Sunday: A Day of Relaxation...Ya, Right!

I love a day where I don't leave the house and I can just get things done...

This day happens ONCE every OTHER month...give or take a week or two.

It is always on a Sunday because Josh works on Sundays.  I usually have a standing date with my mom on Sundays because mother-daughter time is so very important.  But today, my parents are in Las Vegas (hopefully, winning lots of money and having way too much fun!) so I stayed home to relax get things done.

Here's what I have accomplished today:

3 loads of laundry- done, folded and put away

clean sheets/comforter on the bed...mmmm, heavenly

new blog design and header (small details still in the works)

finished reading "Catching Fire"

dinner cookin'

P.S.   Josh and I took a day trip to Sedona yesterday.  We spent way too much money in the chocolate shop there, ate way too many french fries at the brewery and had good quality time together (except for the small amount of time I spent yelling at traffic...who closes the 101 over a weekend!?)  On our way home it was just sunset and as we were passing Carefree Highway, all the hot air balloons were around us. It was such an awesome sight to see.

It's the Strangest Thing...

As soon as I begin a vacation from work for more than one week my intellectual level immediately drops.
It really is the strangest thing. 

It's as though my brain says "You're not going to really need me for a little while anyway, so I'm gonna hop on the next flight to the Bahamas!"
And I'm left here to fend for myself.

You think I'm exaggerating...
I have been on vacation now since Friday at 12:30pm.
In the last three days I have:

*Said the sentence, "I bet we maked someone's day."
*Taken three times to successfully start my car. (Which only involves pushing a button. Seriously, I don't even use a key!)
*Then said, "Third charm's a try!" 
*Spilled a glass of iced tea on my mom at Jason's Deli while telling a story and gesturing in a fashion that was, apparently, a bit too grand.

And my personal favorite...

*Walked into the women's restroom at Wal-Mart and thought "Why are there urinals in here?!"
.
.
.
Yeah...not the women's restroom.

This isn't even the first time this sort of pattern has occured.  Every summer I experience this as well.
It's immediate too, so I can't even prepare myself for all of the stupidity.
I'm sure worried about how I'm going to make it through the next two weeks.
Maybe my brain will decide to come back home because it doesn't want to be away from me for the holidays.
I hope so.

5 days and counting!!!

(P.S. Sorry if there are typos in this. You know why.)

Where Did It Go?

Somewhere along the last two months, summer has come and gone. Where the heck did it go?

One day there were six weeks left and then, all of a sudden

(with no warning at all, might I add!) 

I'm down to six days.

Here's a look at this totally awesome and fabulous summer.

1. Swimming

2. New York

3. Arts Integration Conference

4. Brian and Lela's Wedding

5. Five Scoop - Jim Dandy Sundaes

6. Beautiful week with friends in Flagstaff.

7. Taking pictures of everything to remember everything.

8. Soaking up beach sun and playing in waves.

9. Friends, shopping, eating and rocking out at Warped Tour.

10. Laughing everyday with my completely amazing husband, family and friends.

It was a good summer.

All behind me in memories now...

Time to go back to work.  Uh...do I really have to!?

C'mon, just a little more time...

Like...until...October!

Sigh. Ok, I guess it's ok.

Ouch!

While we were in NY it was brutal trying to not get eaten alive by mosquitos.  I hate bug bites!

(Yes, I know no one actually likes them)

We were there for about a day when Josh got a bug bite on his leg (or so we thought...)

It got bigger...and bigger...and all of a sudden his shin was swollen and red to the size of a softball!

So after him getting way more attention then he ever wants, I talked him into letting me take him to the doctor.

I worry about him!

So we went to one of those CVS clinics.

Just what everyone wants on their vacation...

A Tetnus Shot!

(During which I had to stand in the corner and face the wall. Yes, I'm very mature.)

He was very manly and fine about the whole thing but since I was upset for him he pretended to be sad so I could take a picture.

He's so sweet.  And completely adorable.

One delightful shot later and antibiotics 4 times a day for 10 days and he's all better!

And we spent the rest of the time using lots of bug spray!

New York City

NYC = Fantasmical

NYC also = Sweat lodge

This is the sphere sculpture that stood in the front plaza of the twin towers. After 9/11 it was found with all those gashes, dents and twisted metal pieces and moved to Battery Park and made into a memorial.

The sights were just as great as they always are, but it was so humid and rainy that I thought I was going to just die right there.

But...I didn't (as you can tell) and that's a good thing!

Long Island in Bloom

Long Island has so many gorgeous flowers!

Everytime I see one that catches my eye I make sure I stop and take a picture.

Just a few for your viewing pleasure...

And there are little bunnies that just hop around and eat the sweet clovers in my uncle's backyard.

  

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Volunteer Fire Department

New York (and many other places) have volunteer firemen. When they get a call, a big and loud siren goes off that can be heard throughout the town and the volunteers come, suit up and go fight fires!

We were there hanging out while my parents talked to one of their friends at the firehouse and i'm walking around taking pictures (of course) and all of a sudden the loud siren and alarms go off. I jumped (actually jumped) screamed and ran to my mom's side like I was five years old.

Throughout the next few minutes some guys came in, suited up and left. It was very cool to see. Some jobs even let their empoyees leave if they are a volunteer firefighter and hear the siren.

It was very exciting to see.

They also had a really nice memorial in front of the firehouse.

Inside a glass window in the center it had a constantly buring flame.

It was pretty awesome.

More posts to come about other vacation stuff soon.

We're off to the city tomorrow!

Stay tuned!

Zoom in.

Outside of our hotel room in Flagstaff there was a balcony and a lot of acres of beautiful trees and wildlife.

You just don't get to see stuff like this in the valley.

We would wake up in the morning, order room service, eat while looking out the sliding glass doors at the beautiful scenery and then go onto the balcony to feed the squirrels.

I got a lot of really good use out of my wonderful zoom lens.

Take some time to zoom in on things and look at them

in a different light.

You may discover a brand new beauty that you never knew existed.

Snow Love

I LOVE sledding.

I also LOVE making snow men and women.

Playing dress-up on a snowman is my new fav hobby.

They are like my adorable little snow children (in a not weird way).

There's no LOVE like our SNOW LOVE.
Next time we're going bigger and better in the snowman building department.

Sedona, Refrigerators and Christmas! Oh my!

Diana and I took our overnight trip to Sedona on Sunday just to get away and spend much needed time together. We had tons of fun. We ate amazing chicken salad sandwiches at the Brewery in Tlaquepaque (*most fun word to say!), saw a living Nativity and walked around looking at all the touristy stuff. I can't believe this gal and I have been best friends for so many years. Best 17 years of my life!

Tonight, my other BFF (Becky) and I are doing the Christmas lights date. It's gonna be awesome. Cant wait!

Onto stuff that is not so awesome (Grrr face >: ) Yesterday after I drove home from Sedona I spent some time with my mom and then went home to meet Josh there just as he was getting home from work. As I walk into the kitchen I am greeted by a puddle on the floor in front of the fridge. I say to myself "What the heck!?" and yell "Josh, we've got a problem!"

So I open the freezer door and things are all soft and not frozen. Great. We have only had the fridge for the five years we have had our house. It's still practically brand new. We moved into our house the week of Christmas in 2004, SO since it has been five years I immediatly said, "the warranty isn't good anymore. I'm sure we didn't get the 5 year warranty!"

I go to look in the file cabinet and there, right in the area labeled "Appliances" is a folder with "refrigerator" written on it. (Uncle Gene is awesome at making sure I have things when I need them, because it was written in his handwriting!)

Anyway...I open the folder and the first page I see is the warranty information... dun dun dunnnn! I look at the coverage start date :Dec.23, 2004. The end date: Dec. 23, 2009!

I screamed as Josh was talking to his dad on the phone and I'm pretty sure my father in law can't hear out of that ear anymore.

Anyway, after calling and dealing with a woman who was very hard to understand and only added to my frustration, I got an appointment for someone to come look at it, but the first available wasn't until Wednesday. We had to take EVERYTHING out of the fridge/freezer and throw most of what was in the freezer away.

The upside... Josh's parents always had a really old fridge in their garage that they would just use for drinks and extra storage. A few years ago when they bought a new kitchen fridge, their old one went into the garage and we go the really old one for our garage. It keeps things so cold and I was glad to have that to at least put in all the stuff that I could save.

We'll see what happens when the repair person comes to look at my poor ice box.

Oh, ya...the saddest part of all...we got everything all cleaned up and wiped out and then we sit down and say "let's have a nice cold drink"...then we realize...we now have no ice.

I kid you not, I took two glasses over to our neighbor's house and asked for ice. They filled our glasses and gave us a whole ziploc full (which we can still keep in the garage fridge's freezer :)

Christmas is in 3 days!!! Aggghhhh!!!!!! So excited!!!!!!!!!!!!

A Sleeping Ferret = Me Laughing

Sometimes Josh sees a ferret in a pet stores sleeping in a very hilarious way. Then, he points it out to me and... of course I took a picture. It's very important for me to take pictures when I see something so shocking or hilarious because I would be doing the world a dis-service if I didn't share! Click here and scroll to the bottom of the post if you want to be reminded of the last funny pic I took.

Anyway...back to the ferret... see for yourself... priceless.

Sooo...we went to Las Vegas over October Break. Lemme take a minute to give October Break the full props it deserves. There is no greater week off that I am given as a teacher. It fully rivals Spring Break.

I love you October Break.

Ok, back to Vegas. It was fun. Like it always is. We stayed at the Luxor. It was cool.

We sampled many different (20 to be exact) kinds of soda from many different countries at Coke World. Just for the record: A beverage from Italy called Beverly tastes like poison if i could imagine what that would taste like. Super fun though.

We had a great vacation and on the way home while going through the Joshua Tree Forest I got to take an awesome picture of the silhouette of a tree against the sunset.

Good times.
How has your October been so far?

I'm such a Rebel!!!

Finally...the time has come and I am the proud owner of a Canon Rebel T1i. I love it so very much. It allows me to take the very best pictures. Here it is...Some pictures I have taken with it have turned out very cool. Here are a few...

I love them and I hope you do too. If you would like me to take photos of you, let me know! Maybe we can work it out because I would love to!


Pinetop!
I realized I never updated about our little trip to Show Low/Pinetop. It was very relaxing and it was so nice to just kind of explore and have nothing we had to do. I am a sucker for quarky roadside attractions. Many people dont know that about me. If it is the "World's Smallest" or "World's Largest" or just something amazingly cool (By amazingly cool I mean it is sometihing most people find very lame and yet, my family humors me by acting excited.) I always feel we have to stop and see whatever it is! Anyhoo, on the way to Show Low while passing through Superior, Josh pulled off the road and there it was...The World's Smallest Museum!" I know what ur thinking...SWEEEET! Cause that's what i was thinking too. ;) I have the BEST husband!





At the museum they had a big fountain made entirely out of different sized tires. I think it looked like something right out of the movie Cars!

When we got up north we went to Sunrise, found dandelions that were the size of a baseball!!!, found and walked along a beautiful lake and just spent quality time together. It was wonderful.