Happy Birthday Andy!

Ok, so my blog post is a tad old since Andy's birthday was 10 days ago.  At least I am posting something about it right?  It's better late than never.  For Easter we went to the Seifert's and Karen always makes a bunny cake for Easter and she was so kind to include some birthday candles in it so we could sing to Andy and he could blow out his candles.  If you know Andy well, then you know how embarrassed he was.  His face was red and he didn't seem thrilled.  He really was not expecting it since his birthday was two days away, so when Karen came around the corner his face was priceless.  HE HE!

Two days later was his actual birthday and that is when I gave him his fabulous present and we went to dinner at Brio since that is his latest favorite restaurant.  Maybe it's because it's an Itailian restaurant that I can eat at, so now we can finally eat at an Italian restaurant.



He loves getting his picture taken, especially when he is center of attention!

 

Izzy wants to help!





One shocked, but happy, husband!

I got my husband the new iPad for his birthday and he was completely shocked.  During the week of his birthday he was joking with me and his mom (Laura was in town too) about wanting an iPad.  He of course knows how expensive they are so he was just joking about it.  Little did he know that I had ordered him one three weeks prior.  It was fun to mess with him though.  Talk about gaining some awesome wife points for the next five years!

I Hate Phoenix Traffic

I absolutely love living in Phoenix.  I love the weather, our friends, the mountains, and the location as we are so close to CA, Las Vegas and Mexico.  Ugh, but there is one thing I absolutely hate about Phoenix...the traffic.  Since I live in North Phoenix and drive to Tempe for work four days a week I just deal with the traffic and my commute and try not to let it get to me...until the other day.

One day every year there is always some horrific accident on the 101 that causes a huge taffic mess and then it typically takes me 2 hours to get home.  I usually just deal with it and suck it up since that happens once a year, but when it does happen it is miserable!

My mother-in-law is in town and on Tuesday night we were planning dinner at the Scottsdale Quarter.  I leave work at 5pm and head up the 101 to be faced with a traffic nightmare.  Everything comes to a complete stop and I am just hanging out on the 101 since I could not go anywhere as nobody was letting anybody over to try and get off on an exit.  I of course was in the far left lane.  After an hour of creaping along the 101 I was finally able to exit at Chapparal Road, which is approximately 10 miles from work.  My number is not exact, but it sounds about right.  That took me an hour to go 10 miles...lovely!  I proceed to side streets thinking it should take me about 30 minutes to get to the Quarter now.  Mmmm...I was wrong.  As I started down the side streets I noticed how crowded it is due to everyone exiting the 101 and taking side streets too.  It is now and hour and a half into my journey and now, I have to pee.  This commute is just getting better and better.  I hold for another half an hour until I arrive at the Quarter 2 hours later.  I meet up with Andy and Laura at the bar/restaurant and immediately order a glass of wine.  This girl needed a bottle of wine from sitting in my car for two hours to go a total of 22 miles. 

I do love Phoenix, I just hate the traffic! 

Took a Blog Break

I haven't written in a while because I kind of took a blog break.  One reason I took a break is because I haven't felt inspired to write about anything.  I also took a break because Andy and I are creatures of habit.  We do a lot of the same stuff over and over again.  I don't know how many times I can write about attending another spring training game with the Campbell's so I just decided not to write. 

Besides being creatures of habit we are also LAME.  We haven't done much lately, but the things we have done prove our lameness. 

Example #1: We went out on a Saturday night with Mike and AJ for drinks. 

• Lame #1: We got there early (aka 7pm) to get a table on the patio to have food with our drinks. 
• Lame #2: We left by 10pm because it got overly crowded around 9:30pm for the "whoop it up" crowd.  We are not in the "whoop it up" crowd anymore so we decided to head home to the animals.

Example #2:  We went to the Giants game the first weekend of spring training this season. I guess that is stepping out of our usual behavior of only attending the Cubs games at the Cubs stadium.  A little background: This stadium is in downtown Scottsdale and is supposed to be the stadium to go to for partying and great people watching.

• Lame #1: I did not enjoy my time there for the reasons people say I should have enjoyed my time there.  I had fun because of the people we were with and the beautiful weather and that is it. 
• Lame #2: I went to the bathroom and found myself super annoyed as I stood in line for 30 minutes with a bunch of drunk girls talking babble.  Ok, I did not judge because that was me 10 years (ok, maybe 3 years) ago.  I just did not find that fun at all and instead it made me want to leave. Who wants to stand in line and wait to use the restroom?  Not this girl! 
• Lame #3: Sitting in the lawn was not relaxing as we were basically on top of our neighbors.  Not my idea of fun anymore.  Maybe 3 years ago I would have found this a good time to meet and greet my drunk neighbors who were sitting on our blanket by the 6th inning, but not anymore. 

Example #3: Costco visits.  Ok, normally Costco visits would not count as lame, but here is why I count them as lame.

• Lame #1: Doing our Costco shopping trip on a Friday night and being excited about it.
• Lame #2: See Lame #1 over-and-over again.

Besides being lame, or you could call it adulthood, I have been utilizing my Pinterest account.  Yup, I made these fabulous dishes and they were Yummy!

This was Salmon over spinach noodles.  The recipe called for canned salmon, but that sounds awful, so I grilled salmon and then broke it up before I added it to the sauch.  This was pretty good.

I also made these stuffed shells.  They were very good.  The only thing I would change for next time is to add some kind of sauce.  Other than that, very yummy!

I made baked taquitos too.  These are amazing!  I did not take a picture, but the flavor was awesome and I was very pleased that they were baked and not fried because I love taquitos, but the fried ones are so bad for you.  Not that these ones were totally healthy or anything, but baking versus frying does help.

Hopefully I don't get in another blog rut!

Beautiful Weather

This weekend was an absolute beautiful weekend in Arizona and just reminded me of why we live here.  This is the time of year that I absolutely love.  It was a gorgeous 80 degrees.  I was able to bust out my flip-flops all weekend as it was so nice out.  I enjoyed my weekend hike/run around the mountain and just took in the awesome weather this state has to offer.

Beautiful weekend in Arizona!

With this nice weather it made me want to get out and shop, so shop I did.  First, Andy and I finally got to Crate & Barrel and used our gift cards we received from our wedding many months ago.  We got the glasses we registered for and other misc. items.  It was nice that Andy was there with me so I didn't buy everything in that store as that is one of my favorite stores of all time.  I could spend a day there and a small fortune if allowed.  I also did some minor damage on my own as I went out looking for spring apparel because I feel I don't have anything.  Basically, the nice weather just got me antsy to bust out the shorts very soon, but then realized I don't really have much so it was time to head out to shop to see what I could find.  It was also nice to have that Jaimi time.  I used to always have "Jaimi time," but I don't do that much these days or at least for the past couple of years.

Andy spent time on our backyard this weekend.  He went out and got two new Topsy Turvey's to replace the ones we had last year and planted strawberries, zucchini, tomatoes and chili's.  YUMMY!  Can't wait until they come through and we can eat them.

Our fruit is looking great!

Our grapefruit

Oranges

While Andy was working on the backyard and making sure all the bushes and trees had enough water Izzy decided to dig a hole where some water was.  This created a nice little mud puddle for her and since nobody noticed this she came into the house and shook off in the kitchen.  Yup, mud flung everywhere.  I started to clean the kitchen while Andy hosed off our spastic dog.

Andy trying to hose off Izzy.

I ended the weekend with making a fabulous meal I found on Pinterest.  I made a broccoli beef over rice.  It was AMAZING!  The only thing I did wrong is not cut up enough broccoli.  I definitely skimped on the broccoli, but I know for next time.  Everything else turned out awesome and we will be serving this again in our house.

Now that spring is here, or at least it is in my mind, we are facing a busy March.  Yes, that would be the month filled with Spring Training games on the weekends and March Madness in this house.

Happy Hallmark Holiday

Hopefully you had a good day and you received the cards, roses or candy that you were expecting from your sweetheart.  I did receive my favorite flower, tulips, from my husband last night when I got home from work.  The best thing is that he already had them arranged in the vase we received as a wedding gift.  I didn't have to do anything...NICE!

I did get him a bag of his favorite candies and a card.  This was kind of a fun year as I was able to shop in the husband section.  Normally I always have to sift through the cheese section to find something appropriate for our relationship, but this time I sifted through the "for husband" section in search of the appropriate card.  Yes, these too are cheesey as well, but it was a lot easier to find a card now that he carries the official title.

Lacking the Excitement

Well, this sums up my weekend in a nutshell! 

Yes, all I did this weekend was hang with my best friends: cough syrup, Vick's, Vitamin C and my neti pot.  Andy especially loves when I go to bed with Vick's on my chest.  He he!  I did spend all weekend in my pajamas as I was nursing myself back to health.  I did manage to leave the house for a tad bit while I went to Target for some groceries, other than that my weekend was definitely lacking the excitement.

The most exciting thing about the weekend was receiving this card.

This card arrived from our good friend's up in Oregon.  It's a happy Chinese New Year card.  The great thing about getting the card is that it was a complete surprise.  I mean, who sends out Chinese New Year cards...especially if you are not Chinese?  I have always wanted to do this...send out a holiday card on a random holiday when nobody else ever sends cards.  Kudos to the Parks for doing this as it brightened up my weekend...my very sick weekend.

Crazy Week...and Now I am Sick

So last week was very busy for us as we had friends and family in town for the Waste Management Open festivities and the Siefert's annual super bowl party.  With that said there was a lot of eating out, plenty of drinks and a lot of late nights. 


I spent a day at the Open in the Firm's skybox.  It was a good time.

 All of the weeks craziness caused me to get sick this week.  Yup, I am sick and I have been fighting it all week.  I have been trying to get healthy so that I can participate in a charity event this weekend for work; however, I had to succumb to the reality of not participating.  I have tried everything to get healthy, but nothing has worked.  Oh well, it is my body's way of punishing me for acting like a 21 year old for a whole week.  It was worth it though.

View from the back of the tent at The Bird's Nest on Saturday night.

AJ, Andy and I on Saturday night at The Bird's Nest.

Besides eating and drinking we did manage to get a hike in with our friends.

The week ended with the super bowl party at the Seifert's that consisted of about 40 - 50 people.  Now, by the time we arrived for the party I was exhausted from the past five nights of fun.  Even so, I did make a fabulous appetizer that I found on Pinterest.  It was a bite size caprese salad with EVOO and balsamic vinegar drizzled over the top.  So simple and yet, very YUMMY!

We had such a good time with everyone that it makes me miss being around them all the time.  I can't wait to see everyone again...hopefully sooner than later.