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!