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Date Night

Cher Joy, Date Night

Oh heyyyy Sunday!

Hola friends. February is in full swing in these parts. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous lately. Temps have been heavenly. One morning when I was up early for a dental cleaning it even smelled like California out! I even took Jace out for a little hike/run around Papago Park yesterday. We’re slowly trying to get things in order before the next one, including school and house to-dos, finances and the nursery details. The count down is officially here. Only 7 more weeks to go! Holy moly. I already feel huge, but I know I’m only going to get bigger.  And this morning I’m craving some french toast, so I’m going to go wake up my boys so we can go out for breakfast! He.he. Here’s what brought me joy this last week:

1. Making pineapple shaped cookies for Jace’s friends at daycare. I’ve had this cookie cutter for quite some time, so I was excited to finally use it to celebreate our little pineapple for his birthday. And it was sort of relaxing cutting and icing them while the boys watched the Superbowl. And I can’t lie, pretty tasty ..!

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2. Jace’s 3-year (3!!!) wellness appointment. Still can’t believe he’s THREE. It only took 2 suckers to get him through it but he was so cute. We got a big smile out of him when the Doctor wanted to touch his arm muscles ;) Like father like son. And his blonde locks are killing me. He’s my total surfer hippy boy and I love it.

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3. An early Valentine’s Day dinner with Rob. We didn’t want to do anything on a week night, and had a gift card so we treated ourselves to Maestro’s. And oh was it worth it. The lobster mash, the brussel sprouts, the filet. So good! Thanks Grandma Teri and Auntie Tay!

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4. Our tomatoes are finally starting to turn red and they’re delicious!! Rob is definitely more excited than me though, since these were sort of his baby from the beginning. He eats tomatoes like apples. And I think some of the compost I used is sprouting little cherry-sized tomatoes, too. I see a lot of BLTs in our future!

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Date Night, Family, Home, Projects

My view lately

IMG_2748Hi friends. How are you? Me .. I woke up at 4:30a this morning, mind racing. Mostly about all my projects at work that are really lagging and the fact that I have less than 10 weeks to get everything wrapped up and handed off. But outside of work, my view lately has been pretty great. Starting with that Arizona sky lately! It’s been raining on and off for over a week now, with sunny and cloudy afternoons, which makes for great baseball playing outside in our backyard.

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Date Night, Sedona

A day in sedona

IMG_6158Now for our day in Sedona! Our day together started around 1pm on that Saturday (after we had napped in the car for 45 minutes with the air conditioning on full blast, hahahaha). Temp was about 94 .. sun was blazing.  I had read about some good trails from the girls over at Traveling Gold and thought that the Soldier’s Pass Trail / Brim Mesa Trail loop would be our best bet for scenery, plus it was “moderate”. However, we only made it about a mile in before feeling too overheated. Yeah, hiking in Sedona in July is not ideal. What were we thinking?! And this trail had so many weird twists and turns. Pretty sure we would have got lost if we would have kept on going.

IMG_6154 IMG_6157IMG_6159Next stop was somewhere to cool off!! I knew of a little place creekside we could go to, right downtown. L’Auberge de Sedona is an amazingly beautiful resort/spa, but what’s nice is you don’t have to be a guest to visit their creekside restaurant or take advantage of the complimentary valet. Right between lunch and dinner,  as they set-up for the evening rush, they open up their terrace for refreshing drinks and cheese plates creekside. You can step into the creek, sit along side it in one of their cushiony patio chairs or just lay under the trees. It was the most perfect place to cool down. We ordered a couple of cold drinks, played in the water and just enjoyed the afternoon. Perfect place to take a book, listen to the creek and eat a lot of cheese.

IMG_6173 IMG_6174IMG_6165IMG_6166IMG_6170IMG_0480IMG_0489Last stop of our day date was dinner (duh!) – can’t go on a date without eating for most of it! I’d eaten at Elote Cafe before, and knew it would be a win for dinner. We got there before the rush and snagged a seat on the patio. I didn’t care how warm it was outside, I wanted to enjoy the view. And they had misters so it was a no-brainer (we all know how much I love misters ;)). I ordered the blood orange margarita and mole chicken enchiladas and Rob the carne asada. They home make their guacamole (amaaaazing) and vanilla bean ice-cream, all the way down to the caramel sauce! We ate so much we were in pain, haha. I literally almost fell asleep at the table (see picture below). Thankfully we went out to our car after, turned the air conditioning on high and took another nap lol .. BTW, I realized all this napping in the car, in the middle of the day with the air conditioning on full blast is not good for your car battery. It totally died on us the next day, trying to get back into Phoenix. All in all, it was a wonderful day date together. I always appreciate our little getaways and time to reconnect. As parents we’re finding how important it is to schedule dedicated time together, just us!

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Date Night, Marriage, Sedona

A drive to remember

IMG_6195We just got home from a weekend in Cottonwood. It was one of the most tiring weekends ever for some reason. Don’t get me wrong, it was a wonderful weekend, just a lot of things to make us here parents tired. The minute we got to Cottonwood, our family took over (I love you all so much!) and let us escape to Sedona for the day. I’ll post more about that later, but the moment in this exact picture delighted my soul. Sedona was breathtaking, all day. Even in the 90s, the landscape was alive. So lush and green. I forgot how colorful the Sedona mountain ranges are. Driving back from our day together, looking over the yellow fields and ponds, watching the sun set behind the mountains as we made the 30 minute drive back to Cottonwood, was really special. In that moment I was so thankful for the hidden treasures of Arizona and for my life. For health and for all the goodness in people. I had the windows down, my arm on the window sill, the sun on my face. We drove that freeway in complete, beautiful silence, with such a common peace between us. It was like our souls were floating together in that drive. I know that sounds ridiculously corny, but it’s these moments I will remember forever. A day getaway together in the Arizona desert sun, just enjoying each other’s company and the splendor around us.

Date Night, San Francisco

A date with a watermelon beer . . . and the Giants

Last week I finally got to take advantage of some of the perks that come along with Rob’s job: free tickets to the Giants! We made the drive up to San Francisco for a date night, starting with dinner at 21st Amendment Brewery, watermelon fermented beer, and then the game! Watermelon might be my favorite fruit in the whole wide world, so when I heard that 21st Amendment had a watermelon beer, I was all over it. I don’t know what I was more excited about, the watermelon beer or the awesome seats at the stadium. Probably the beer {haha}. I mean, come on! They put a watermelon slice on my mug! They had me at the slice. It’s a wonderfully delicious, summer beer — perfect for the warm night we had in San Fran. Very light, just like I like it. I had to buy a 6-pack to take home with us. Can’t wait to pop one open on the beach. Dinner was great. We couldn’t stop talking about Jace. At one point we started laughing at each other because he was all we could talk about. It was a much needed date night, even with the traffic and angry homeless people. Highly recommend this brewery — especially their Hell or High Watermelon beer ;)

 

 

 

 

{Rob got us shirts for the game – what a sweetheart.}

 

{Giants won!}