The Place is Hot

I just learned on Wikipedia that the origin of the name of Phoenix is Native American for "the place is hot." I don't know how you would translate "Hotter Than The Fires of Hell" in Navajo, but they should have named it that. As I mentioned in the previous post, we weren't exactly looking forward to our trip to Phoenix but we were determined to try and enjoy it. So I'm going to skip over the fact that it was over 90 degrees by 9:00 a.m. and the high every day was 108 and get on to the good stuff. First of all, I was surprised at the size of the airport and the size of the town (both huge!). Well, to call it a town wouldn't really be correct- it's more like one big blob of sprawl running into the next. I did find it to be very pretty with the mountains all around and the desert landscape is beautiful in its own way. (I know I'm not being all that positive but I'm trying!) We were on the 19th floor of our hotel which afforded us a pretty good view of the area.




You can see the baseball stadium in the picture above- it's the only building that has its roof open. We went there and took in a Diamondbacks-Cardinals game on Sunday afternoon. It was a cheap and fun way to spend the afternoon and we had a good time. They had the roof closed for the game though and I have to say it felt a little weird to watch baseball being played indoors. Weird, but nice and cool.





There was a nice shopping/theater/restaurant area nearby that we ate at a few times. It seems they're really doing a lot in Phoenix to spruce up their downtown and it looked great. There was a parking garage across the street from our hotel that Rob had no idea was a parking garage because it was done so well. I wouldn't have thought it was one either except I saw the small sign and the place where the cars enter and exit. It's good to see cities investing so much in their downtowns because a vital city needs that. Anyhow, that was about it. We were going to see The Bourne Ultimatum but we never made it. The hotel had a really nice gym that we both went to a few times. I spent 3 hours at the pool on Monday and my shoulders were a fiery red color that is now beginning to fade. My flight back was uneventful and NOT fun. There was a rather large man in the seat next to me. Well, he was actually partly in my seat too and that was the problem. I was very happy to get back to Iowa and get home. I'll be even happier when Rob gets home. My final verdict on Phoenix is this: Nice place to go if you are trying to get away from your snowed-in house. If that's not the case, stay where you are because it's probably better there.

Getting Good at This

It's off to the airport again- this time to Phoenix for a conference for Rob that his employer is sending him to. I didn't really want to be away from him for a week so I'm going for 4 days. I didn't have enough vacation time to go the entire time but that's okay. Since he'll be in classes and things like that all day, I have big plans for working out at the hotel gym and going swimming and reading. That's it. After all the running around we did last weekend, I'm looking forward to just being in one place for this weekend. It's hotter than hot there and I don't think either of us is too excited about Phoenix, but we're trying to make the best of the trip. We leave tomorrow morning so there won't be any postings for a few days while I'm gone. I hope to convince Rob someday that we need a laptop PC but I haven't yet. One good thing about all the traveling? I am a pro at the USPS website when it comes to requesting them to hold our mail.

There wasn't too much going on this past week since we were just getting back home and then getting ready to take off again. I did make some lemon cookies that were very tasty.



They were pretty easy to make too but the bad news? The recipe only made 16 cookies! I made a note of that on the recipe and I think from now on I will always make at least a double batch. That was pretty much the only cooking I did this week. It didn't make much sense to get groceries when we are only home for 4 days.

Tonight, we went to Des Moines and joined Costco so we could finally buy ourselves a new mattress. We had tried out the Tempur-Pedic beds at a local mattress store but those are crazy expensive. We did a lot of research online since there are many other options for memory foam mattresses these days and decided to purchase this one. We're not ready to set it all up yet but that will happen soon. Rob's parents are visiting in less than two weeks and we sleep in the guest room now so that will be a problem when we actually have guests. We have everything we need now for our master bedroom, we just need to paint the room and put it all together. More painting, I can't wait. Seriously, it is very exciting to have everything now and get that much closer to being settled in our house. That is a great feeling.

Nice To Be Home

Though we had a wonderful time in California, it sure feels good to be home. We had a blast with our family, spending time with them and not really doing too much. Though we had fun with everyone, I think there was one family member that we may have had a little more fun with- our niece, Lucy. She was less than a month old when we moved to Iowa and it was great to see how she's changed. She's such a doll! She's seven months old and she has such a great personality that is starting to come through. And she's sooo good- the only time I heard her cry or fuss was when she woke up from a nap. Even then it was more of a "Hey, come and get me!" than an upset or angry cry.

Lucy with her Uncle Rob, making Aunt Shelby's ovaries hurt.


She's teething and everything seems to go straight into the mouth to be chewed on, even Uncle Rob's hat!


Lucy- just being her cute self.


There wasn't really anything too exciting to report. We spent most of the time hanging out with family and eating all our favorite foods that we can't get in Iowa (ahem, In-N-Out, ahem). We stayed with some friends (Brent and Nanette) in LA and ate at Versailles and played Scattegories which made for a fabulous evening. The most exciting thing was running through O'Hare airport, again, after our plane from LAX was late leaving, again, for our flight to Des Moines. Both this time and last time we went to California we had very short layovers in Chicago made worse by leaving late from LAX. And both times we ended up landing only 20 minutes before the next plane was due to take off in another terminal. We sprinted off our plane and made in time though, once again, our luggage didn't make it. It was delivered to us late that night and everything was there so all's well that ends well.

The Next Project

Last week I noticed some water spots in the ceiling in our basement in a spot that is underneath our bathroom. The hubby did a little investigating and discovered we had some loose tiles in the shower and water was getting into the walls there and dripping down. Monday night Rob began his next project which entailed removing approximately the bottom two rows of tiles which are just above the tub in our one and only shower. I was none too thrilled to discover that he was doing this at the beginning of the work week and I can't say I'm feeling much better about it now. We had to remove and clean nearly all the tiles you see below that are marked with blue tape and then dry out all the soaked wood. That's right- wood. For some reason there is wood behind those tiles instead of backer board. We didn't change it out like we probably should have but we'd like to redo the whole thing at some point in the reasonably near future. We spent this evening re-grouting the entire shower- actually, Rob is still working on it now at 10:30 at night. Getting clean has been quite a challenge this week and I'm so glad it's almost done. We're going to Minneapolis tomorrow night and are staying in a hotel- I don't think I've ever been quite so excited to stay in a hotel. We need to do a few more things at Ikea and then we can come home and totally finish up the kitchen. Here's some photos of the bathroom job:







By the way, I would like to highly recommend the Hyatt Place hotels. We stayed in the one in Minneapolis last time we were there and will probably stay there again. The price was very low and it had the style and services and amenities you would expect from any other Hyatt hotels. They always have the best price on their own website and if you have AAA, you can get it even cheaper. The lady who checked us in was telling us that Hyatt bought out AmeriSuites (I believe it was that chain) and now they are working to convert them all to this "Hyatt Place" line. Anyhow, that is my two cents for travel tips for today!

Such a Bad Blogger

I knew it had been a while since my last post but I was still a little shocked to see it had been 10 days! You can chalk it up to lots of work in the kitchen, a trip to Minneapolis and my obsession with finishing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I finished up the book and I thought the ending was great! And that is all I will say- I would hate to give anything away. Rob and I went up to Minneapolis on Friday for a quick trip to IKEA. We spent about 4 or 5 hours there and by the time we were done, we just wanted to go home because it wiped us out. We had exchanged all our kitchen cabinet doors and drawer fronts and were now traveling with our new Adel Birch cabinet doors. In addition, we purchased a king size bed frame and five lighting fixtures so it was a tight fit inside the XTerra. I meant to take a picture of our cozy quarters but I forgot until after we had unloaded it all back at home. My thoughtful husband asked if I wanted to load everything back up and take a picture but I decided against it.

The work in the kitchen continues. Rob has almost all the base cabinets installed and next up is the wall cabinets. We’re doing it a little different than last time so hopefully it still goes well. We continue to debate whether or not we want to do a backsplash and what material we should use. A decision on that needs to be made soon because we can’t install the microwave or some of the cabinets until we decide. I will try to take some pictures tonight of our progress.

Sorry for being a bad blogger and I promise to be better!!

Workin' for the Weekend

We've been spending all our time lately at the house, working on getting the kitchen torn up so that we can put it back together. We had the plumber out last week to take care of a few chores and the new tile floor is getting put in this week. I finally earned a little weekend furlough for all my hard work, as you will see below. Rob was ripping up the vinyl flooring in the kitchen but the cardboard backer on the vinyl would not come up too. I had to wet it all down with water and then scrape it off with a putty knife. It sucked. I have no idea why I'm smiling in the picture.



You can see the purplish-stuff is the cardboard layer that I still needed to get up. And it smelled like.... well, it was bad. I'll just leave it at that.



As I mentioned, I got to take the weekend off and I went out to LA to visit my bestie, Nanette and her husband. We had a great time- mostly eating, shopping and doing girly-stuff like massages and pedicures. We made it to my favorite LA places to eat which are Versailles and Bay Cities Deli. We also tried a new place, Jin Patisserie, in Venice and had their high tea special which was wonderful and a good deal at only $18. And then you just can't beat seeing a good butt statue in Beverly Hills.



It was a wonderful break but we'll be back at work this week. And don't feel too bad for Rob- he gets this weekend off to join his buddies at the race track in California and have some fun time there while I'll be painting and working on the house.

30's The New 20

That's what they say and I'm hoping they're right! Since my last post, I had my 30th birthday. We actually timed it so that we'd be in California for it so I could celebrate with our family. My parents prepared a wonderful dinner and had all the family over for my birthday dinner.




That's me with the hubby after I finished opening gifts and then my dad bringing over my yummy Coldstone ice cream cake. It was a pretty laid back day, which was nothing what I imagined my 30th birthday to be. I always thought I'd have a big blowout but since we were having our big wedding reception two days later, it didn't make much sense to do a big party for the birthday too. And we'd gotten into town at 3:30 in the morning the day of my birthday so we were pretty wiped out and not up for too much. I got some very nice presents and though it was nothing I always thought it would be, it was absolutely perfect.

I'm missing the warm weather now that we're back in Iowa. It's been raining for a good part of the day and now it's supposed to snow overnight and tomorrow. It's the middle of April- I didn't expect this! After talking those who've lived here a little longer than me, I've discovered that it's not all that odd. It's been cold ever since we got back here and now this. Despite the less-than-ideal weather, Iowa is still turning out to be a pretty great place to be.

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Happy anniversary to us! It's been exactly one month today since Rob and I got married. It's hard to believe how much has changed in our lives in those short 4 weeks. And we're having such a great time with all of it. We had planned on going out tonight to celebrate but the blizzard warning for the area means that we'll probably just take it easy and stay in. We can always go out later to celebrate.

Since I haven't blogged about the wedding yet, it seems that this is a great opportunity to do that. The picture above is Rob, me, my sister Megan, my mom Eleanor and my dad Dave. Unfortunately, it's not that great of a picture but so far, that's all I have. We were married in a very small ceremony on the beach in Carmel. I thought it would be in a little more secluded area, but it was just right there at the end of Ocean Avenue. It was kind of fun to have all the strangers around though and get all their well-wishes and see how happy they even were for us. I thought it may be a little weird to be out in the open like that, but it wound up really adding a lot. An older gentleman even stopped by to tell my parents that he and his wife were celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary that day. Wow! I hope we'll be so lucky. Anyhow, it was a beautiful sunny day in Carmel- a rarity- and everything went perfectly. It was just kind of laid back and everyone had a great time. No freaking out that the ringbearer was in his suit, digging in the sand before the ceremony or that the flowergirl did not want to take off her coat. Who cares? These are the things kids do. And I can't blame her- it was quite chilly! We ate at the Little Napoli restaurant in Carmel after the ceremony which was wonderful. We spent the night at The Tradewinds Inn which is, without a doubt, the best place to stay in Carmel. We've stayed there a few times now and it's always wonderful. After that, it was on to Aruba...



Here we are in Aruba, dining at the Marandi restaurant. It was a great place to eat- it was right out on the water and we timed it right so that we could watch the sunset. We stayed at the Hyatt which is an amazing place. They just finished doing renovations to the public areas and are working on redoing the rooms now and it all looked so good. We had such a good time everywhere we went. The only troubles we had were getting there and getting home. On the way there, our flight from Charlotte, NC to Aruba was cancelled so we got down there a day late. AND US Airways sent us from Charlotte to Philadelphia to get a plane to Aruba so there was just a lot of flying- we left Saturday night and didn't get to Aruba until Monday evening. Then our flight OUT of Aruba was cancelled when we were trying to leave but United managed to get us on some Delta flights and we got home the same time as we were supposed to so that wasn't as bad. But, as you can see from our picture and as I mentioned before, we had a wonderful time while we were on the island. Everything is very clean and safe and the people are great. We definitely hope to go back someday!