Arizona vacation- Days 3 and 4

Day 3

In the morning, we were trying to decide what we were gonna do, and Mark's mom had mentioned hiking up Camelbak.  I had looked it up online and it didn't sound too bad, plus it was listed as one of the top things to do in the area.  We decided to go for it, and after realizing I didn't really pack any hiking gear, I threw on whatever I could find and we packed up some snacks and headed on our way.  Mark said it was a mile and a half walk, which isn't bad cause we walk about a mile around the block so that should be a breeze.  Right??  Um....didn't realize just how high up this walk was gonna take us.  Me and Kris had no idea what we were in for.  Mark, of course, reassured us by letting us know there were more difficult trails then the one we were gonna walk. After we started walking we realized it would take a VERY long time to get to the top.  About half way, it got VERY steep and we were basically rock climbing the rest of the way.  It was intense, and pretty scary for someone who isn't too fond of heights.  But either way, after A LOT of swearing and complaining, we MADE IT!!  Go us!!

we even made some friends along the way :)

beautiful views all around

very steep!!

taking a break

rock climbing

waiting for our turn

we had to follow the blue dots to make it to the top

After our crazy time climbing a mountain, we decided to treat ourselves to In and Out.  So good!!  Then we headed to Fountain Hills to watch a geyser.  This is when I started to realize how severely burnt I was.  Not fun!  Anyways, Fountain Hills was beautiful, and this time there was not much walking involved, which was much appreciated.  Haha!

This was pretty interesting to see, and it was in a beautiful park.  It was nice to just sit for a bit and watch this for 15 min. Then after that long day, we headed back to the rental to chill out.

Day 4

We were going to go on a Jeep tour in Sedona but after the long day the day before, we all decided to just chill out.  We went to some open houses, did a little shopping, and ate lunch at Paradise Cafe (exactly like a Panera, yummy).  Then, we headed back to the rental and sat out by the pool and relaxed for a bit before heading to the airport.

We had an amazing time in Phoenix!  Glad we were able to see so much and do so much in the short amount of time that we were there.  Hopefully we will get to go back someday :)

High Five For Friday!

Can't believe it's Friday already, but thankful for it!  This week has been rough, to say the least...

1.  I was able to get two 4 page papers done, and study for an exam.  That was WAY too much for 1 week, but at least it's done now.

2.  Spring break starts TODAY!  (once I was finished with my exam this morning)  So happy to have another break from school.  I definitely need a break...or to be done...

3.  Doggies are loving all the sunshine!  It may not be warm outside but at least we can pretend it is by laying in the sunlight.

4.  First day of spring was this week!!  Can't wait for the weather to warm up a bit more so we can go to the dog park, the dog run, and many walks around the block!! 

5.  Lots of exciting stuff coming up!  My niece and nephew will be in town this week, so I will get to see them a couple of times.  Plus, my sister and her husband will be coming down next weekend for Easter.  Love spending time with the family.

Arizona vacation- Day 2

On Saturday (Day 2), after a good night of sleep, I was of course up early because I was so excited to start the day.  We got off to a rough start though, because there was a time change and when we realized our phones and the cable box time hadn't changed we were extremely confused.  Gary had a flight back to WI that day so we really needed to know what time it was!  Haha!  We checked the internet and it said the time didn't change in Arizona, so as a last resort I called the airport just to be completely sure.  So jealous that the time doesn't actually change in Arizona.  Makes life so much easier.  Anyways, Gary was willing to go the airport early so we could get started on our day.  This was the day I was most excited about because my good friend Courtney that lives in Arizona was gonna spend the day with us at the zoo.

We hit up the Tanger Outlet mall after dropped Gary off at the airport, and waited for Court.  After eating lunch at the mall, we headed to the Wildlife Zoo and Aquarium.  I am obsessed with zoos, because I love animals.  I actually found the Aquarium part better than the actual zoo itself.  But either way we had a great time.  This place was HUGE so we spent a good 3 hours walking through the whole place.  Here are some pics...

me and Court by the flamingos

this was my favorite part!

They had little babies everywhere including these cuties

loved all the hands on action

nerds

lovebirds

After our amazing time at the zoo, we headed to dinner and had sushi!!  It wasn't as great as our favorite place back home but still good and different.  Then we went back to the rental and hung out with Court for a bit and tried to teach my husband how to play Sudoku.  That was a failure but fun all the same :)

Happy St. Patty's Day!!

Arizona Vacation- Day 1

We were up at about 3:30am to get ready and pack for vacation.  I'm not so great with packing ahead of time, and my husband was the same way.  Plus, grandma and Aunt Pat stayed at the house to watch the dogs while we were gone so we had little things around the house to finish up before we left.  At about 5:30am we left and headed to the airport because our flight left at 7:00am.

We definitely look tired in this pic, but also very excited!!  We arrived in Arizona at around 10:15am and Mark's mom and step dad picked us up.  We headed to lunch at Coco's because we were starving after our 4 hour flight.  Then we headed back to the rental to unpack a bit and hang out before heading to the spa.  We had massages scheduled for 1:30 and 3, so we took our swimsuits with so we could hang out in the hot tub while the other was in for their massage.  Kris came with to keep us company.  I got the therapeutic massage, because I always have a lot of knots.  When I came out, and was walking into the locker room, I could see Kris peeking her head out from around the corner.  I thought she was trying to scare me so I told her I could see her.  She came in and chatted with me for a bit and then said she would head to the hot tub so I could change.  When I opened up my locker, I immediately noticed a big red Kessler's jewelry box in my shoe!  I always bring one with on vacation to keep my jewelry in but was very confused as to how it got in there.  I opened it up and there was a gorgeous ring inside!!

I had mentioned to Mark how I wanted a right hand ring someday.  Well he listened!!  Kris had been standing around the corner trying to get pictures of me finding it. :)  So cute!

After all that excitement, we headed to the hot tub to hang out, and then after that read magazines in the meditation room while we waited for Mark.  After the spa, we headed to dinner at BJ's.  It's a cool brewery kinda place.  Anyways, me and Kris had the tuna salad, which was really good, and Mark got the Mahi Mahi.  Everyone (minus me) had to try the different beers.  And then after that long and exciting day, we headed back to the rental to go to bed (super early!).

High Five For Friday!

This week has flown by!  We had an amazing time on vacation!!  We were sad to leave, but happy to be home and get back to normal.  Now that means lots of homework to catch up on!

 1.  We were so excited to leave for vacation!  We both have been working like crazy and needed a break.

2.  Marky Mark surprised me with this gorgeous ring.  I am a lucky girl! (story to follow)

3.  I couldn't wait to get home to see the pups.  Marley is a head above Luna now!!  She grew a lot in the 4 days we were gone.

That can't be comfortable

4.  Grams made these adorable pillows for us.  She was so excited to surprise us with them, and I think they are SO cute (and so perfect).

5.  I am still recovering from my super bad burn.  Got this while on a hike up a mountain! (story to follow)

Ouch!

family room remodel

When we first bought our house, we bought it because we wanted a fixer upper so that we could fix it up and sell it for much more then we paid.  We knew it would take a few years to get it ready to sell, and we had a plan on staying the house for 5 years.  We have done a lot in the last 2 years, to the point that we don't really have any more big projects left.  Just a  lot of little things to work on now.  Anyways, our last REALLY big project was to remodel the family room.  We live in a tri-level, but really we have four levels because we have a basement too.  So our family room is in the lower level, but not the lowest level, if that makes sense.  Anyways, the house was built in the 80s and so that means popcorn ceilings and wood paneling.  EW!  And they had put new carpeting throughout the whole house to help sell it, but it was definitely the cheapest carpet they could find.  We have lots of animals, and as far as I'm concerned, animals and carpeting just don't mix.  I wrote about the start of the project here.  So here is the rest!

 We installed 3 new windows throughout the room, so they are MUCH more efficient than what we had.  The old windows would actually ice over in the winter, and let in tons of cold air.  It's much warmer down there now.

Then my handsome husband hung the drywall himself.  He didn't want to do the taping or mudding so we had to hire someone.  We had a heck of time trying to get someone in to do the work.  We finally posted an ad on Craiglist, had 3 guys come over to look at it, and picked the least expensive but least scary.  Haha.  Some of those guys on Craigslist are creepy!

 Even though the guy was the cheapest, he did a great job, and got it all done in 3 days.  Then we got to sealing, texturing, and painting.  That took us 2 nights, and I actually helped with some of it.  I HATE painting, with a passion.  But because we didn't have to be super careful, it made the job a little more tolerable.

This is after all the texture was done.  Already looking like a normal room.

I picked a bluish gray color for the walls.  The bathroom that is attached has a lighter blue grayish color, so they kind of match.  Plus, thanks to Pinterest, I had to have gray walls.  haha.

Over the next 2 days, Mark installed the flooring.  Really brought the whole room together.  Most exciting part about that was then we could actually move all the furniture back into the room, and use it as another part of our house again.  This project took much longer then I would have liked, about a month and a half.

It's obviously not completely done at this point.  There is still some touch ups that are needed, and the molding still needs to go up, but I can live with that for awhile, so long as we can use the room again.  I'm just so happy to not have plastic hanging in all the doorways, and I can easily access the basement again to do laundry, and there isn't dust everywhere all the time now!  YAY!

High Five For Friday!

This has been a very busy week for me!  I'm about midway through my last semester of school and life is very hectic right now.  At least we have had some good stuff going on too, in the midst of all the chaos...

1.  It was our 2 year anniversary on Tuesday.  We went out for Mexican to celebrate. Yum!

Isn't he just so handome?

2.  Our little Marley graduated from puppy class  :)

3.  Spent most of the week getting ready for our vaca!!  We are heading to Arizona tomorrow and can't wait!  I definitely need a vacation after all of the craziness that has been going on.

4.  Got all of my homework done before vacation!  So that just means I don't have to worry about any homework or even think about school while I'm gone.  Thank god for that!

5.  Loving my new Kindle Fire!  Got it all ready for vacation... lots of movies, a book, and some magazines.  (although might have to upgrade to an iPad sometime in the future, which I'm sure my hubby will love)

Amethyst

I really want spring to be here already!  So in anticipation of spring, I bought some fun spring colored nail polish, of course.

On my nails it looks a little blue in the picture, but it's not, it's a beautiful purple.  It's a fun color!

proud doggy mama

When we got Marley from the Elmbrook Humane Society they built it into the price that we had to take her to puppy class.  As a mother of two (dogs, that is) and a foster mom I felt that this was completely unnecessary but because she was so inexpensive and so cute, we got her and signed up for the classes.  The first night of class was just for the parents to meet with the trainer and go over some basic training stuff, like help with housebreaking and crate training.  She also introduced us to some AWESOME toys.  Their favorite being the Omega Paw Tricky Treat Ball and of course we had used Kongs before but she told us about freezing soft dog food them, which is now another favorite of theirs.  Anyways, we practiced with Marley and got some of her tricks down before we ever took her to class, but of course once she was around all the other dogs she forgot all about her tricks.  With some work and help from the trainer, she did awesome.  And I am happy to say that she officially graduated from puppy class. 

This is one proud doggy mama!  Haha!

She was so exhausted when we got home that she just hung out with me.

Unfortunately for her daddy, she is quite the mama's girl :)

a car came flying through the front yard!

About a month ago we had a drunk driver drive through our front yard!  I didn't get a chance to write about it until now, since I got the day off of school.  Can't wait for school to be over!!  Anyways, more on the drunk driver...

We had just gotten home from puppy class and I still had a ton of homework to do, so I went upstairs to the office to get started.  About a minute after I sat down I heard the loudest BOOM ever!  I quickly looked out the window and there I see a car flying through the front yard.  All I could think was that Mark had parked his work truck in the street and someone must have hit it.  So I quickly made a run for it and yelled for Mark to call the police because I thought someone had hit his truck.  I get outside and the car (not Mark's truck) had actually stopped across the street in our neighbors front yard in a snow bank. 

sorry the pictures are pretty blurry cause I took them from inside the house

 I got outside and the kid who got in the accident was standing outside his car just staring at it.  Our neighbors had just gotten outside too.  I immediately told the kid to sit down because he could have been seriously hurt.  All of a sudden, our neighbors wife comes running outside with a fire extinguisher and starts yelling that the car is on fire!  We all got back from the car, and luckily my neighbor was able to put the fire out.  After all that craziness, I started looking around to see what happened and the kid mentioned he had slid on some ice.  I look into our yard and I see our tree that used to be to the side of our driveway was now laying in the middle of our driveway.  The WHOLE tree!  He took it out at the roots.  And this is also when I noticed that Mark had moved his truck into the driveway.  Thank god for that!  The police got there, and I helped them pick up some car parts, and then we just went inside until they came to talk to us. 

 Once they took the car away, and arrested the guy, we went out to assess the damage further.

 He was within maybe an inch of hitting both of our vehicles that were parked in the driveway!

 And our poor tree that is no more.  I sure hope the city plants a new one!
After all that, I just have to say that I'm happy that everyone is OK and that other then our poor tree, nothing else got damaged.  And that the guy got what he deserved...a DUI!