4 Little Words

I know Jake won't approve of this message, but just this once, I don't care ;)

When we moved to Arizona I unknowingly put myself in a pretty tough situation. I exposed myself to something that would toy with my emotions and confidence; an endless amount of job interviews. I had to try to convince a complete stranger that I am amazing; they want me on their team, they'll regret not choosing me, I will change the fate of their company! Plenty of people weren't convinced, and pretty soon I felt like a failure. I felt unwanted and useless. Now, we all know I ended up with a job, but it took me 6 months of applying for numerous jobs a day and interview after interview to get. I felt like I had been kicked in the gut over and over. It was nice to feel wanted by someone, but let's face it, they weren't exactly going out on a limb by choosing someone with 5 years experience when they would have been fine with 6 months. I'm still working on feeling "back to normal" but sometimes I let something that someone says get the best of me. And when that happens I end up complaining and venting to Jake. He's gotten really good at listening and he's put up with a lot of ups and downs, and just yesterday during one of my frustrated rants he said 4 little words that made everything better.

Even auto correct isn't going to ruin that for me :) I married a great guy, I know that, and sometimes I get to be sweetly reminded like this.

We Played Hooky..

And went to our first NFL game! We thought we might as well take advantage of the fact that we live near an NFL stadium and go to a Cardinals game. We decided very last minute the morning of and quickly took care of our Sunday obligations and made the 45 minute drive to Glendale. Here's how it all went:

We were there on Veteran's Day weekend so there were a lot of fun things happening

Here's Jake getting ready for our "card stunt"

And here's what it looked like

We had a lot of fun! (Don't mind Jake's red eyes, he's adjusting to new allergies in the desert).

Our First Anniversary

What better way to celebrate an anniversary than to go to Hawaii? Here are some pictures from our little adventure :)

It was cold and rainy Thursday morning when we left Arizona

Our first stop in Honolulu was an L&L barbeque for lunch (traveling in BYU apparel was not planned)

We stayed in Waikiki's first hotel; it was amazing and in the most perfect setting. We were given leis when we checked in

Another "must" for our first day was to get a shave ice

Our first sunset

For our second night, which was our actual anniversary, we went to the Polynesian cultural center for a luau. It was pouring rain by the time we got there and luckily someone gave us ponchos while we walked through the park to where we were eating dinner

We decided before we left Arizona that we would get each other anniversary gifts in Hawaii. There was an international market next to our hotel that will be closing at the end of the year, and we found the perfect memento for each other there

We talked to the man making these tikis at the market and he told us this one means prosperity, good luck, and peace

When we checked into the hotel they asked if we were there to celebrate anything special. We told them it was our anniversary and they were kind enough to send us a bottle of champagne to help us celebrate. We returned it and let them know we appreciated the gesture but didn't drink, and they were so kind and brought us some sparkling Apple cider instead

Our third day was very low key; we spent the morning experimenting with paddle boarding and the afternoon walking around downtown. The hotel had about 8 rocking chairs in front and in back of the hotel where people could relax, so we decided to head out there and watch the sunset

This was our view

Much of the rest of our time was spent on the beach relaxing and swimming in the perfect water

My first ever macaroon! I'd been dreaming of this since watching an episode of Master chef and had searched all over Arizona without any luck

A sign we saw in a Disney art store. We still don't really understand it

Our last day on the beach

We had so much fun and can't wait to go back! Here's to at least one more year of marriage ;) (Jake's lovely toast on our anniversary)

We Lived In Our Car For Two Days

Well, kind of. Last weekend we drove to Utah to go to a football game and visit family. We didn't get any time off work so we knew it would be a quick trip.

We left Friday after work around 3:30 Arizona time and headed to Kanab, Ut. Our first stop was in Flagstaff for dinner. I was extremely excited for scenery that included mountains and trees instead of cactus.

We got to our hotel around 11:00 Utah time and found a bunch of bikers awaiting our arrival ;)

Saturday morning we drove to my mom's house for breakfast, I took this along the way, just enjoying more mountain/fall scenery.

Two excited football fans before leaving my mom's house

We drove to Lehi and met up with 9 of Jake's family members for dinner, then headed to the game.

After getting to our seats I realized this was the first football game we had attended since getting married so we took a picture to cocommemorate.

The game ended around midnight and we had a two hour drive to my mom's house. It took us about half an hour to get to our car and on the freeway so we were home and in bed by 2:30. Sunday morning we woke up, had breakfast, showered, and got back in the car to head home.

We took a detour through Kanab National Forest and Jacob lake on our way home since part of our highway is closed and we didn't enjoy the detour we had taken through Tuba city on the way into Utah Friday night. We got up to 7000 feet and that made for some spectacular scenery again!

We got home, started laundry, and collapsed on the couch by 7:30 Arizona time after spending about 21 hours in the car over the last 2 and a half days. Even though it was mildly exhausting it was a lot of fun to see family and go to the game and road trip together!

Still Eating Clean

We're still experimenting with clean eating recipes from emeals and they're getting easier to make and tasting even better as well. Here are just a few more that we've fallen in love with...

Grilled chicken and garden bounty salad

Pork salad with nectarines and pita bread

Pot roast quesadillas. One great thing about these recipes is some of them carry over to another day. With this one we made pot roast one night and used the left over for this.

Minted strawberries (one of my favorite sides)

Corn chowder and strawberry salad

Spaghetti and meatballs; roasted red pepper sauce instead of marinara

Chicken cordon bleu and salad

Baked avocado (this was last night)

This is how our plates look when we're done lately

We decided one day to find a clean recipe for chocolate chip cookies and found one here

We tried it out and it seems strange to begin with but when you taste them they're actually really satisfying and it blows my mind how simple and easy they are to make.

We really are enjoying experimenting with these recipes and seeing everything come together. Most of the time we have no idea what dinner will look like or taste like and there have been a few nights where one or both of us will trade that dinner for cold cereal. But we feel great and have a lot of fun cooking together so we're going to keep on doing it!

On a side note, this is how the cat feels about all this ;)

It's Just Too Hot Here

I was working one morning when a co-worker asked me if I knew the back window of my car was shattered. I had no idea what he was talking about and it took a few minutes for him to convince me he wasn't joking. My first thought was someone had thrown something at it or something had fallen on it, but when I got outside to look at it there wasn't a spot where everything began and spread from.

This is what I saw

As you can see, the window was in fact shattered and in danger of falling through! It was like a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. I had no cracks in my back window, no chips, no logical explanation as to why this would happen except that we had experienced temperatures around 105 to 110 for the past 3 months. So I have to blame this on the unforgiving Arizona heat! Curse you!

Visiting Colorado

In August we decided to go visit my brother and his family in Colorado. We flew out Friday morning and stayed through Sunday.

We were there a week after this little guy's fourth birthday so we made sure to celebrate with presents!

My mom was there that weekend as well and she went with Jake and I to see "Turbo" with Lukas. He loved it and was so good during the entire movie. When we got home Jake and I were instructed to play tag with Turbo, aka Lukas, and of course we couldn't catch him because he was Turbo.

Here are these two being tigers (I swear Jake is his favorite person)

This was one of the rare trips where my brother wasn't working so we could spend a lot of time all together. Our nights were spent playing cards and the days consisted of playing army, watching Rocky and Bullwinkle, arm wrestling, playing tag, playing with light sabers, and our last day there we walked around downtown where they have some fun sculptures.

We had a great weekend with everyone and look forward to seeing them again soon!