Doods

We're going to be parents--dog parents.  It's official.  Puppies were born last night, Friday, July 20th.  They are adorable!! Only 8 more weeks!!!!!  (We actually get to go meet and choose ours in 6, eek!!!!)

Buy me some Peanuts and Crackerjacks

It's been years since we've been to a professional baseball game--another thing to add to reasons why Utah is lame.

Luckily, Phoenix isn't lame and they have a pretty decent team, the Diamond Backs.  Needless to say, we went to a game against the Cubs.  We won (good, I hate the Cubs...I'm a Cards fan).  I don't understand why the diamondbacks are a type of snake, but the mascot is a bobcat?!  Can someone please help me out on this???

We had a great date night and I'm so happy we can actually do things we both enjoy out here!

Seriously, baseball is such a great American past time.  Our favorite sport.  Now we just have to find a club team for Ryan to join!

Sweltering Heat and Monsoons

We've finally made it to Phoenix.  It's hot.  It's brown.  I don't know how to get to the grocery store.  Luckily, it's not as ugly as Las Vegas.  Honeywell is having us stay in one of their company condos for 2 months while we house hunt.  We're in Scottsdale and it's pretty nice but we're looking for homes to buy in Gilbert, but so far zero luck finding anything because of the crazy real estate market out here.

We had a monsoon last evening and this was the view from our patio during sunset.  beautiful.

Flowers Everywhere

Since I'm moving and need a job, I needed to create a 'portfolio' of my floral arrangements.  I went over to my old place of employment in Murray and chatted with my old coworkers and bought a few flowers.  The selection wasn't huge and everything was picked over, but I was able to find a few goodies and this is what I came up with.

Lately, I've been obsessed with Dutch floral still life art, so that's where some of these pieces got inspiration.


I also threw together some quick bridal bouquets.  They look alright, but I definitely with I would have had more options to choose from at the wholesaler.  Oh well.

Memorial Day 2012

I don't know why, but summer holidays like Memorial Day and the Forth of July {and the UT holiday Pioneer Day) are seriously my favs, I think I like them more than the "traditional" holidays.  I just love being outside and eating BBQ and pie and the smell of fireworks.  Nothing is better than that in my opinion.

This year we made a feast of lip smackin' good chicken wings and drumsticks with my mom's potato salad {probably her best dish she makes and best potato salad I've had}, cooled cucumber salad and a few others.  All food was {fabulous}.  I'm really going to miss my dad's grilling and barbecuing when we're gone--I've been watching him doing it the past few times so hopefully I've sponged some of his secrets.

Let me tell ya, these pies my sister and I made were to die for good--and I'm not trying to toot my own horn here.  Seriously, that good though.  The pie on the left is called 'Lemon Ice Box' and it's a yummy Southern pie I was introduced to when visiting my in-laws in Memphis.  It was love at first bite when Ryan and I went into the Commissary in Germantown.  Ever since, I've been obsessed with re-creating their pie {they won't give me the recipe}.  I'm proud to say, I have {almost} got it, just a few more tweaks and it will be just like theirs.  Yum!

Afterwards, we went to the park and played with Asher.  He's a cutie.  I'm going to miss him terribly.  

Anyone else think this picture is frightening?  Also, this bench was made for giants, the 3 of us are short, but not this short so that our feet don't touch...

Gardening

Since Paige and Eric were on their cruise to Alaska, I thought it would be nice for them to come home to some pretty flowers in the front yard!  I had a lot of fun going to a few different nurseries and picking out a few of my absolute favorites!   Scabiosa, Celosia, decorative Kale, and Dusty Miller all made the list!

Mother's Day

Mother's Day, like Valentine's Day is a florist's nightmare.  However this holiday went much smoother than Valentine's Day.  I put about the same number of hours, but I was fortunately much less stressed and my feet didn't almost fall off {I was worried about that happening after Feb 14th}.  

Our owner let us make an arrangement for our Mothers so I chose to do something bright and funky for my mom!  I also got to spend the morning with her at Church and then went home for delish grilled chicken wings and potatoes my dad made!  It was really good being able to spend the holiday together before we move down to Phoenix.

1st Encounter with Phoenix

Before we came back to Utah after our Hawaii trip, we took a detour to Phoenix for a few days.  We got to meet our awesome real estate agent Cameron and got a good feel of the surrounding areas.

Miracle:  we actually liked Phoenix and it wasn't a wasteland after all.  It's nothing like we were imagining it to be.

We really like a few areas of Gilbert and Chandler so, hopefully we'll find our perfect starter home to buy soon!

Aloha

As a gift to ourselves for graduation and to celebrate our 1st Anniversary, we took a trip to Hawaii!  We had the time of our lives!

Ryan's best friend Kaimi is from the Big Island and he graciously let us stay with him for the week and he also showed us around the island and fed us delicious food!

When we first arrived, Kaimi took us to this awesome waterfall that was special to Hawaii mythology where a Goddess and an evil dragon battled.  The waterfall was gorgeous and I've never seen one this big before.  We then went and climbed some neat trees that were surrounding the waterfall...

The next day we got to go visit Auntie Sharon and Uncle Jon {Kaimi's parents}.  Auntie showed me around her beautiful garden and I started to get SO excited to make my own one day {soon}.  She has a green thumb and her yard is a mini paradise filled with hydrangea, fern with monkey tails, ginger, calla lilies, antherium, orchids and about every veggie you could imagine! She also made us some delish traditional chinese beef and broccoli.  We then went to go see a huge Volcano opening where Uncle works.  The colors were brilliant and it was just flat out cool being on an active volcano.  We love the Moraes family!!

Monday was our 1st Anniversary so we drove to the Kona side and spent the day on the rather secluded Mau'umae Beach where Kaimi and Kiira were married.  It was on the cloudy side but we still had a blast sitting on the beach, playing in the waves and just enjoying each other's company.  That night we were going to get sushi at this place with good reviews in Hilo...however when we got there we discovered that it was closed, as were almost all other food joints {come to find all shops on the beach front are closed on Mondays}.  Luckily, we did find a fab place that served us some yummy Spanish Tapas.  Happy incredible 1 Year of Awesomeness to Us!!!  

The next few days we spent snorkeling at different beaches throughout the island.  Snorkeling is one of our favorite hobbies to do together, and we will probably always try to take vacations centered around snorkeling and scuba diving (once we get certified).  Here are some of our fav pictures of the sublime underwater utopias we encountered:

Richardson's Beach:::

Hapuna Beach:::

We found a cave and of course went in to explore it!

Punalu'u Beach:::

We also visited Macadamia Nut heaven known as Mauna Loa.  I probably shouldn't admit this but I did eat an entire box of chocolate covered nuts by myself...and no, I didn't bother checking the amount of fat or calories it was so that I could not feel guilty.  We got to watch the workers hand dip and package the candies.  It totally reminded us of the 'Job Switching' I Love Lucy episode!  We got to sample all the different flavors and our favorites were the chocolate toffee and wasabi nuts but the ice cream was the best part hands down.

We did a few other fun things while we were there with Kaimi and his friends.  Some noteworthy outings were clearing forest out of Kaimi's brother's land in King's Landing, getting shave ice, learning how to make traditional leis, catching geckos, and learning how to throw rocks with a Hawaiian sling shot.  I also requested to have an authentic Hawaiian meal so Kaimi and his friend Rob made us a yummy dish!  We even ventured to try Poi. {it was actually ok as long as you mixed small amounts in with other stuff}

Mahalo Kaimi for letting us stay with you for our Hawaiian adventure!!!!