March Madness!

This past weekend, we had some more visitors! I love it! Linn, Evan and Dawna came down to visit! It was a quick one, and Andy always has to study, but we were able to squeeze some fun in! Linn & Evan were nice enough to buy Andy some toys for his smoker, so he made ribs! We also introduced them to our 3D movie experience, and I think they liked it! We always have such a great time when they come down to visit! It never seems to be long enough, but hopefully one of these times Andy won't have to be studying so much and we can really party!

Brock & Lindsay Visit

Since Brock is done with his Master's program, the Anderson clan finally had some time to come down and visit! It never feels like it is long enough when people come down to visit! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get work off for all of the days that they were here, but it sounds like they were able to keep themselves entertained by Andy and with the parks by our house! We went to the zoo, fed ducks at Freestone park (I'm a fan of picnics there, it turns out).

We also went to a baseball game and saw the Padre's and Indian's play (our first taste of spring training!) which was way fun!

Unfortunately, Daner was a bit under the weather for a couple of days, but we made the most of it and hung out and played around the house! We watched 3D movies, Andy smoked a brisket (tasty! He is honing his smoking skills nicely, under the tutelage of Zo), and we went to Bahama Buck's for some amazing Hawaiian shaved ice. It was so fun to have them down here! We are now going through visitor withdrawals...

Granite!!!

Andy's buddy from school had a man named Barry do granite in his kitchen for a smokin' deal. We decided that since I had a ridiculous week at work and got a bunch of overtime, we would put those funds toward our kitchen makeover! We got a crazy good deal on granite counter tops for our kitchen. It looks AMAZING!!!

We were hoping that we would have the granite in before Bear & Bobbie came down, but instead it was the weekend that they were there! We had to get creative with our meals since we didn't have a sink, and Bobbie was nice enough to help me with food! The guy that came to do the installation had some leftovers of the same granite we had installed, so we had him come back to do our guest bathroom when he came back to finish the back splash in the kitchen. He didn't charge us much for the granite or installation since they were leftovers and I guess he wanted to get it off his hands, and we were more than happy to oblige!

Of course, after the granite was in I couldn't leave the cabinets that color, so I painted them too! Oh how I love house projects! Hooray for good connections!

The Bear's Visit

This past week, Bear and Bobbie came down to visit with Soph and Lucy! We have been so excited for them to come down! They got in late Friday night, after an unintentional detour through Flagstaff, so we stayed in, had some Cafe Rio takeout and did some catching up! We went and played at the park by our house on Saturday, since we were getting our granite in the kitchen (the guy was supposed to come Thursday before the fam came in, but what can you do?). As you can see from the pictures Sophie was quite determined to get in the pool despite the cold water temperature. The air is warm but the pool temperature hasn't caught up yet. Bear could only take so much begging and the softie finally gave in. He tossed Soph into the pool. It was so cold she could hardly breathe. So he scooped her back up and pulled her out shivering. It was tough to understand through chattering teeth but we were able to make out that, according to her, the water was warm and she wanted to get back in.
On Sunday, we went to Freestone park and had a picnic and fed the ducks. Soph enjoyed the park enough that we made a return trip later in the week to feed the ducks again. Best $1 we ever spent!

We hung out around the house on Monday, and Bobbie and I crafted, since we were getting our sink reconnected after a weekend out of the kitchen, and we watched some 3-D movies. I had to work on Tuesday, so Bear & Bobbie hung out with some of their friends from the U of U, and Andy & I met up with them for dinner at Joe's Farm Grill. So tasty.

On Thursday, we went to the "zoo park." The Phx Zoo is a pretty good one, and Soph seemed to love it!

We went boating on Friday with Addi, Blake & the boys, and Blake's dad. He was nice enough to invite us along for the ride! We went up to Saguaro Lake, which was still pretty cold, but the boys and the kids rode on a tube behind the boat. That's right all you in the frozen north!!! Boating in February! They had a great time until right before we were going to call it a day, the tube caught in the front and submarined under! Max and Jack hung on but Andy had to bail. Needless to say, Jack and Max both tapped out after that and we were done. And Jeff's cat like reflexes caught the sinking with their camera. That is Jack's "is this fun or terrifying?" face.

We also had some intense Canasta tournaments, tried out some new facial techniques I found on pinterest (it will take all the gunk off your skin...but may rip off your face!), watched Soph play around in the pool (well, on a step of the pool--it is still too cold!), and just enjoyed having them down here in AZ! We also spent a lot of time trying to convince them to move down here with us, but I think we'll have to keep working on them!

Layover

These past 2 Mondays, I have had the opportunity to visit with Mom & Dad! They went with some friends from B-town to Hawaii, and they had layovers in Phoenix for both of their flights! My boss at work was nice enough to let me take a long lunch so I could go and have a bagel with them for a bit each time. It wasn't for long, but I was so excited to see them! Maybe sometime soon they will come down and stay for a bit longer than a couple of hours...

Cabinet Make-Over

As I mentioned, before we drove up to Utah for Christmas we started painting our kitchen cabinets. You may remember that our kitchen used to look like this:

And after our initial paint job:

In the workshop...

And now, after our cabinet painting...


Slowly but surely, our house is coming along!

Christmas

 

 Andy had his last final on Dec. 16, and we promptly started painting our kitchen cabinets. But that is for a different post. I had to work a couple of days during the week, so on Wednesday we headed up to Utah again! Awesome. We had SO much fun over our Christmas break! We had dinner with Grandpa B, we had a couple of Dominion nights with the fam (aka Brookie & Andy, the Zo's, Meek, Bear & Bobbie), and some Canasta and Skip-Bo battles (I had terrible luck during this trip. Even Mom had a difficult time getting me a win on my card. Sad.) We went and saw the Muppet Movie, Sherlock Holmes, and Mission Impossible, and ate at Moochie's a few times. We had an outing to MAC and H&M, Mom and I went and got pedicures (thanks, Mom!), and we spent every minute possible with friends and family! We went down to St. George on New Year's Eve and hung out with Mom, Dad, and Meek. We went to Brick Oven to celebrate Dad's birthday, and spent New Year's in an intense Skip-Bo battle! Then we drove the rest of the way home on New Year's. It was such an awesome break! Thanks to everyone for making our holiday season so amazing!Here are some pics (again, I am terrible at remembering to take pictures--too busy having fun, I guess! I will try to get better at this!)