10.27.08 Weather Report!

Just want a record, to remind myself that on this day....October 27th, 2008....it is warm, sunny and 92 degrees. There is not a cloud in the sky. The only cloud in the sky EVER on October 27th of ANY year in the HISTORY of Arizona was on October 27, 2000.
Nine years ago I picked that date because October was my favorite time of year out here. The weather was ALWAYS beautiful, perfect for an outdoor wedding. But of course we received a record amount of rainfall that hasn't been touched....eight years later!
So even though we were able to move the ceremony inside, and everyone scrunched together really well with no complaints, and TONS of sympathy...knowing that my fantasy wedding was just that, a FANTASY...I still have a wonderful memory of that day. Of that morning, waking up and being really OKAY with it. The day before I was panicking, the week leading up to it I was panicking...but that day, I felt peace, excitement, exuberance. Nothing, not even 7 inches of rain in 24 hours (that's a LOT for here, people...and if you WERE here, you REMEMBER it!) was going to spoil my day.
I think the old wives tale is true...rain is GOOD LUCK on your wedding day!

Eight Years

I recently told one of my sister in laws that "I love this man more then the day I married him". "Really? Why?" she questioned...joking, of course!
However, over the past week since I said that, I can't help but think about my comment. I know I feel that way, but I actually said it aloud, and that makes it more real.
I do, I love Conal, more today, then the day that I married him. That day, October 27, 2000, I could not ever imagine loving him more, but I do. I've learned how we've changed and grown and gotten to this point, this wonderfully peaceful point in our marriage, in our lives.
I think that everyone thinks about that fairytale ending. Happily ever after. About which direction you want your life to go, your future goals, your dreams....together and individually. I've realized that even though we do talk about the future from time to time, we seem to be so much more focused on the present. The here and now.
If there's something we have learned in the last few years, it's that we have no control over the future. So instead of trying to determine it, or wonder, or wish....we are making the most out of each and every day.
Conal is my solid, my constant, my strength. He keeps me even. He's an amazing husband and my best friend.
Our life, our relationship is not perfect. It has challenges and ups and downs like anyone else. But I can truly say....for our lives, that seem to incur a lot of winding roads, he's the only co-pilot I'd ever want next to my side.
I love you Conal, thank you for 8 amazing years. Here's to having no more kids, sneaking junk food snacks after the girls go to bed, hoping the Yankees have a turn around in '09 (I'm so sorry), and "starting on Monday" ;o)

She's makin' a list

The Toys R Us big toy book came out in the Sunday paper today. GOOD GRIEF! It's not even Halloween yet, it's still too warm with temps in the 90's and the retails gods are pushing Christmas on us! Every year, when the holiday season is pushed on us earlier and earlier, I promise myself that I'm not going to be surprised. Yet, every year...come whichever week they throw the displays up, I am surprised!

Of course Hayden lit up when she saw the giant book of all her wants and needs! She's a list girl, loves lists...and so she and I sat down today to make her Christmas wish list. She wanted an extra blank page to put up on the fridge under her list for "when Santa needs the Target list too". NO KIDDING.....she said that!

I'm glad to know my girl has just basic, simple taste. Doesn't require much, most items found under the $10 spread. NOT....haha, she picked up the most fun, high rollin' toys she could seek out! Although, in true actuallity, she is a simple girl who doesn't require much to be happy and entertained. Our bank account thanks her :o)

So, here is Hayden's Christmas List. As told to me..while I wrote it down. And when I thought something was too ridiculous to write...she'd stare at me and tell me to "get drawin', we've got lots to cover"! Goodness, I LOVE this girl. She keeps me grounded, laughing and so grateful that we have her! I cannot imagine a single day without her to light up my soul! She's truly one of a kind!

List:

Horse Stable w/ horses - "the fake one is fine Mommy because Uncle Bubba gives me all the horses I need"

Puppet Theater Stage with Puppets- "..I can't share this with my sister though, Mommy"

Cadillac Hybrid Escalade - "...I needa car! I can drive Morgan and Maggie and any other girls. Cooper might not like it cuz it's pink".

Girls Scooter - "...I still need a pink one but there's none in the book. Does Santa make pink scooters or just cars"?

Furreal Pets Puppy ($160) -"...WOW Hayd, that's a lot of money for a fake dog. You have two real dogs..you don't need a fake one"." MOMMEEEEE....you're SILLY"!

Hannah Montana Pink Acoustic Guitar

ALL of the new HSM3 Barbies, "...the old Sharpay is ugly now"

Keyboard or Piana (piano)

Wii Sing it - "...with headphones" ( I think she means microphones)

So, that's her list. It cracks me up. I think there's nothing under about $70 on that list. And the Escalade tops out at $300. LOL --- crazy kid! I'm sure she'll be equally as happy with how we "revamp" it!

Arizona State Fair

Okay....next time the morning news comes on and pushes the FREE day at the State Fair...please call us and remind us to STAY HOME!

We were watching the news and heard the story and decided that it would something fun to do, if we got moving early, were there when it opened so we could be back home around lunch time and before it got real crowded. Well, we stuck to that plan alright and did well with all three. We also knew it would be pricey even though there was no admission. Well, pricey is an UNDERSTATEMENT. Seriously....we spent $20 on 40 tickets...and that got 3 people (they made me give up 6 tix to ride w/ Tay, and 6 tix per kid) on the bumble bee ride, 2 kids (6 tix EACH) on the Carousel, and 1 person (9 tix..PER PERSON) for a ferris wheel. I had to spend an extra $13.50 to get the other 3 of us on the ferris wheel with Hayden. GOOD GRIEF! Not only did I go against my every good, strong instinct of staying OFF Fair rides that leave the ground, I let MY KIDS go on it too!

Anyhoooo....Hayd loved the animal exhibits. Touching the sheep, llama, cows, etc. Was mad because we wouldn't pay $10 to ride on some small little ponies (although she quickly got over that because "Cooopers horses are better"! LOL) and Taylor wanted to eat about everything in sight, but couldn't! Oh yah...and wouldn't keep her dirty, germ infested fingers out of her mouth! Ewwww.......

So, here are pictures from our Arizona State Fair experience.

My Meatball. Uhhh, I mean Beefcake ;o)

I talked my cutie husband into spending some time with me in the kitchen last night. The girls were outside playing, and we were having a total veg out, do nothing kind of day. On days like that, we like to eat a fun meal and watch movies to cap off the night. We don't have too many weekends like that, so when we do, we like to make the best of them.

I'm digresssing....back to the kitchen. We decided our fun dinner was going to be Meatball Heroes. So delicious...so fattening...and so fun to make! So, I was able to convince him to come dirty his hands into the pile of ground beef, and I took pictures! I don't have a recipe that I follow. I just kind of use what sounds good and I think he thought I was a bit crazy when I was telling him to dump more and more bread crumbs and add big chunks of garlic. HOWEVER, I must say...my beefcake turned out some DELICIOUS meatballs!

Toothless Wonder

Hayden pulled out another tooth yesterday! That makes two teeth since Monday! I must admit, Conal and I are more than thrilled that she's taking matters into her own hands! When the first tooth became really loose, we were a little worried about how it was going come out of her mouth. As neither of us were wanting to touch it!

So, she's missing her bottom two front teeth. It's really cute! She looks like an old man without his dentures. The second tooth to come out, actually shifted into the empty hole of the first tooth. So looking at her, it's a big gap, but we're still amazed that there were two teeth in that tiny spot! I did a quick inspection of her mouth this morning, and that seems to be the last of the loose teeth for our little toothless wonder. At least for now!

HSM3

As a special Saturday morning treat, I took the girls to see HSM3 today. They were so excited. Everytime they see the commercial they go nuts, and Hayden's been asking for awhile now when it's going to be on. So imagine her surprise when I told her we were going to see it in the theater! Armed with her sour gummy worms, and Tay's natural popcorn, we arrived 30 minutes early to find ourselves on the tail end of good seats left! I knew it was going to be packed this weekend, but had no idea so many other mommies would hit the 10am show too! I think the packed theater made it even more fun. There were girls ranging from Taylor's age through high school in there. And as soon as the opening scene hit, the audience went crazy clapping and hollering. Seriously, it felt like we were at a concert. It was really cute! Hayden and Tay were both LOVING it. Once the theater quieted down, Hayden sat there and watched in deep concentration, as she always does, and Taylor could not sit still (in a good way). She was dancing, clapping and singing - even though she doesn't know the new songs yet.

We had such a good time. The theater ended up being, what seemed, sold out. My girls were soooo good. I love taking them to the movies. I couldn't ask for more well behaved kids when we go. We left there with Hayden asking if we could go buy the new CD for her iPod. So, I'm going to let her use the rest of her iTunes gift card on some HSM3 music!

"I wost my toof"

We noticed a couple of weeks ago that one of Hayden's bottom teeth was loose. I saw her eating an apple on the side of her mouth and she told me her teeth were hurting. My first thought was 'GREAT, a cavity'! But, as soon as she opened her mouth, I saw her tiny little tooth a little displaced and very loose!

I was sure she was going to lose it while we were out of town. I packed her tooth pillow and sent it off with her, sad, but knowing when I got home, she was going to be toothless.

HOWEVER.....she decided to wait for me! (You know, cuz it's all about me!) Apparently, the front side was not attached, but the back side still needed some working. So Papa showed her how to push her tooth in the opposite direction of what she was, to loosen it up more. Well, that worked, I'm convinced she played with that thing all weekend! First thing on Monday morning, she had been up for about 30 minutes and was playing outside, and comes running to the door jumping and screaming in sheer excitement. "I wost my toof! I pulled it out with my fingers!"

I'm not kidding, she was SO excited. Over the past week, she would just come up to us, out of nowhere, clapping and singing because she was about to lose a tooth. It was genuinely so cute! She wanted to call her cousins Cooper and Morgan, and her Papa, to tell them, because she was so proud!

That night, she put her tooth in her tooth pillow, and told me she needed to fall asleep really fast so that the tooth fairy could find her and leave her some dollars!

So....next up, the sister tooth sitting right next to the empty hole. It's completely moved. It's filling in the hole that was the lost tooth's home. Her bottom teeth look like a jack-o-lantern. Although, I'm not too worried. That one is quite loose, and she seems to spend lots of time wiggling it with her tongue :)

Vegas!

We had a really good time in Vegas this past weekend! I didn't carry my camera around too much, so I am really limited on pictures.

It was nice to have two full days. On the other trips that are further away, we seem to spend more time on travel than we actually do getting to play! On Friday after we had lunch with some friends, Conal and I took the monorail to the middle of the strip. We wandered for a couple of hours and played a few slots on a casino credit, people watched and enjoyed a gondola ride at the Venetian.

Friday night, his company rented out Studio 54 and we danced our booties off! (For those that follow the dancing Marquette saga....I made a conscious effort to keep my mouth closed ;) and Conal didn't clap!!)

Saturday we planned to spend the day vegging out by the pool. However, we had breakfast with some friends and co-workers and we decided that we wanted to check out Fremont Street. So, yet again, we hopped on the monorail and took it until the line ended. We then transfered to a city bus and made our way Downtown. (Which still confuses me, since it's North...wouldn't it be UPtown? Oh well!)

We had a blast on Fremont Street. That is definately the place to go and gamble! Conal and I have never really gambled "for real" before as we've always been intimidated because we don't know all the rules! So, Conal and his buddies sat down at a blackjack table and I found myself a craps table. I played on $20 for over an hour and was up $50 before I finally lost all but $5. So, I joined them at the Blackjack table. Conal was just finishing up his original $20 so I gave him a second one and put my $5 chip on the table. As soon as I broke even with the twenty I lost on craps I put that in my pocket and played for another hour or so. I walked out up $35 and Conal walked away down $40. It was so fun! The dealers were great! They were really helping us to understand why you should do what, when! It amazed all of us how long we could play on so little money. Another couple in our group blew through $60 each in about 10 mins at the MGM, so they were thrilled to walk away up a couple hundred dollars!

Saturday night was the Gala with the formal dinner and awards ceremony. Three and a half hours of yawn...but we made it through to find ourselves at a really swanky bar on his bosses tab! Conal and I stayed out until about 2:30a, because we could! We were both exhausted and hit a wall around 1:00....but we didn't want to cash in just yet. So after walking down the strip forEVER with some friends and not feeling really safe, we skipped out on them about 1:45, hopped back on the monorail and enjoyed a $35 nightcap at Nathan's. Two hotdogs, two fries and two cokes...yah, Yowza!

Anyhow...we had a great time. This was Conal's fifth trip with his company in the eight years he's been there. I'm proud of him. He's a hard worker and it's nice that they reward them when they reach their projected goals!

Race for the Cure

October 12, 2008

Four Eyes

I'm officially a nauseated, progressive bifocal-wearing four eyes. I feel dizzy, have a head ache and am so queasy. It's not fun and it's not even pain for the sake of beauty!

Apple Annie's Orchards

We took a roadtrip on Friday to Willcox, Arizona. We thought it was going to take a long time to get there, so we packed a bag in case we didn't feel like making the drive home on the same day. Much to our delight, it took us just two and a half hours, each way, to experience something not too common in the desert southwest! Apple orchards, u-pick produce farms and an incredible pumpkin patch. No, I'm not talking about a pumpkin patch common to us desert rats..the ones where they (even the big one that shall remain nameless!) throw loads of pumpkins into a big dirt field. No, this pumpkin patch was acres and acres and we actually picked the pumpkins off the stems! We had such a great day!

We started out at Apple Annie's apple orchard. We took a picking stick-thingie that has some pokers on the end with a basket, a bucket and a wagon and hit the Granny Smith orchard. I nearly had a heart attack (and broke into tears) when we rounded the dirt road on the very beginning of our foot journey, as I found a snake skin. I'm not kidding, I FREAKED! After I regrouped, we set foot down the road on a qwest for yumminess! Conal thinks he missed his calling (after sports broadcasting, of course) and should own apple orchards! He was really into it...we practically had to drag him away! The girls had a lot of fun picking the apples themselves, throwing the bad ones as far as they could, and of course..mini-Becca (aka Hayden) was freaking over the humongous multi-colored grasshoppers. That's my girl :o)Twelve pounds of tart, crisp, juicy Granny Smith apples later, we decided to visit the bakery and pick up an apple pie. OH MY GOODNESS, it was by far, the BEST apple pie either of us have ever had! We also bought some apple bread, pumpkin bread and homemade raspberry preserves. Obviously, we weren't too conscious about our waist lines this weekend!

Next, we decided to follow the signs to the Apple Annie's produce and pumpkin patch. What a find! I loaded up on delicious tomatoes (of multiple varieties and colors), eggplant, a 4 lb zuchinni, some chile peppers, jalepenos, and the list goes on!

Before we left we wanted to take the girls out to pick out a pumpkin each. It was SO fun! I have never picked pumpkins off of the vine before, this was a first for me. We couldn't narrow our selection down, so we each got a pumpkin (pictures to be posted of the pumpkins later!) of a different variety, shape and color. What a great, spontaneous day...on our own schedule, or no schedule at that! We all deserve those once in awhile, I think it helps to keep us connected, young and healthy!

To view our photo album in it's entirety, click here.

Hayden's Abstract Photos

She's getting so good with the camera, that I don't even realize when she's using it!

THESE boots are made for walking

Taylor wants a pair of her own boots so badly. Whenever she sees an empty pair, she just can't resist stepping in! Here she is, heel kickin' in Cooper's boots!