From Start to Finish!

It's been a busy week for John and I. He got home from a 3 week trip to Alaska one week ago today, and since then (as always) life hasn't been boring! We made it to an Arizona Diamondbacks game on Monday night when they played against the SF Giants. It made up for the missed game on our honeymoon... We did the Coastal California tour for our honeymoon and for our day in San Francisco, he had gotten tickets to a baseball game.. Well, we had just come from Napa Valley and I caught a nasty bug and ended up with a violent vomiting episode during the drive up and John caught it and was up all night! So we still have the unused tickets to remind us.

John took the week off of work because he's still got the backyard looming over his conscience. While he was in Alaska, he was reading up on everything he could about irrigation systems and backyard lighting, so when he came home, he came home running! For those of you in the East/Mid West, this may sound like extravagance since I grew up in Ohio and never heard of anyone having built in sprinklers and the like... However, here in the desert and even up in Utah (which is High desert) it is a must to have built in sprinklers, etc to sustain any kind of plant life in your yard! He took a week off of work for Phase 1 as well, but unfortunately the work required more than just one man, and more than just a week! However, this Phase was no match for him! With ambition to dig the foot deep trenches by hand, he quickly surrendered when he realized that the dirt was almost as hard as concrete and rented a machine to dig the trenches.

Once that was done, it was smooth sailing as he put in the matrix of PVC pipes, jointed and glued together as well as the lighting wires and drip tubing. By Friday he was putting in all the sprinkler heads and yesterday I helped with the individual drip lines to ensure each of our future plants is well nourished and hydrated! He even calculated which plants needed more water than others and we've accommodated accordingly! Yesterday we finished up, and John turned on the whole system for a test run before we filled in the trenches. Now our back yard looks no different than when he started the week, but it is now ready to get some greenery!!!! We will head out today and hopefully stop by some nurseries to compare prices and get the plants we want! We will have them planted by the nursery because most places will insure them when they plant them and you loose that piece of mind when you try to do it yourself. All we have to do, is pick out our plants and schedule for them to put them in... Maybe within the next week, we will have some beautiful green plants in our yard!!

The finished product (even though it doesn't look like much)- if you look close, the sprinklers are turned on!

Our future Citrus Tree- equipped with drip lines (with 8 gal/hr emitters) and lighting

Room To Be

Now that I've settled into the reality that we're going to have a baby, the next logical step is planning the nursery- right? So I've been soaking in and collecting ideas lately. I have to admit, I don't have too much experience with infants and only recently have my nearby friends started having kids so I don't even have that many nursery's to draw conclusions from. In my lack of knowledge and creativity, I resorted to surfing.. the web of course. So I put on my wet suit and dove in for inspiration. I went to BHG.com but they try to make you sign up and pay money just to look at their designs so I found a great site that allows you to pick some color schemes and themes and shows you a whole bunch of pictures, which is where I found my inspiration. (Below)

What I'm looking for in nursery design:

• Fresh, Alive, and Calming feel- like a breath of fresh air



• Non- pastel colors- not my thing



• Color that enables me to paint the walls a neutral color that will be good for resale (I hate going to buy a house and seeing the ugly pink and purple walls)



• I suppose more modern- may be a problem getting the traditional husband on board



• Good flow through the colors- truth is I've been obsessed with the brown/blue scheme but I figured I'd switch it up a tad



• Interesting patterns- for baby Wilson to study with his bright eyes

So I made it to my favorite store, Joann's Fabrics, yesterday. While picking up little smocking material to make the easiest dresses ever (one seam to sew and it's a dress, Pictured on the right), I browsed the quilting fabrics too. My very talented friend here at Luke is going to make me a quilt for the baby and she has appointed me as the designer of the quilt too. That's actually what got me thinking nursery design since she was encouraging me to pick colors for the quilt and I wanted harmony in the nursery. Anyway, with the help of John's Aunt (in town because her husband, the pro-bowler, had a tournament in the Phoenix area and they stayed over our house) I picked out some sample swatches of fabrics that I liked that had a similar feel to my inspiration picture. I'd say it's a "go" for the circles and stripes fabrics and the solid brown, but the three greens I'm debating and will end up with just one of them. I'm thinking the stripes can be the skirt on the crib, curtains, and details on the little crib caddy. The polka-dots can be pillows. And the more solid colors can accompany the striped material to smooth it out a little. By the way, I do plan on sewing most of the room's decor (and may send the hard stuff for one or both of the grandma's to help with... after all, I'm sure they have nothing better to do and they are amazing "sewers"- wink). Let me know what you think and I give you permission to be honest. That being said, I reserve the right to do what I want after considering other's opinions! :)

Spring Time in the Desert

Now is the time that I am loving the desert! As an Athletic Trainer, spring time is usually filled with many cold and even snowy days sitting outside watching the spring high school sports... or it has been until this year. However, this year I've been working on my tan for a month now! The desert is ALIVE with blooms and greenery (as well as weeds sprouting up) and it's just gorgeous! I spent the day outside working on the dirt mounds, preparing them for harboring palm trees. I waundered over to my neighbor's house where my dog, Cana enjoys dog play with their Chocolate Lab, Bailey. Enjoying the day, I've captured some photos of the beauty and fun!

Phase I: COMPLETE

One completed step closer to the raging party we'll have in our backyard when all this is done!!! Last weekend, John and I spent our Saturday outside finishing up the patio project!!! He cut and laid in the last of the custom cut pavers and we rented the Tamping machine once again. Luckily, ours looked so good that one of our neighbors was inspired to do a small paver patio and we were able to split the rental cost. The finishing touches included sweeping in this sand mixture into all the cracks, then going over with the tamper to shake things up enough to fill the cracks with the sand. When we couldn't fit any more in between the pavers, we hosed down the entire patio which caused the sand mixture to become like concrete. Those pavers... they're not going ANYWHERE! I think it may be the last thing undamaged in an earthquake (maybe that and the deck John built in Utah... he tends to error on the sturdy side when he builds).

Looking ahead to Phase 2!!

When John gets back from his Alaskan adventure, he's planning on beginning Phase II, which consists of digging trenches and installing all the irrigation pipes as well as the wires for the "mood lighting." He's currently reading up on different transformers, sprinkler system timers, outdoor lighting (solar vs. low voltage), etc. Rest assured, he's already planned out the sprinkler head placement where he can cover the most area with the least number of sprinklers as well as calculated the number of drip hoses he needs to each plant to provide the optimal amount of water... He's math geeking it up, but I've never been more proud of his mad skills.

Pictured below is the blueprint for the backyard, and I've colored in the completed part. Still quite a bit to do, but I think (and hope) Phase I was the most tedious and time consuming of the work!

Homeward Bound

It all started when John was given a pair of buddy passes to fly anywhere in the Continental U.S. for only the price of the taxes! We wanted to take advantage of this generous opportunity so we planned a long weekend back up in Utah to visit with old friends. The trip was fun. We headed out last Thursday, got to indulge in First Class even, and arrived in time for lunch. We spent the next couple of days just visiting, got in a game of poker (and for me got to catch up with my Rude Rammette ladies!), snowboarding (for John who's been craving snow since we moved to the desert), and spent Easter day at our beloved Church where we had made many great friends. A special thanks goes out to all those who made time in their busy schedules to hang out with us, and especially Matt and Karie for putting us up through our stay! All in all the trip was enjoyable and we're glad to have gone! Thanks to those tickets, we got out and were able to cultivate precious relationships that we built during our Utah assignment.

Hanging out with Tyler

Easter Egg Hunt with the kids

However, the way back was a little more trying. After carefully examining the travel trends, we noticed that there were two larger airplanes traveling back from SLC to Phoenix Sunday evening, but with considerable vacancies, ensuring good fortune for us "Standby" passengers. We showed up the standard 2 hours prior to departure and quickly learned that in 24 hours, the plane had filled up and even over booked it's available seats. The Standby list was horrendous too, as we were last on the list at #20. That's nineteen other people hoping to hop onto the (already too full) plane that had priority over us. That's alright! The next plane had even more vacancies so we'll just catch that one! Wrong. It had also over booked within the last day and led to a hopeless night for us. Luckily, John remembered a friend of his lived in Salt Lake City, not far from the airport. To our good fortune, "Bring'em" was still there (he's on his way out to Korea- leaving in a week or two) and even came and picked us up. We cuddled up, watched a movie and pulled up a nice piece of carpet and went to bed. The next morn, we showed up at the all too familiar airport around 9am. Three missed planes later, along with the stress of missing a work day (I won't even go into all the cool plans John had for that work day that he was missing), we changed our tactic.

We began checking the availability of flights to Tucson. After-all, it wouldn't be too bad to fly there and rent a car to drive 90 minutes to the Phoenix airport to retrieve our car and drive home. Hope surfaced in a seemingly unpromising day. We grabbed our bags and ran across the airport, downstairs and to the counter for assistance. Upstairs, as the last plane flew off, the clerk made the Tucson suggestion when she saw that they had 3 vacant seats with nobody waiting on standby! But apparently in the time it took us to run down there, the plane filled up and again we peered out as our ride when home without us. Finally- we went onto Orbitz and bought one way tickets into Phoenix. Bummer!!! Our cheap trip turned out not being as budget friendly as hoped- isn't that the way it always goes?! Moral of the story: I'm not even going to say don't travel standby. It was an awesome opportunity and I'm sure that we'd take it again... Just know that there's a possibility that it won't work out as planned. I think next time we will leave a little more room for "slop" (like 3 days at least) which would take some of the stress out of the forced flexibility. Well- it feels GREAT to be home!

Phase I: Update

Well, Phase I has been a long and hard project. There was more work than we (ie: John) anticipated! He took one week off work and completed as much as he could- but he's pretty much a one-man team. He had help from friends the opening weekend, and I try to do what I can, but when it comes down to it, it's all him! His efforts were cut short during his week off work with his family arriving that Thursday, but he's been working on it every chance he gets since. Another obstacle: John has been a travelling machine lately, which does not help with the finish line of Phase I either. Once his family left, he also took off to Vegas for two weeks for an Air Force class. He was home for 4 days and left again to Florida for one of his buddy's weddings. He got back from last Sunday night and we are fixing to head out for a quick visit to Utah. He's got a week back from that and leaves for 3 weeks to Alaska! Phew!!! So we're hoping the last brick is down by his departure to Alaska!

Here's the Progress Report!

We worked on the retaining wall to finish that up. I glued the netting down in between a layer of stone and John capped it with the finishing stones. I raked down the dirt piles to even out the area and now it's all ready for planting (with exception to the drip irrigation to water the plants)!!
**Kindly ignore the dog poo pictured... Once the yard is finished, we'll be more on top of picking it up- but till then, it's just dirt.

Now it's just finishing up the patio. I didn't realize it at the time, but during the design phase John would ask my opinion and I gladly gave my 2 cents. I wanted a curvy, flowy landscape- with out the harsh lines and corners. John drew it out as such, but now that it's time to fit our square pavers into our curvy design... you see where I'm going with this. The patio is finished- with exception to the areas that John has to custom cut the bricks to fit. So that's what he's up to now!


He would actually just eye-ball the curve and draw his best guesstimation on the back side to give him a pattern to cut. After sawing the bricks, with his brand new miter saw (I don't' remember what it's called actually) he had to chisel the last little bit to separate the pieces. He learned that he has to cut as deep into the bricks as the saw will allow since the more he depended on the chisel, the more likely the brick is to crack in an undesirable location and thus be worthless! So then there's the fun part where he checks out his precision and fits it into the space.


Left: Notice the clean line around the (future) fire pit and the slivers he still has yet to do. He'll keep chugging along, but the end- at least of the patio- is very near!








Next stop: Digging the trenches for the irrigation system (sprinklers and drips). It should be an easier and quicker phase, but unfortunately when it's done there is nothing too tangible to show for it!

Memory Lane

Every now and then, a memory comes along and reminds you of your childhood- how innocent, carefree and fun it was. My family (with the military background- and enjoying to move) relocated to a suburb of Cleveland Ohio when I was 7 years old. My best memories of growing up were there, in Sagamore Hills. We moved into a house in a very quaint neighborhood of 50 homes that surrounded a little picturesque lake. I remember moving day, standing out on the quite street soaking in my new home when a young girl (about my age) rode her bike by. Turns out she lived next door and she was who I spent most of my time with the next 9 years we lived there. Lynn was her name, and I looked up to her. She was a year older and to me, she had her life together- even as an 8 year old! I pretty much joined everything that she did because we did everything together! We were in baton together, among other things, and would lead the 4th of July parade in our little neighborhood wearing our tiny little sequence leotards. I made many friends in the Startlighters (as we were called for competitions and what not) and it's nice to still be in touch with some of them. I was reunited with another girl, Debi on myspace. And thanks to Debi for sending the picture, it has brought a smile to my face, and a tear in my eye to the days that were.

That's me- front and center (yes- with a little boy's hair cut... still not sure what Mom was thinking when she did that to me) and Debi is pictured left of me with Lynn behind her.

By the way- Mom- do you still have those precious pictures of our Willow Lake times? If so- Share!