A long awaited break

Well I had my first Phoenix excursion this weekend. Nora's Grandparents are in town and we went to the Grand Canyon and Sedona. It was a much needed break for me. I have been studying for my exams and working a lot. I have passed another exam and am waiting on two exam results. So that is 2 passes 2 unknown and 5 test to take. I am hoping to take the next test at the end of next month. Oh yeah I also turned 31 last month! I am getting old but still feel like a little kid. Nora would agree with the kid part :)



Well now to the good stuff. I have posted a slide show of the pictures of the Grand Canyon. I will post another slide show after this one. There were a few cool things that we saw other than this big hole in the ground. On our drive through the canyon we saw a cougar crossing the road in front of us. I pictured it eating the people that annoyed me for the rest of the day as well as making cougar noises to annoy Abbey. I do not really like being out in the public. I think I get this from my mother! We also saw a coyote along the road as well. I did not expect wild animals to be so close to where people are camping.

Well it is starting to get colder here now and we should be able to do more outdoors now. So hopefully the blog will get more updates. I will bring all the pictures of the Grand Canyon when we come home for Christmas. Look for the Sedona pictures shortly.

Birthday Present

This past weekend Abbey rented a hotel room so that we could use the pool and celebrate my birthday. It was great! The pool was gorgeous. Scott and Joe went golfing Sunday but Scott got to enjoy the pool a little on Saturday. None of us wanted to leave. Thanks Abbey!

What is wrong with people?!?!

Scott and I decided to go and see Batman this evening at 7:50 p.m. Neither one of us likes to go to the show because of the crowds and the annoying people the crowds consist of. We now only go to movies that are action packed or that have cool graphics that really look best on the big screen. After tonight, I think that we have decided not to go to the movies even for those types of flicks.

Here is the scenario: Scott and I arrive early (as per usual), buy our tickets and cherry slushes, and then quietly find our seats. We then considerately turned off our cell phones. At this time the theatre is probably half full. Scott made the mistake of saying that he thought that the crowds would be much worse. He asked for it because before long the theatre was full and the family that chose to sit behind us had four kids that I am guessing were all under eight years old. The kicker is that one of the children was in fact a baby in a baby carrier. As they tried to get situated, we wondered what they would do with the baby carrier. I quickly found out. The Dad sat down and proceeded to wedge the carrier between his lap and the back of my seat. OK no big deal. Shake it off and enjoy the movie - I told myself. Never mind the fact that they brought a baby to a movie. Sure enough the opening few lines of the movie and bang there goes the gun fire. Apparently these particular parents did not equate loud noises with a baby crying. As soon as the first shot was fired, the baby starts crying. Then we get to hear the shushing and the baby passing and the dig for the bottle and the feeding slurps and burps. Guess what? The movie had a lot of gun shots, things exploding, and many other loud abrupt noises. Don't worry though, they did not take the baby out of the theatre. They yet again attempted to shush and feed it. This continued for about half of the movie. To make things even better they were not the only family that thought it would be a good idea to bring a baby to see Batman. When the Dad behind us finally left with the baby, we got to hear the other one crying.

OK so there were some kids crying. Are we the only two people who think that babies do not belong at the movie theatre no matter what the movie is? My other complaint involves the other kids. The girl and two very young boys of the family that sat behind us did not do much sitting either. We were seated near the top and at the end of a fairly large theatre. We got to watch the kids go up and down those stairs more times than I cared to count - by themselves. No parents! It is like the blind leading the blind. Would you let your kids leave the theatre by themselves? I am talking in an 18 theatre multiplex on a Saturday night while no older than eight years old? They drove me nuts!!! What is wrong with people? Better yet, more parents than not thought that it was a good idea to bring young children to a 2 1/2 hour PG-13 movie at eight o'clock at night. Shouldn't they be in bed? Can any adult sit still for 2 1/2 hours? I had to race to the bathroom when the movie was finished. No wonder the poor kids had to take themselves and their younger siblings to the bathrooms while their parents sat and continued to watch the movie. Would they have noticed if they didn't come back? Would they have done anything if they had noticed that they were missing? There are so many things wrong with this scenario I can't type fast enough to capture them all.

OK so there were kids up and down by themselves throughout the entire movie. What about the fact that the content of the movie would have given Scott and I nightmares for weeks when we were kids? Scary looking clown masks firing guns, flinging knifes and blowing up everything in sight. This movie was a little above the good guy against the bad guy in which the good guy prevails - like in the cartoons. The plot was slightly more complicated and the line between good and evil was slightly blurred. At least from a child's perspective.

Needless to say, we left the theatre enraged. Scott a little less than me - or at least he hid it better. I was furious. These poor kids. Up past their bedtime (or what I think should be their bedtime), fed gigantic snacks a drinks, who are expected to quietly sit through an entire 2 1/2 hour long movie or choose to navigate themselves through a loud dark theatre to the bathrooms. Again, WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?!?!

Was the movie good? Yes. Would I have rather waited to see it when it came out on DVD? Yes.

We are still alive!

Well, after a lot of poking and prodding, Scott and I decided that we should probably update our blog. The last post talked about the fire that was so close to our house. Since that day the fire has gone out and we have had many new experiences. Unfortunately, I have been sick and haven't felt like talking, typing or getting out of bed. I am on my fifth round of antibiotics. I hope that it will be my last. Scott has been busy with work, picking up my slack, and hanging out with our new roommates Abbey and Joe.

The picture is one of many that I took while in Sedona. It is a truly beautiful place. While there, we took a Pink Jeep Tour (like the one shown on Little People Big World). It was great traveling up the cliffs but quite scary on the way down. It is a small gravel road with absolutely no guard rails. I nearly lost my breath a couple of times because our driver pulled us so close to the edge.

I took the other picture in Flagstaff where I met my Aunt Carol and Abbey for the last leg of their trip to our house. We took a ski lift to the highest point in Arizona. In fact, we used the highest toilet in Arizona while we were there. How could we resist?

I think that that brings everyone up to date. Keep in touch!

No Fumar!!!!!!!

Well Monsoon season started last week and yesterday we had our first storm. It is pretty exciting to see rain again! I was starting to think I would have to get a pet camel if it did not rain pretty soon. The storm was pretty bad. It had a ton of rain with a lot of wind and lightning. I did not think to much about it when it was happening but when I woke up in the morning there was a plume of smoke rising from across the road. It looks a lot closer than it is with the flatness of the desert but it is still pretty scary. The lighting struck a dry field full of dead shrubs and boom there goes the neighborhood! The good news is that so far no homes have been in danger. Only the migrant workers and the wild pack of dogs have been inconvenienced. Well I guess the man upstairs did not hear that Arizona is a non-smoking state or maybe he missed the NO FUMAR sign. That is no smoking in Spanish! Hehehehe..... I am bilingual now.

Well a quick news flash. I passed my first ARE (Architectural Registration Exam)! I took the Material and Construction Methods. I am taking my second test tomorrow. This one is Construction Documents. Hopefully I will pass this one as well. I will keep you all in the loop.

Posted by: Scott :)

Quick Update

We haven't blogged in awhile. I have been pretty sick. I had to go to the hospital this past Monday. I thought I had kidney stones. The x-ray didn't show any stones but it did show an infection. I am almost done with my second round of antibiotics and I still feel sick. I have a doctor's appointment on Monday.

Scott is going to Miami tomorrow morning. We have to leave for the airport at 5:00 am. He will be back Tuesday evening. Then I am traveling to Michigan on Friday. I will be staying for a week.

My Pack Mule

Scott provided me with a great laugh Saturday afternoon. We were waking up and discussing our plans for the long weekend. We had several projects that we wanted to accomplish and I asked him where we should start. His response was, "Why are you asking me? I am just your pack mule." Could he be any more honest and accurate? Most people know that when it comes to organizing and decorating our house I have the ultimate say. Some people might think that it is because I am incredibly bossy and opinionated (which is true) but it is also because Scott generally doesn't care. As long as I don't paint everthing pink and purple and use flower patterned fabric everywhere, he doesn't have an opinion. (Good match, huh?) Obviously, the pack mule reference perfectly describes his role. I need him to carry things, move things, and do the heavy lifting.

We did manage to accomplish quite a bit this weekend. Of course our expectations are always unrealistic, but I think that we did a pretty good job. We bought and put desks together for Abbey and I as well as an extension for Scott's existing desk. I attached a picture of our new desks. They are located in our living room. I desparately needed a designated area to do my work and Abbey will need a place too when she gets here. Having our desks in the living room works out great because Scott now has his own "play" room. We put his desk in the extra bedroom and set up his weight bench. He also was able to unpack and display his bobble heads - toys he thought would stay wrapped up in a box once we moved into our new home.

I also have some confessions to make. My Mom says that I am a habitual hoarder. My favorite things to buy are picture frames (which never get hung), pictures (which never get put into the frames), and bedding. All of these vices were made very apparent during our move. Despite all of the excess, I purchased several items from each category this weekend. I finally found some pillows to base the color scheme of the living room on, walls decorations for the bedroom, a new bedding set for our king bed, and some picture frames for the pictures that I purchased at a street fair in Phoenix. It sounds like I spent a lot but we really didn't. Slowly but surely our house is starting to feel a little more homey. Needless to say, I am a happy camper. Don't worry, my shopping trip did not jeopardize our potential pool installation.

I hope that everyone had a great Memorial Day Weekend. Keep in Touch! GO PISTONS!!!

Western Sky Middle School

Here are some pictures of Abbey's new school. She will be teaching 8th grade literature studies. Congratulations Abbey!

A Hard Days Work

Well Nora has been gone for about a week to Michigan for work. She has about two more weeks to be away. There is not much for me and the bunnies to do but lay around. So I just posted some pictures of what my night has been like for the last week or so. We are all looking forward for Nora to come home and get back to normal living. It is getting hard to keep up with everything with just one person at home. Well that is pretty much the update.

Our Weekend

Scott and I spent most of our weekend redoing our master bedroom closet. I had a good idea how I wanted to set it up. I think I literally spent an hour in the closet organizer aisle at Lowe's. I went in with one plan and came out with something completely different. Luckily it turned out to be a much better plan.

Our closet originally only had two clothes bars with a shelf above each. Since our closet has a ten foot ceiling, like the rest of our house, this old set up was not very functional. Unfortunately, when the orginal stuff was installed it was glued, nailed, and then painted onto the wall. Scott emptied out the closet, took down the old stuff, patched the walls and then painted. I spent the time putting together all of the new cabinetry. I love putting things together! Scott and I both installed the cabinetry and new clothes rods. We have two more lower clothes rods to attach. I changed my mind and decided not to use the rods that we had. Today I am going to get ones that are the same as the top rods instead. The ones we had to install attached to the cabinets.

I attached some pictures of what we ended up with. I had taken pictures last night when the closet was completely empty but my camera decided not to cooperate and did not save them on the memory card. I retook them today but I already started putting everything back in. It is really hard to get everything in a picture of a closet. Hopefully, you will get the general idea.

We did learn something. If you buy ready to assemble closetmaid cabinets, buy an extra cabinet. There were several occasions when I started to assemble something and I discovered that a corner was bent or the finish was cracked. By having an extra one on hand you can just swap out the damaged piece. After many trips to the store, this is what we finally ended up doing. The cabinets are nice but it was hard to get an entire package that did not have something damaged in it. Can you believe I already returned the damaged items? I am known for not taking things back so this was quite an accomplishment.

I think that that is all I can say about our closet installation. Everytime I take on a project like this I am very thankful I grew up with a Dad who was handy. Everything I can do during these projects I learned from him. Thanks Dad! I can't wait until you can see my handy work in person. Although Scott did a lot of work too, it is widely known that I like these types of projects and I have done them in the past. When Larry, Scott and I were unpacking the pods, Larry asked me "Where do you want your tool box Nora?" I think that that question sums it up quite nicely.

Did I mention that it was really hot? We both were soaked with sweat - GROSS. We finally gave in and turned on the air conditioner. Speaking of air conditioners, we bought a portable room air conditioner for the garage - or should I say for the rabbits? The brand name is Mastercool. Check out the website: http://www.adobeair.com/ . It is a really cool way to cool the air. We haven't tried it yet. I will let you know how it works when we do.

TTFN - Ta Ta For Now!

Buckeye Arizona

This past Sunday Scott and I drove further west to a city called Buckeye. It was a very easy drive. One to two lane roads all the way there. It took about forty minutes to get to our final destination - Buckeye Primary School. This is one of the schools that is interested in hiring Abbey as a full-time teacher. There are mostly vegetable and dairy farms between our house and Buckeye. However, it was a nice change from the usual highway jaunt. The area around the school was also quite rural although we did see some fast food restaurants and new community developments. I posted some pictures of the school for everyone to see. I also thought that it is quite a coincidence that the school is known as the home of the roadrunners - a childhood nickname that I think all three of us girls encountered at least once. Weird huh? Finally, Scott talked with a lady that he works with who lives in Buckeye. She laughed when he said that it was pretty rustic. She said that if we had kept traveling further west we would have seen the new school and some other development projects. Who knew? I almost forgot to post another coincidence. There seems to be a Mrs. Williams working in the district too. I couldn't resist taking a picture.

My Worst Nightmare

This week was another week of change. Larry moved out on Wednesday. He is back in Michigan. It was a sad day. I have worked with Larry for about nine years and live with him now for about a year. It will be different not working with Larry but it will be nice to have the house to ourselves for a little bit. Nora is also back in Michigan for the week. She had to go back for work. She will go back once a month for the next few months. Then we will see what happens for her work. OK a little background if you did not know I am not particularly fond of spiders. I usually cry like a 6 year old girl and call for Nora to take the bad monster away. But on the other hand spiders seem to be very fond of me. They hunt me down and attack me without mercy.

With that said let me set the stage for yesterday morning. I wake up early to see if I can get into work faster if I leave early. Everything is fine at this point. I am on track. Life is good. Now I am opening the front door when a dark shadow scoots under the door. Now instantly my mind raises with some questions. What could it be? Should I look at it? What if it is what I think it is? Where is Nora? Oh crap she is in Michigan! What am I going to do? Shut the door you fool!!!! My mind cries! So I slam the door closed and run for the bug spray. I race back to the door after I get the spray because I do not want this terror of the desert to call for reinforcements. I open the door with my foot just to put some distance between me and the porch monster. As the door slowly opens this huge black spider is looking at me. It looks into my soul and tells me how it is going to eat me in my sleep. So I spray it and spray it. It is either going to be killed by the chemicals or it is going to drown. It was me or him. In war you take no prisoners and believe me this is a war. A long standing war between me and the arachnid family!

Now at this point my hand hurts from pulling the spray trigger so much. I drop the sprayer on the porch close and lock the door with one eye glue to this beast. After locking up the house I get to the car as fast as I can. All day long I think about getting home to verify the kill. There is no kill until a body is found. Now I finally make it home from work and slowly walk up the porch and see the body. It is dead. I won this time. However the stakes are getting raised. They are starting to send in the big guns. This was no ordinarily spider. This was a Black Widow Spider. I believe I was lucky to come away with my life! A picture of this beast is attach. Now for those of you of the faint of heart please look away. For everyone else if you look close enough you can see the red hour glass on the under belly. I must say that this did make for an interesting morning yesterday. The body of the spider is still on the porch waiting for Nora to come and get it:)

Taliesin west

The History

Frank and Olgivanna Lloyd Wright established the Taliesin Fellowship in 1932 as a self-sustaining community of apprentices and architects who would learn and practice the philosophy of organic architecture by sharing in architectural work, building construction, and the related arts. Taliesin West was architect Frank Lloyd Wright's winter home and school in the desert from 1937 until his death in 1959 at the age of 91. Today, it houses the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, a school for architects, and is open to the public for tours. It is located on Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard in Scottsdale, Arizona in the United States. His summer home, Taliesin, is in Spring Green, Wisconsin.

The Visit

Today Larry and myself took a tour of this campus. It was very interesting. This is one of the buildings that you study in school. Wright is one of the greatest modern architects of our time. I never really thought I would be able to see this building in my life. We took a 90 minute tour of the building. The weather was great and the tour guide was interesting. It always surprises me when going into one of Wright's houses how low he designed everything. Larry had to crouch a lot when entering room. I have attached picture from my visit. I hope that you all like the pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them. To activate the video click in the video window and then hit the play button. I hope it works.

Friday Night Dance Off

Well guess what Scott and Larry had hooked up when I got home from shopping today? Dance Dance Revolution for our Playstation 2. Guess who really sucked? The girl who danced for sixteen years. Guess who rocked? Mr. rythym himself Scott Adams. Larry did better than me too! Did I mention that I sucked? Anyway I posted some pictures of our little dance off. Scott was supposed to take my picture but it is not on the photo card. Darn! Once we were red faced and out of breath, we played a video trivia game called buzz. Poor Larry didn't have a chance. After playing with the Rodeheffer girls, we are both hard to beat!

Tomorrow we have a pool guy coming to give us an estimate. If I have my way, we still won't be getting one any time soon. I am feeling really cheap - especially since I do not know what I want to be when I grow up. Sunday we are going to visit the Frank Lloyd Wright school called Taliesin West. Larry wants to visit it before he leaves Arizona. It should be fun. I will keep you posted. Until then dance on! (I really am a Dork)

2008 Phoenix Open

Well it was that time of year again. The boys golf weekend!!! It was different this year with us in Phoenix. All the guys came here and we golfed 36 holes both Friday and Saturday. It was perfect weather and great courses. It was around 81 both days and clear skies. We came home after golf and grilled out and played cards. Nora had fun entertaining in the new house as seeing all the boys again. There were a few casualties however. Rob came up a little short of completing all 36 the second day with sore knees and blisters on his feet from new golf shoes. I rolled my ankle on the 2 whole of the last 18 on Saturday. I was able to complete all 36 with the help of some liquid medicine ;) It is not a big deal just a little sore when I turn corners to fast. I have attached some pictures of the trip.

On Sunday we took Joe around to submit his resume for some jobs. He is looking for a job out here. If he finds one he will be living with us for a time. There was some excitement on the trip home for Gregg on Sunday as well. He missed his flight from Chicago to Kalamazoo. The plane boarded 20 minutes early and they did not announce that they were boarding. So Gregg and five other guys were talking across from the gate and did not see them boarding. When they realized what happened the airline told them that here was nothing they could do. So Gregg had to catch a later flight or rent a car to get home. All things worked out and he got home but now he is working to get his money for the missed flight back. Everyone else had a easy flight home with no problems.

I must apologize for not updating in a bit but we have been busy with visitors and I had a dead line at work. Nora has had her work extend the time they want her to work from here. This is a good thing! She has to fly in to Michigan every month for a week. I have shown here how to get to the blog so she should be posting soon.

Boxed in!

Well the pods are unloaded. We are officially boxed in. The rabbits are in the garage living the rabbit life. They really do not need to be in cages because there are so many boxes that they would not be able to move anyways. It is starting to feel more and more like home. Nora has been going out and walking around the parks. She really enjoyed it. We also cooked our first steaks on the grill. It was nice to be outside in the middle of winter. It was a little different during the Superbowl with out all the guys in my basement. I called home and none of the boys were doing anything. I quess we are all just getting to old. Well we have started to watch the Lost Season that we got for christmas. It is nice to get to watch TV on my flatscreen TV again!!!! We Nora is waiting to watch tonights epesoide so I need to get going. I will post more soon.

First Week Back

Somebody has the Mondays!!!!!!!

Well we made the trip with not to many problems. The VUE did receive a few cracks in the windshield and my guitar hero's wireless receiver is not working but the rabbits and Nora made it so I guess that is a deal. It is a very interesting endeavour traveling cross country with 8 rabbits. There is no are we there yet or i need to go to the bathroom. What you get is a lot of thumping and chewing noises. Not to mention the sleeping in the hotel room with them. It is a little know fact that rabbits are nocturnal creatures. This means that at about 1 to 2 in the morning they all are awake and ready to play. So as I try to sleep from driving 10 to 12 hours they are all chewing on their toys and crunching on their food. So it made for a not so restful night of sleeping. We now have the camera here and should be able to take some pictures to post now. I will leave that up to Nora to get going.

This is Superbowl weekend here in Arizona. I plan on celebrating it by getting the pods delivered and hopefully unloaded. I hope to have this all done by the time the game comes on. This will be my motivation. It will be nice to have all my stuff back and not be living out of a box anymore. Well that is about all I have for tonight. Sorry it was short but I am spent.

The spirit of a man!

Well yesterday was fun. The washer and dryer were delivered at 5:00pm and I spent the rest of the night hooking them up.

Buying Detergent:

Nora purchased a new type of washer that uses HE (High Efficiency) laundry detergent. All I have to do is buy the one marked HE. No problem right! Wrong. As I go to the store to purchase this special detergent I am faced with a great dilemma. I must make the proper decision on what detergent to purchase. I know that I need to make this choice correctly to prove to myself that I can handle this simple task without the direction of Nora. Now being with out Nora for around 5 months to tell me what I should be doing should be a liberating experience. This however is not the case. I have realize that I can not make a decision on anything without a tiny little Nora voice asking me if I have made the correct decision. Do not get me wrong I am not complaining because before Nora most of the decision I made on my own were wrong so I am grateful.

Anyways back to the problem at hand. I made it to the correct aisle in the store and I am looking at the HE detergents. These come in different colors, scents, and brands. They all have the proper HE label but what is this? They are all marked for front loaders! Well that could be a problem because ours is a top loader. So as I stare at the detergent waiting for one of the labels to magically change to say for top loaders and to have a golden hallow surrounding it so I know this is the proper detergent to buy I come to the realization that I have completely lost my ability to make a decision with out Nora's input. So I am so unsure that I have to call Nora who is 3000 miles away and double check. Now when she says yes dear it will be fine get that one. I feel like a child that just got a gold star on their homework assignment. All I know is that if I could not have gotten a hold of her I would have walked out of the store with out buying anything.


Installation

I return home from my detergent shopping quest and get ready to redeem myself with some physical labor. I get the washer connected and running with no problems. I even get a load started. "This is great" I think to myself. "I can have the dryer hooked up by the time my first load is done". I think this to myself at about 6:30. Around 9:30 I am still working on the dryer due to the fact that The Incredible Hulk attached the gas line cap to the line coming into the house and me being a mortal man can not get this thing to budge. As well as the fact that the contractor just for fun used a bigger exhaust pipe than what the manufacture said was standard so that I was required to creatively attach my flex pipe to the exhaust stack. I have now been sitting on the floor for 3 hours. But slow and steady wins the race and all that and I get it all installed and working. The key here is perseverance as well as the fear of going to the laundry mat located in downtown Mexico to dry my cloths!


Just dessert

Upon this taxing day I felt it is my right to have a nice reward. As many of you know I have an affection for sugary goodness. So I finished the last of the ice cream in the freezer and called it a night. Once Nora gets here with the camera I will post some pics of the finished installation.


Well that is all I have for this evening.

Blog, Blog, Blog

Well I have taken the challenge and created this site. I am hoping to use it to keep everyone posted on the Phoenix Adventure. I will be leaving to get Nora on Friday. I am excited to finally get her out here. It will be nice to have a normal life back with her and the rabbits. If you can call having eight rabbits normal! I spent most of my day today putting the ceiling fans in. Larry helped me install four of the 6. We also have part of the entertainment center built. Our plan is to finish the rest of it and install the last two fans tomorrow. For those of you that do not know Larry is the person that moved out here to work at DMJM with me. He worked at Ghafari with me. We have been living in a apartment together for about 5 month to save money. We have let him move into the house to help him save money until he moves back to Michigan. Things did not go so well for him and his family here. They have moved back to Michigan. He will be moving back once he finds a job there. Some people can not handle the sunny days. As for me I am loving it here. Things are going great at work. I got a raise this week and I should be able to get another one in 3 month or so. We have closed on the house and I have moved in. Attached are pictures. The back yard is still not landscaped but we are working on getting a pool. I had to turn the furnace on for the first time today. The house gets cold at night with all the tile and no furniture to absorb some heat during the day. It is kind of weird not having to have heat turned on after Christmas. I am hoping not to have to have to run it very much. Want to save on the energy bills. Well I think this is enough for my first entry here. I hope I can have some interesting things to post. If not I will at least have pictures and will make Nora make some entries.