Day 290, December 5th

Monday we hit the gym, had dinner and then really did a whole lot of nothing! I have been trying to perfect this yoga pose, so I was doing that and showing Ryan and then some how it turned into us doing weird exercise moves...Yep, that's our life, don't be jealous! 

Day 289, December 4th

Sunday, I went shopping with my sister for Christmas.  We spent the whole day out and about getting presents for our familia.  It was a productive day for us!
When we got back to the house, Ann's car had a flat tire, which was sad, but she called AAA, they came and saved her and then I got to working on homework I had been slacking on! Ryan made dinner, I finished working and our night could begin!
After dinner I did a bit of baking and made some yummy chocolate chip cookies.  I baked up the cookies and then we watch Dexter per usual.  Seriously if you aren't watching it...you should be! And that was the extent of our crazy Sunday!

Day 288, December 3rd

Saturday was a lovely little day for us.  A few months back when Ryan went to Marisa's birthday party and I had to do homework, he stopped by Alex and Heather's place to see their new home.  So finally, months later, I finally got to see the pad and have a nice little afternoon with our fellow G's.
The house is adorable, little baby's room is precious and pink, and Jasper is doing good per usual.  We cooked up some lunch and hung out all afternoon, talked life, watched some tv and had some serious friend time.
After we headed out, we hit the road north to Ryan's parent's house to put up Christmas lights on the house.  It was unusually freezing, so while Ryan hung lights, I sat in the heated car, or looked at funny pictures of little Ryan in their garage.  After the lights were hung, we headed home for the night to relax after our long fun-filled day!

Day 287, December 2nd

Friday was a pretty low key night for us.  After we ate dinner, we poured a glass of wine and watched a movie.  I've always been a white wine drinker, well not always, not like I was sipping on Pinot Grigio in elementary school or anything, but it's my recent wine of choice.  I want to though, drink red wine, but can't acquire a taste for it. My sister keeps telling me when I get older I'll like red wine, it's sort of like, how much older?! She never has that answer.  So on Thanksgiving, red wine was the closest to me at the dinner table, I poured a glass, and voila, 27 and 8 months is how old I had to be to like red wine!! I really enjoyed the wine last week, so when Ryan said he was going to open a bottle of wine, I said I'd love a glass of his as well! Such excitement! 
While the fact that we only had to open one bottle of wine instead of two was wonderful, the fact that our children clearly love Ryan more than me was not.  I'm fine with Max being all over Ryan, but Gus is my cat.  I've had him since he was a tiny baby, he used to nurse on my hair, and would never not sleep the whole night snuggled next to me.  Now, for whatever reason, he thinks Ryan is the bee's knees and I'm just the girl who gave him this lavish lifestyle!! It seriously breaks my heart every time I see them cuddle!

Day 286, December 1st

I had a long day of driving around Arizona for work on Thursday, and when I did get back to the office, I had a few things to catch up on, so got home a bit later than usual.  When I pulled into the garage I saw Ryan pulling out the Christmas stuff! Which I loved since when I was driving home I was thinking we should get the Christmas stuff out!! So we spent the evening decorating the house with green and red and slowly get into the Christmas spirit!! It's crazy to think how fast this year went and that we're already here in the Christmas season!

Day 285, November 30th

Wednesday, I spent most of the night on the computer doing school work.  Ryan cooked up dinner for us, and then because I was doing some tests and such, just put his earplugs in and watched stuff on his fancy phone.  Max hung out with him, since clearly he is more a Ryan fan than a Sarah fan...
I should also mention it's the last day of No Shave November.  If we were smart we would have taken a photo of Ryan on November 1st and then today to show his beard.  We didn't do that though.  We do however like the beard so it's here to stay, at least for awhile!!

Day 284, November 29th

Tuesday after work, Ryan and I headed to Garcia's to meet my mom and Rick for dinner.  I guess this is Rick's new favorite spot for Mexican food, and since it's close to us, we got a Tuesday night invite.
We didn't see them for Thanksgiving so this was like our little Thanksgiving feast together.  They told us about a house they were looking at purchasing, we told them about our crazy Black Friday experience and all the other happenings in our life.
After dinner I had to head home and finish up some homework, it's down to the wire for me, only a week left!

Day 283, November 28th

Monday, back to the real world.  It was very nice having four days off, made for quite a productive weekend.  We hit the gym, cooked up dinner then relaxed on the couch for the night.  While we were in full relax mode, Ryan suggested we make the grilled bananas again for a nice little dessert.  So we pulled out all the fixings and made ourselves a yummy treat.

Day 282, November 27th

Since we became Direct TV people, Sunday is all day football in our house.  It can actually be sort of nice because it gives me all day to do Sarah stuff.  Today's Sarah stuff wasn't that exciting.  I did some homework, took down Fall from the house and headed out to the grocery stores.  
I decided to make pot roast for dinner, one of my favorite things my mom made when I was little.  I called her for the recipe, which was pretty much a lost cause since she said, oh I just throw things together...thanks for the help mom!! So I cooked it up in the crock pot, got some chores done, and then we enjoyed dinner together and some Dexter, earlier now that we have Direct TV!!  The pot roast was not as good as my mom's but pretty good non the less.

Day 281, November 26th

Once we had time to recover from our Black Friday experience, we spent Saturday shopping.  We headed to Tempe Marketplace, got some good stuff for ourselves and also picked up some stuff for others for Christmas!!  We spent a good majority of the day out and about, so when we got home we really didn't do much.  Cooked up some dinner and watched a movie.  A good way to end the day after a few days of craziness.

Day 280, November 25th

So technically it's Friday, so thought I'd start us off at midnight when we got to Target.  So it was crazy packed.  The line was seriously 100s of people deep, so we grouped with some outcasts standing on the side waiting for the line to be gone to stroll in. Great idea, except Target is a genius about this Black Friday business and they were only letting 10 people in at a time until the line was gone.  So, more people got in line, time for us to go in was longer.  We walked to a Circle K, got some drinks and snacks and headed in line.  Surprisingly once we were in line, it didn't take all that long.  
Once we got in, it was overwhelming, again, we weren't there for anything, and really thought we'd just wander around and check out deals.  With everyone running to the deal they were there for, we decided to do the opposite, and enjoy the late night fun.
So we wandered, picked up a sweater for Ryan and some cute plates, and decided we were done and ready to check out, and that's when we saw the line.  It wrapped through aisles!! We would have to wait at least another hour for a sweater we could buy tomorrow!! So...we left.
We headed over to Best Buy to pick up the TV we purchased earlier, and even that turned into a bit more work than expected.  The first guy we asked said we had to get in line, which wrapped the perimeter of basically the whole store, and then just tell them at the front we were just there for a pick up.  That seemed insane to me, so I asked someone else and he said to just go to Customer Service, we did, got the tv, after awhile waiting for the back room to get their ish together and finally, around 3 a.m. we headed home.  Nothing purchased, but a bit more knowledgeable about this crazy Black Friday business.
We slept, then spent the rest of Friday setting up the new tv, selling the old one on Craigslist and cleaning up the pad.  We ordered pizza for dinner, watched the ASU game and I caught up a bit on the blog.  Friday was very lazy, we refused to leave the house after our crazy middle of the night shopping!!

Day 279, November 24th

So Ryan and I both have huge families, to which we are both the babies of.  When we got married, some people asked if we would start hosting holidays to which I usually just laughed.  Holidays are established in both families, no way we could swoop them up, and then if we were to host our families together, it would be like 50 people...and in our condo, that won't work!!  So until we have a ginormous house, we travel around the Valley for holidays.
Thanksgiving morning, we started our day at Church, after mass, Ryan headed home because he forgot his phone, and Ann and I continued our Thanksgiving tradition of going to AJ's for green tea and pumpkin muffins.  Ryan eventually joined us, we enjoyed to morning, and then Ryan and I headed up to Valerie's house for our first Thanksgiving meal.

Our first Thanksgiving was delicious and wonderful.  We spent about an hour snacking on appetizers and then sat down for dinner.  Thanksgiving food is so delicious! I could eat four meals if I really had to.  I like to go light on the turkey since really I think that's the filler of the meal, and really go to town on mashed potatoes and stuffing...yum.

After dinner number one, we relaxed with the family and then hit the road south a bit for dinner number two.  We ate our second meal, had a wonderful time chatting with my cousin Geoff about random stuff and managed to have a piece of all three pies! 
So, the other exciting thing about this year's Thanksgiving is that Ryan and I decided to do the whole Black Friday thing...the only thing we really desired was a new tv, and Best Buy had an amazing online deal, so actually we bought it after we ate, and didn't have to worry about fighting people for it later.  We still thought, with stores opening at midnight it could be fun to partake, but we weren't totally sold.  Well, we didn't leave my dad's house until almost 11 p.m., so we figured at this point it would be silly not to do some Black Friday shopping.  We headed home, got comfy clothes on, and headed out to our first stop, Target.  

Day 278, November 23rd

So, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  This is usually one of my favorite nights to go out! Mostly Whiskey River since they already have cheap drinks on Wednesday nights.  In the last couple of years, it hasn't been as easy to get folks to join us, and it sort of seems weird for just Ryan and I to go out when we could hang out all the same in our living room.  So that is what we did.  We made up some pizzas, poured some wine and enjoyed to evening before our day of eating tomorrow.

Day 277, November 22nd

The wonderful thing about holidays is it brings friends back in town!! Michelle left in the Fall to get her MBA at NYU.  She is living a fancy life in the big city and we are all excited for her.  But, on the same hand, miss having her around.
So now it's Thanksgiving week, and she's in town for a quick visit.  After work I met the ladies at Mucho Gusto for some catch up time.  It was great to see everyone, and hear about Michelle's adventures.   
I am pretty confident all my friends are tired of me taking photos of them for the blog...sorry ladies!! 

Day 276, November 21st

Monday, Mary and I did our usual Piyo time then headed home, prettied up, and headed out to Postino for some bruschetta and wine.  
Anyone who has been, knows parking is not plentiful.  We pulled right into a spot and were surprised, and then puzzled when we saw a sign saying that it was only parking for the bakery.  We struggled with should we move the car, is it that big of a deal?! And finally, we decided karma would not be good if we stayed, so Mary pulled out of the spot, and as she did, someone was leaving another spot, closer to Postino!!! If that's not good karma, I don't know what is!
We got to the restaurant a little before 8 p.m., when the $20 deal starts, waited a bit for a table and then saw two open spots at the bar so headed up there.  We were in desperate need of catch up time, as we have both been so busy and when we lived together we used to have these random catch up sessions in the kitchen that could last hours depending on what was going on.  This was our kitchen catch up...just not in our old kitchen.

We ordered a bottle of wine, got our food, and got to some serious talking.  I finally caught up on her life and she on mine and it was lovely to have a fun Monday night together.

Day 275, November 20th

Sunday, we cleaned the house, and cooked up our soup for the big competition.  I always get stressed out in situations like this. I think well what if Ryan and I are the only people in the world that thinks this is even good?!?! Despite my worries, I cooked up the soup and headed over to AJ and Jenna's.
So, my Book Club isn't really much of a true club.  We do read the books, but when we meet, we very rarely talk book talk.  So when I realized how much more intense this group was, I knew I had to get my ish together!  We had about 8 or so different soups, all totally different and all delicious! It was a tough decision, but I voted for the eventual winner, French Onion soup, since I'm not really a huge fan of that type of soup, but loved this version.
After we tasted all the soups, voted and determined the winner, we moved on to the blind taste test portion.  One person chooses 4 foods and and each person tries to guess what they are.  
I was super worried about this originally, but didn't do as terrible as  I though I would.  I love this photo because of Ryan's face! 
We had a fun night, and it's always fun to do new things, not to mention a reason to continue to improve my cooking skills.

Day 274, November 19th

Saturday was quite a busy day! It marked 3 years since this crazy relationship started! We hit the gym and then the grocery store to celebrate! haha.  Tomorrow I would be joining my co-worker Jenna's Cooking Club to compete in a Soup Challenge. I think I make a nice Tortilla Soup and was happy to join! The challenge was that you had to make your own stock. So Saturday I hit the store to STOCK up on supplies and get to work on preparing the stock for the soup tomorrow.  It wasn't a bad experience, except chopping up the chicken, I had Ryan do that gross part.

After the stock was complete, we packed up and headed out to ASU for tailgating with our friends.  We knew the ASU/UA game would be a bit more crowed, but seriously, it was a madhouse! The lots were full, cars everywhere, madness I tell you!  We finally found a spot, in a lot far away, but luckily there were some folks there so we posted up.  It was a crew of mostly ladies, which is funny and sad in the same way.  We were having a lovely game of flip cup, having a grand old time, when we decided to take a quick bathroom break and noticed these young girls who asked for a water earlier, on the ground, not looking too good.  Well long story short, pretty sure one of the girls had alcohol poisoning, so we forced her to drink lots of water and called an ambulance to come get her.  She wasn't happy with us but when she is older and wiser like we are, she will come around I'm sure!! 
After that drama, we resumed our fun, and once the game started moved down to Mill to watch it.  Well it was a sad loss for us Sun Devils, but in us fashion, we still had a grand time! 

Day 273, November 18th

I took Friday off, one because Ryan and I did decide to go with Direct TV and Century Link, remember, so the dude was coming to hook up our internet.  Second reason, I needed to get my hair dyed, although cut last week, my roots were still insane! The luck of having a friend who does hair, she came over and did my hair in my kitchen while the Century Link guy worked.
After I was beautified, I headed out to see an old friend of mine and her daughter.  Monica and I met at Church Camp 16 years ago! Wow, crazy!! Anyway, she is from Colorado, but is living here as her husband is in the military and his family is in Arizona.  She has an adorable daughter Mary, and the three of us spent the afternoon together.  It was great to see Mon after all these years, and I think Mary and I will soon be besties! :)
After all that excitement of the day, Ryan and I had plans for that evening, so I hurried home to get ready.
Tomorrow marks 3 years of dating for Ryan and I, and although we now have a bigger, more important anniversary, I wanted to celebrate this one, one last time.  The adorable thing is that on our anniversary tomorrow ASU and UofA are playing, and since we met tailgating 3 years ago for ASU, it's poetic.

Anyway,  so since we will be rooting for ASU on our actual anniversary, we hit the town Friday night to enjoy a lovely dinner.  We went to BLT Steak at Camelback Inn, because I've only heard great things about that place. This place did not disappoint, it was amazing! They had the most amazing pop overs I've ever had, and lucky for us, they give you the recipe! Amazing!! We enjoyed a very lovely dinner and then got some drinks and enjoyed the evening out on the patio.  It was a great Friday, and a wonderful last celebration of our dating life!

Day 272, November 17th

What a busy week!!! Thursday night, Amy hosted book club and we had a nice evening of not discussing the book.  This was especially good since not only did I not finish the book, I didn't even start it...or buy it.  I used the classic, school and work consuming my life excuse as to why I didn't read it. 

Update, I finally did read the book, The Shack, and it was very good. You should read it.

It was a nice night of catching up with everyone, eating delicious foods and enjoying each other's company.

Day 271, November 16th

When I was living with Mike and Mary we had Game Night every Wednesday for a good long while.  Then because life got in the way, we had to put it on the back burner.  We tried a few months ago, just the four of us to revive it, and although it was a fun evening, we let a lot of time pass before we did it again.

And here we are today! Mike and Mary hosted a wonderful, and full Game Night.  We had a lovely make your own Mexican Bar, and we battled against our friends and loved ones for the title of Champion.  

We drew names from a hat for teams, which I love, like when you are kids and you do things to get to know one another!!  Trivial Pursuit was hard, Jake and I were partners, and although we weren't terrible, we weren't excellent either.

We had a fun night with our friends, food, drinks and of course games!

Day 270, November 15th

Tuesday after work I headed over to my sister's pad for some hang time with Ann.
Last time I was over there, I was assisting her with picking out a new chair for her place.  She didn't go with my suggestion, but I also totally dig the chair she did pick, so all is forgiven!!
Emma also loves the chair, and hung out for most of the evening, which is unheard of for this little fluff ball.
Ann and I hit up CenPho for some dinner and just enjoyed an evening of sister bonding! 

Day 269, November 14th

Monday, life went back to normal.  Finally got back to Piyo after missing a few weeks because of work stuff, so that was lovely.
After the gym and dinner Ryan and I settled in for a good old fashion night of chillaxin!
I did a small amount of blogging, but mostly we vegged out with our bad selves!

Day 268, November 13th

Sunday morning we woke up to a very rainy Rocky Point.  It had rained all night, and was still coming down pretty hard.  I could only think of those poor motorcycle guys having to drive home in that.
We hit the road early afternoon, enjoying the gloomy weather all the way back to America.  
We stopped in Gila Bend for Subway, and I finally got to take a picture with this Dinosaur!! I have wanted to take a photo with this guy for years!!! Quite an afternoon!
We got home and settled back into our normal life.

Day 267, November 12th

Saturday morning we woke up, ate breakfast, enjoyed the patio and then finally got up and ready for the day.
We took a long lovely walk on the beach, soaked up the beach air and then grabbed some yummy lunch.  My favorite thing about Mexico is that no matter where you go you can get a delicious taco.  Since my favorite food is Mexican food, Mexico is sort of like my food Mecca.  
After an afternoon of lounging, we decided to head back into town to see what all this bike week commotion was about.
Well let me tell you, it was insane!!! There were hundreds of people down there, and it was like a scene from a movie, guys were crowded in the road, watching bikers burn out, do fancy tricks, all sorts of madness!
We spent most of the evening hanging out, enjoying the insanity.  Then it got late, and things got even weirder, and my paranoid self told Ryan we should probably leave before we're shot...and so we did.
We got some pollo from this amazing little place, Pollo Luc's, went back to the condo and had a feast! Then we sat and talked about all sorts of nonsense, it was a nice ending to a wonderful weekend.

Day 266, November 11th

Friday morning we woke up early and hit the road to Mexico.  After the walk, we had billions of cases of water and other drinks left, so I offered to take them to Mexico to drop off at the Children's Home down there.
Our first stop after crossing the border was to Esperanza to drop off the supply.  They were happy to see us and we were happy to help! Although I'm sure the Sprite we brought will disgust them since American soda is not the real deal like Mexico soda.
The director there also told us that it was Bike Weekend down in Rocky Point, which we had a feeling about since there were many motorcycles headed south with us!  Since Ryan and I are so hardcore, we knew we'd fit right in!! ha
We got into town, headed to have some lunch and walked around the fish market for a bit enjoying the nice weather, checking out the lovely shops!!  
We headed to the condo, took an amazing nap, then woke up and headed out for the evening.
We hit up Boo Bar for an evening of food and fun.  The place was packed with bikers, and we made some nice friends for the night, and even made it in some photos to promote Boo Bar!! So exciting!!! After all that excitement we decided to head back for the night.  A great first day of relaxing!

Day 265, November 10th

So I spent most of 2010 growing my hair out so that I could wear it up on our Wedding Day.  Then I got so used to having longer hair, it became my look.  Well finally I had enough! Now that the Walk was over, I had some more time on my hands so could finally fix the rat's nest on the top of my head!  So Thursday, while Ryan packed up and got us ready for our Mexico weekend getaway, I went and chopped my hair off!!

It is so nice to have short hair again! The blow dry time is seriously cut in half, and if that's not a reason to cut your hair, I don't know what is!

Day 264, November 9th

After the weekend and all that busyness, we finally decided Wednesday that we needed to chill the heck out.  We cooked up some no fuss dinner and parked it on the couch for the night.  We caught up on our shows, and I finally spent some quality time with the fur kids.

Day 263, November 8th

Tuesday I had a Kids Walk out in Florence and had all the intention in the world to stop by and vote on my way back to the office after it was over.  Well, the day ran away from me, and next thing I knew I was at home, staring at my blank ballot and feeling less than Patriotic!  Sorry Government, I'll get you next time!

Day 262, November 7th

Now that it is cooling down, if only slightly, I am in full Fall mood.  I decided we needed to have soup on Monday as well.  I found what many said was the Paradise Bakery Broccoli and Cheese Soup, and cooked that right up for our Monday meal.

It was good, presentation excellent, but too healthy tasting for me.  I think we added more broccoli then the recipe called for, which made it taste more of broccoli than cheese.  Since cheese is my favorite, I had a small problem with that.  Next time, more cheese, less broccoli for sure!

Day 261, November 6th

Sunday morning, when we woke up, I finally saw our house in reality.  It was disgusting.  I was in a Walk haze for the last few weeks, and now out of it, I saw all the dust and clutter everywhere! You'd think I'd spend the day relaxing, but I spent the day deep cleaning.  The first step was taking down the Halloween decorations and transitioning to Fall.  

Once we got the appropriate decor out, and the house was all clean, I headed to get a pedicure to treat my poor little feet. After that, I headed to the store, then back home to cook up dinner.  

Since we Fall-ified the house, we decided it was time to have soup for dinner.  I cooked up Tortilla Soup, and we enjoyed dinner at the table, again, after a long absence, the table was happy and so were we.

Day 260, November 5th

Saturday morning started again at 4:30 a.m., freezing in Tempe.  Luckily there wasn't too much damage to the site, a few flooded areas, but nothing huge blew away or anything crazy like that.  It was a great day, I finally got to see the start line after 4 walks, and got to see so many of the wonderful families I work with all year.  The day went almost perfect, the weather was so nice, and I think everyone had a great time. 

One of our new team's this year, Team Brock, well the thing is I pretty much love little Brock.  The nice thing about my love, is that his mom is supportive of it...not totally creeped out!! :)

The best part of the day was that we were totally finished with clean up by 2:30 p.m.!!! We drove the Uhauls back to the office and then Ryan and I headed to Z Tejas for a bite to eat and a celebratory beer.

It is always so strange to work so hard and for so long on something, and then in a few hours, it's all over.  What a crazy world!!

After we ate, we headed home, and literally went to sleep!  We slept from 5:30 to about midnight, woke up, ate, watched a little tv, then fell back asleep until the morning.  It was so lovely to sleep again!!
A fun and great day!

Day 259, November 4th

Friday, I headed out to Tempe Town Lake at the lovely hour of 4:30 a.m. to meet Jael and Jenna to supervise as vendors began set up of the Walk to Cure Diabetes.  It was a nice morning, we watched the Army guys warm up, watched the sunrise, and got ready to spend the day setting up the event.
Set up went pretty smooth, probably the best in all 4 walks I've done with JDRF.  The only problem we faced was the weather.  

The forecast was pretty dead set on rain that night, so lots of things that we'd normally set out we had to put back in the truck.

We finished set up around 5, and Jael and I stayed back to wait for the security to show up, at 6 they said.  Well, the company had the date wrong, so lucky for us, we were there until after 7 p.m.!! Yes, the same people that were there at 4:30 a.m.!! Insanity!! The security guy came, we headed home, ate dinner and I guess I can't speak for her, but went to sleep!  I woke up around midnight to the sounds of pouring down rain, said a little prayer that the walk site wasn't totally destroyed and fell back asleep for a few hours.