Latest Happenings

An update is long overdue! My blog has been on my mind, but the days just seem to go by so fast. Tonight, I am making myself do two things: 1. Update my blog and 2. Organize Madeline's clothes. So here I go on number 1!

Last weekend, Madeline unveiled a new trick! She's one step closer to walking...literally. Here's the video of her moves :)

What else have we been up to? I've been working on some sewing projects. Terrisa, my mom, and I have been trying to get together once a week for a "craft night". It's a nice way of setting aside time for a hobby and also getting together with them. I am almost done with a project that I am really excited about. Hopefully I will be done in the next week -- I will share it with you once I am done. 

George and I have also been taking Financial Peace University (Dave Ramsey) at our church. I have been a big fan of Dave Ramsey's radio show on KTAR for a long time. I used to listen to it on my way home from class every night while I was in school. The class is on Tuesday night so my parents have been coming over every Tuesday to watch Madeline while we go to the class. Basically, the class is all about making smart financial decisions. I'm probably weird, but I love it! 

Brian, Terrisa, Emily, George, and I recently signed up for a plot at the community garden at Agritopia (near Joe's Farm Grill). They have 43 20 ft x 20 ft plots that are available for a one year lease. We have been on the waiting list for several months and one finally became available. They provide the water, plot, and resources and we create a fruit and vegetable garden. It's definitely going to be a ton of work, but hopefully with all of us working on it, it will be manageable. I am looking forward to have fresh fruits and veggies and learning a bit about gardening. I will keep you all posted on our progress! AND...if you're a gardener, any tips or suggestions would be appreciated :)

Little gardener :) 

The picture on the left is a "blank plot" and the picture on the right is a more established one. 

The farm plants herbs for all of the community garden members. I went over this morning to pick some basil, rosemary, and mint. 

I used it to make pesto -- super easy and delicious!! 

Here's the final product :) 

Rochester Trip!

We are back from our trip to Rochester -- or should I say adventure? I say that because our travel plans didn't go quite as planned. As many of you know, we are all about getting bumped! Basically, we volunteer to give up our seats in exchange for free airline $$! Sometimes they need people, sometimes that don't. More often they don't. However, on a holiday weekend, they often do need volunteers. Long story short, we got bumped on the way to Rochester (flew into Buffalo instead). On the way home, our flight actually got cancelled due to mechanical issues, which was crazy b/c a complete flight cancellation has only happened to us once before and that was just in May when we went to D.C. Anyway, it didn't end up being so bad this time because we got bumped on our re-scheduled flight! All together, we scored $2000 in airline vouchers to use on any travel in the next year. 

Enough about getting bumped...moving on to the actual vacation. We had a wonderful trip! Really, really nice. We did a lot of relaxing (as much as you can with a 10 month old anyway) and just hanging out. Here are some pictures of our trip.

Here is Madeline in front of my Grandma Warren's house. We took several walks. Many of the walks were taken in an attempt to get Madeline to sleep. 

As you can see, those attempts weren't always successful!

 

We went to Camillus (Syracuse) on Friday and stayed Friday night. We really enjoyed our visit with the Harts! We're looking forward to their visit to AZ for Christmas this year. 

Madeline loved all of the grass at my Aunt Lesley's house!

Their area is gorgeous!!! Aunt Lesley took us to a really beautiful winery near their house...

We also went to Skaneatles, which is just about 15 minutes from their house. It is a really cute little town. Sarah and I walked around while George enjoyed a cold one at a restaurant overlooking the lake. 

Skaneatles Lake (did I spell that right?) 

Just relaxing with Ian! :) 

Another highlight of the trip was seeing the newest member of the family, little Seth! He is such a cutie pie! 

Madeline swinging at the Moore's lake house on Thursday night. We need to hang her swing up here at our house!

Awesome trip!! Now, it is back to reality here in Arizona :)