Week Long Rain Fest

Well, it has been raining all week here in Phoenix and I don’t mind all this rain since this is rare weather for us. It’s nice to see a change every once in a while and plus it reminds me of summer in Wisconsin when it rains nonstop for days. Besides the rain we are having a tornado watch. Phoenix hasn’t had a tornado in twenty or thirty years so it’s crazy wind with rain. Again, this reminds me of a typical summer day in Wisconsin. The only difference is the people. In Wisconsin the weather man doesn’t report on this for days like it’s a hurricane and the News channels aren’t overcome by the story of all the rain and wind. In Wisconsin people don’t drive like complete idiots when it rains. Here, people act like its freezing rain so they will drive 30mph in the fast lane on a 65mph freeway. Thanks to this it will take me over an hour to get home tomorrow night after work. Fortunately I worked in our Scottsdale office today so I didn’t have to deal with the idiots on the freeway. Also, in Wisconsin the people built drains in the road so the water can run off and streets and yards don’t flood. In Phoenix there are no drains so basically everything floods, the streets, back yards, parking lots, etc. Our backyard is very flooded. We now have two pools back there. The one we put in and the one past our retaining wall that the rain created this week. If allowed, Izzy would play and romp in it until she is a complete mess. We don’t allow this because I could just imagine our house when she came inside. Madison on the other hand doesn’t care for the rain. She doesn’t like it very much and would prefer to be inside.

I am ok with this weeklong rain fest, but come Saturday it better be gone. I am ready for the sun to be back. It never gets old to me. I just love seeing the sun everyday!

A Night Of 30K Millionaires

We had a pretty chill weekend, but we did go out for sushi dinner with our friends Mike and AJ. Following dinner the four of us headed to a north Scottsdale bar called Blue Martini. This bar has only been open at the City North location for about a year or less and we finally managed to make an appearance; however, I am still undecided if it was a good thing or not. I was looking forward to checking this place out even though I heard it was way over priced for the martinis. Hey, I had to check it out for myself and I did feel that my friends were right when it came down to the price. We first got there and the bar was over filled with Scottsdale 30K millionaire douche-bags and 40 year old divorcee’s with too much make up and very fake boobs. This is not my crowd of people to hang out with, but it did make for great people watching. It was fun to watch the overly manicured men all douched up ready to hit on the next available, and desperate, plastic chick to walk through the door. After a few drinks I looked around and started to wonder now that I am 30 if this was “my crowd.” I don’t fit into the 30K millionaire group, the divorcee group or the plastic group, but I sure fit in with my age…barely. Since last July I have been 30 and that forced me into a new decade of people. This gave me the credibility in the “older” bars. I didn’t realize this when I first got there because I am not used to this new decade of 30 because I automatically assumed I was way too young for this crowd. This thought changed after a couple drinks and I started to think about age, especially after I took a trip to the ladies room. I was minding my own business in the stall of the ladies room when I was listening to some overly drunk women washing their hands. They sounded like they were 21 years old and this was their first rodeo at the bar. While exiting the stall in the ladies room I noticed these were not newbies at all, but instead these women were well over the age of 40. All I kept wondering is why they were behaving like they are 21 years old, and I am not just talking about their vocabulary, but also the way they were dressed. I am not one to judge, but this incident made me judge as I was hoping to god that I would never be like that when I am over 40 years old. Am I just getting old now that I judge these sad drunk ladies in the women’s bathroom or is that what happens when you turn 30? You get the right to judge the other drunk women in the bar and definitely in the bathrooms? I am not sure, but Friday night was definitely entertaining by all. It’s not a bar I would frequent unless I feel the need for some good people watching while I sip on martinis.

Started Decorating

Well, so far I am off to a good start for my New Year’s resolution. Andy and I decided to check out Kirkland’s to see if we could find a floor lamp for our living room. It turned out to be a great trip and a great start to my goal of decorating our house. We found a new floor lamp, new bed side table lamps, floor length mirror and one of those tall cylinder things that you put “stick” looking things in them. Ok, I am sure that was not a great description so I took a picture of it.

This was a stressful buys and we bought this at Michael’s. On Friday night we stopped at Michael’s as I needed to purchase two baskets and while we were there we passed the aisles that sold this kind of stuff. We perused the aisled and after discussion we decided on the one pictured above. It was a tough call since Andy and I are both not into decorating and really have no clue what to do. I was worried that we wouldn’t like it once we got home, but I was pretty pleased with what we decided on.

Another purchase was bed side table lamps. We have wanted to get these for quite some time. We have looked for a while, but could not find anything we liked or just were unsure of the style we found. We found these ones on clearance at Kirkland’s and were even more pleased once we set them up at home and how great they looked. Here are pictures so you can see the lamps we picked out.

We also bought a new floor lamp and floor length decorative mirror at Kirkland’s and got it home and just loved it. It turned out to match our living room perfectly. The mirror is going to replace the crappy one that is in our hallway. I was pretty impressed with our shopping ability and decorating. I couldn’t believe we were able to pick the items we did and everything worked out perfectly in one try. Maybe with a team effort between Andy and me this decorating thing won’t be so bad after all. I will keep you posted as we continue to get things organized and decorated.

Happy New Year!

Ok, so maybe this post is two days late, but it’s always better late than never. I have just been a bit lazy these past couple days, well actually, I have been pretty lazy ever since we returned from Wisconsin. Well, I hope everyone had a fun and safe New Year’s Eve. We of course did. Andy’s brother, Ryan and Lisa, have been in town for New Year’s so we spent NYE with them and our friends, Mike and AJ. We spent all week trying to decide how to ring in the New Year. After research and some thought we all decided to go down to the Fiesta Bowl block party in Tempe. We haven’t done this yet since we have lived here and thought it would be a good time to try it. Since it’s quite the drive from our house we decided to rent the Big Orange Bus. This company picks you up and takes you to your destination and 30 minutes before you are ready to leave you call and they come back to get you. It’s a guaranteed ride home and since the taxi system sucks in this city the Big Orange Bus was the best route to go.

We decided to get down to the block party early and grab dinner on Mill Avenue at Gordon Biersch. Then we went to check out the main stage with the main beer tent. It was ok, but since it was early in the evening it was slightly boring. We decided to walk around Mill Avenue and check out the bars. We ended up paying a cover charge at The Library bar and that was where we ended up for the rest of the evening. Not ideal as we all wished we would have checked out the block party a bit more, but either way we all had a great time ringing in the New Year together and we got home safe by the Big Orange Bus. We all arrived back at our house about 1:30am to a stinky surprise the dogs left in the kitchen. Of course they had to ring in the New Year with two large stinky doggie dumps that smelled up the whole house. It stunk so bad that I couldn’t help clean it up due to fear of vomiting from the horrendous smell. Maybe that was their way of saying thanks for leaving them home alone on New Year’s Eve.

So, did you make your new year’s resolutions? Normally I don’t do this because I can never come up with something that is actually realistic. 2010 is a different year as I did come up with two New Year’s resolutions that are realistic.

The first resolution is to be more organized at home. At work I am plenty organized but for some reason when I get home it’s a different story. I need to clean out my closet, clean the closet in the third bedroom as well as plenty of other hiding places in this house. Our messy garage needs to be cleaned out and organized. We would like to buy the nice garage organizers and just get all the crap in their donated or stored away nice and neatly. I am done being a slob at home, or at least this is what I am saying for 2010 and I plan to stick it. I do know that it will take time to get this house completely in order, but I figured one weekend at a time will do.

My other resolution is to get this house decorated. We have been living here two and a half years and there are no decorations anywhere. It looks like we rent our house. The lack of decorations is not because we are lazy, but because it’s not something I am good at. I have tried many times to purchase stuff in stores, but when it comes down to it I never buy anything. I am not good at picking out colors, paintings, and other misc. decorations so I just get overwhelmed and put everything back. This year I am going to keep trying to decorate until I have stuff on the walls and curtains hung. I mean, how hard can it be…right?

Well, I hope everyone has a great 2010 and I will continue to write posts through the year to keep you updated on our lives.

Christmas in Wisconsin

Well, after the chaos with the dogs and the long and boring drive we did have a nice Christmas in Wisconsin. It’s always good to spend time with family and a few close friends in the freezing state of WI. When I first arrived it was so good to be around family that I thought it wouldn’t be so bad to move back to be near the fam. Even by the third day it was still on my mind. The crazy snow and ice storm didn’t even damper my thoughts on the fifth day; however, waking up on Christmas Eve to the seventh day of doom and gloom that quickly changed my thoughts. I love the sun and to go seven days without seeing it was seriously depressing. I really don’t think I could ever move back because of that. After seven days of doom and gloom I was ready to pack my bags and do the drive back to sunshine with Andy and the dogs. I only had another full day to get through and then we were to hit the roads. I was so excited to leave that doom and gloom the morning after Christmas to get back to sun and warmth. So, I learned that it’s great to go back and spend time with loved ones, but it’s not a place for me to live…at least not right now or anytime soon.

Here is our family Christmas picture (sans Captain) in front of my parent’s festive fire place. I hope everyone had a great Christmas this year as I can’t believe today is the last day of 2009. Will write again next year!

It's A Doggy-Dog Xmas

We arrived in Wisconsin and we stuck to the same plan as last year, Madison stays with Andy and his mom while Izzy stays with me at my parent’s house. This worked great last year because it seemed they behaved better while they are apart. Since Madison was holed up in Laura’s house all week with no friends she didn’t have a partner in crime to help her get in trouble. Therefore, all week I heard how great Madison behaved. I guess she just lay around the house and also would go from window-to-door and then back to window protecting the house with a few barks here and there. Other than that Madison was on vacation too as she spent every day being lazy and playing in the snow. Unlike Madison, Izzy was not a fan of playing outside in the snow. She preferred to stay inside in the warm house.

I on the other hand was in charge of Izzy who is very much a puppy still. She was bouncing off the walls hyper from morning ‘til night as she played with my parent’s shit-zuh, Shadow. Here is a 55 pound spastic dog playing with a barely 10 pound fluff ball every day and all day. It was pretty comical.

With that said, I knew I had to keep a close eye on Izzy during the two Xmas parties my parent’s had at their house. The first party had over 40 people there and that meant a very excited Izzy. She was so excited to see all the people (especially the kids) that she could hardly contain herself. There were a couple kids there that were afraid of dogs so Andy and I really had to watch her and entertain her so she wouldn’t plow over the little kids with excitement. She did really good with all the people, but I knew we still had to watch her so she didn’t get into the food that was out all over the place. Izzy disappeared downstairs and Andy followed to ensure she didn’t tackle the table of desserts. Instead of finding Izzy face first in the dessert table he found Shadow going to town on the cake that was out. Shadow was standing on the stairs with his head sticking through the railing and on the other side of the railing was the table of treats. This gave him easy access to the cake and his little mouth was going full speed ahead. Andy yelled “Shadow” as I laughed hard. Andy scared Shadow that caused him to pee on the carpet. I thought this was funny because we were so concerned with Izzy getting into the food that nobody thought tiny little Shadow would be the one to eat the cake from the dessert table.

I was so proud of Izzy for behaving herself at the family Xmas party that I started to trust her a little more to roam around the house without keeping a close eye on her. The next day my mom was out doing errands, my dad was out shoveling and I decided to trust Izzy by herself while I blow dried my hair. Big mistake!!! Ten minutes in I got this feeling to check on her. I found her on the stairs playing with a small red ball. I picked it up and I noticed it was from one of my mom’s decorations and it left bright red all over my hand just from picking it up. I took it upstairs to see if I could find where it came from. No luck, but on my way back down stairs I noticed this red ball left a few red streaks on the ivory carpet. I was a little freaked and I went to find the Bissel to steam clean this up. Once the light was turned on I noticed the bright red streaks up and down the stairs. Looks like Izzy had a great time playing with this red ball that she slobbered over and so the ball bled all over the carpet. I was now more concerned, but my dad was pretty calm about it and he started to clean. I then noticed more streaks at the bottom of the stairs and then that lead me to a bigger area of the carpet with more streaks and more bright red coloring. This large area led me to the home of the red ball. My mom had a basket of potpourri and in the potpourri were red balls that smelled like cinnamon. I am sure Izzy thought the cinnamon balls were candy. Unfortunately her good time was noticed all over the carpet. After a couple pass over’s with the Bissel it was all clean. Thank god!

Christmas Eve was the second family party we had and I was more confident that Izzy would behave herself after the last family get together; however, after the red ball incident I knew I still had to keep an eye on her. Of course I had to go through the same hyper activity as everyone arrived one-by-one. Once Izzy calmed down she was pretty good the rest of the night. Everyone was in the basement opening presents and I noticed Izzy haul her butt upstairs where nobody was, but food was still out and in easy access for her. I decided it was best if I follow her to make sure the food would be safe. As I get to the top of the stairs I noticed Shadow on top of the table face first in the red velvet cake. There was a birthday that day so my grandmother brought over a cake. There were seven pieces left that my mom put on a plate to eat for later. Well, of the seven pieces five of the pieces were completely cleaned of frosting and three of the pieces had huge chunks taken out of them. I yelled at Shadow and he just started going full speed at that cake. I grabbed him and put him on the ground. There was Izzy staring at me with the look of “When is it my turn?” I noticed Shadow got on the kitchen chair that was pulled out and then hopped onto the table. According to my mom Shadow had never done this before. Well, again, after Shadow pulled the cake stunt I wasn’t as worried with Izzy. It was just funny how I was so worried about Izzy misbehaving and getting into the food when all along it was Shadow we all had to worry about. Not long after the cake incident my aunt was packing up her stuff to leave. She put one of her kids large chocolate bars in her purse and then set the purse on the floor. Shadow proceeded to go in the purse and take out the chocolate bar. It’s a good thing he only got one bite because chocolate is so bad for dogs. After this night everyone was exhausted from the dogs.

On Christmas Andy and I took the dogs up to his family Xmas in Wautoma and I was very happy with both dogs behaving themselves. Izzy was just so excited with all the children and the other dog there. Things were going smoothly and then Madison decided to get on the counter and take a bun. She got almost the whole thing. Once she realized what was up there and how to get at the food she had a one track mind. She was constantly trying to get food off the counter. This made for a very exhausting night of guarding the food so neither dog would get at it and get sick.

It’s the morning that we are leaving town and it’s all quiet in the house. I warned my parents that it won’t last long because Andy and Madison were on their way over to get us. Of course as soon as they got there Izzy got so hyper that she tipped over one of my mom’s plants. The moist dirt was all over the white carpeting. Again, the Bissel gets dragged out of the closet to clean up another one of Izzy’s messes. I swear that Bissel got the most use ever during the week that Izzy and I were there.

The girls had a great Xmas in Wisconsin, but they were also very excited to get in the car and make the long journey back to warm Arizona. I am sure my parents are happy to have their house back to peace and quiet.

The Drive

I know I haven’t posted in a while, but I have been really busy with the holidays, family, travel, etc. Ok, so I basically have been lazy because I could have posted while on vacation in Wisconsin, but when I am on vacation I am pretty lazy and don’t want to do much. So, I have a lot of catching up to do and one post just won’t cut it so to update everyone on our Christmas vacation it will take two or more posts. I will start with our drive.

Yes, we drove again this year. I know we said we wouldn’t do it again after last year’s drive, but we did, and of course it sucked again. The important thing is that we got to spend the holidays with our families and our baby girls, Izzy and Madison. We left the house on December 17th at 3pm and arrived in Madison at 8pm on December 18th. Again, we drove straight through and it took 28 hours for a 26 hour drive. Between the two of us we did it no problem. We probably could have done it in the normal 26 hours if Madison didn’t take her sweet time to go to the bathroom at every pit stop.

I remember I was a super trooper last year as I drove my half. I don’t believe I quite made my goal of driving 50% of the time. I will have to guess-timate that I put in a solid 9 hours on the way there. I do want to comment that Andy pretty much took over the driving and every time I asked if I could drive he said he was fine and kept on going. I wasn’t about to complain, but it was nice to drive because it was pretty much the only thing that entertained me in the car.

The drive there went pretty smoothly, except for Oklahoma. On the way there Andy woke me up at 5am to tell me he was getting pulled over. I asked how fast he was going and he informed me that he was going 76 in a 70mph zone. I was shocked to see he was getting pulled over. Andy roles down his window and proceeds to get his wallet ready for the officer. The officer got on his horn and ordered Andy to step out of the car with his license. Then tells him to walk toward the patrol car and get in the passenger side. At this point all I could do was laugh uncontrollably. I wouldn’t have laughed if I thought he would get a ticket, but I didn’t think that would happen for only 6 miles an hour over. I could see Andy in the patrol car plain as day because we were parked under a street light and the red and blue flashing lights were also pretty bright. The sight of Andy in a patrol car was pretty hilarious. He came back to our car with a written warning. It was interesting that the written warning didn’t say his speed, but instead said he was speeding. I thought that was a bit odd that he didn’t say six miles over. Andy said the officer asked him what he was in a hurry for. Andy was a little shocked by the question and had a smart ass comment for him, but decided that was not the best route to go. The officer also asked him if he owned his vehicle and then told him to slow down before letting him out of the patrol car. Too funny! Apparently on the speed limit signs it says 70 Minimum 40 No Tolerance. I guess they really mean no tolerance, or this bored officer had nothing to do in his po-dunk town in OK when he saw out of state license plates and decided to entertain himself.

Our drive home wasn’t too bad either, that is until we hit Oklahoma again. Oklahoma received 14 inches of snow on Christmas Eve and they don’t have the resources or knowledge to know what to do with that amount of snow, so they decided to do nothing. Two days later as I am approaching Oklahoma at 8pm I completely hit big chunks of solid ice. Approaching the ice it looked like slush or big piles of snow, but as soon as I hit them I realized it was frozen solid. The whole interstate was like this. It was insane. I couldn’t believe a state would let their roads go for two days like this. It was extremely dangerous and I was freaking out as I was driving. It would be clear for a bit, and then all of a sudden I would hit giant areas of covered ice chunks. Good thing we had Andy’s Jeep because my car probably would have been completely damaged or we would have joined the many other vehicles in the ditch as we slid across the ice. I approached Tulsa, OK and I was feeling relieved thinking the city should have better roads and maybe we can exit so I can take a break from the crappy interstate. Boy, was I wrong. Tulsa was just as bad, if not worse, as what I was experiencing. On top of the chunks of unplowed, now frozen, snow I had to deal with glaring ice. I could feel Andy’s Jeep just slide, tires spinning and his car was completely out of control. I was only going 35mph in some areas, but other areas I was slower than that. I couldn’t even exit to switch drivers because all the exits were not even plowed so it was a foot of ice I would have had to drive over. I was not about to chance that so I kept on going as I gripped the steering wheel. The first chance I got to pull off the road I did and we switched drivers as I calmed my nerves. I drove in that crap for two hours. All I have to say is Oklahoma sucks. They pull drivers over for their entertainment purposes and they do not plow or salt their roads after a snow storm.

Unfortunately, since I was done driving shortly after Tulsa this put me in the worst shift of 2am to 7am. I don’t know how Andy has done it before because it was tough. I did it and we made it home safe and sound. Again, just like the drive there Andy took over so I did not do my fair share of the driving, especially not after my OK experience. I would guess that I put in another solid 9 hours of driving on the way home.