'

All 3 on the 'Frog Hopper'

Just the girls on the roller coaster

Eating dinner and watching 'The Bee Movie'

Lily

Noah and his baked potato

Remember the honeymoon pictures? And how Brandon always blinks when a picture is taken?  Well, here are two more examples. I love my little nerd!! He's so cute!