Circle of Life

Yes, your mac n' cheese is always your largest food group, with priority even over your veggies and protein.

Yes, occasionally I require Nathan to eat off of these colored, fun, and flowery plates. If I'm in the mood sometimes I even give him the pink one. 

Circle of life tastes gooooood.

Kinder Creek

My parents had a hiking trip planned for this weekend just the two of them, and when I found out about it I totally invited myself along. I realize I'm grown, and married, and out of the house, but I keep telling them they'll just never get rid of me.

The Kinder Creek trail is located about 40(ish) miles north of Payson and at this time of year is a perfect way to escape the summer heat for a day! Since Nate was out fulfilling his hunting and gathering duties for the week (wild turkey for dinner tonight may show up in a later post...) I brought Gunther along with me as he's more likely than Maycee to listen to me when Nate's not around to lay down the law. Gunther led most of the way and seemed to be in better shape than the rest of us

...no offense Hammick

The hike starts at the top and you make your way down the canyon. It's pretty steep and rocky at some points, but it doesn't last long, so it's not bad. The whole hike is only about 4 miles round trip.

And plus my mom had her brand new fancy-schmancy hiking shoes so there was no repeat of fossil springs all day! ...You go girl!

Once you get down to the bottom there are some really neat water holes to swim in, but it was a bit overcast and the sky was thundering all morning long, so we opted not to swim this time. And on top of that, the coolest swimming spot, complete with a sandy beach was being hogged up by some campers who set out there fishing lines equally spaced along the entire shore. Jerks.

So we continued up the the trail a bit, hiking parallel to the creek, but as soon as the dogs heard the sound of the running water, they made a beeline right for it! In fact, we couldn't get an over-heated Hammick out of the water!

Once we crossed the creek we made it to the big water spot complete with a mini "waterfall"(not sure I would even go that far, but nonetheless, pretty neat). It was so pretty and once again the dogs couldn't wait to cool down!

The 'rents 

We plopped ourselves right on top of a big flat rock and just enjoyed the afternoon relaxing, and taking in the scenery!...And laughing at the dogs, like how Gunther kept running all around and slipping on the mossy rocks, or Hammick that gets in the water and just stands there and doesn't move a muscle. They were pretty entertaining. It even started to lightly sprinkle on us, which is a much-welcomed change from the weather down in the valley these days.

After a little while, we eventually packed up and made our way back up the canyon, and (unfortunately) our way back down to the 116 degree weather. Yuck.

It was fun to pretend the weather is permanently in the 70's, at least for a day!

Intern

Look at this face

Do I look professional?

Sophisticated?

Full of knowledge, wisdom and real world experience?

...I didn't think so either. I'll work on that.

BUT...

I will say that you are looking at the face of the newest intern for the office of Congressman David Schweikert of Arizona's 5th Congressional District!

And I'm pretty dang pumped about it!

Can you tell?!

Dog Rules

So my mom found this little saying at a boutique in San Francisco when they were on vacation and I thought it was funny enough to be worth repeating. If we remembered what the name of the boutique was I would totally give it credit, but since we can't...oh well.

The Labrador Retriever Rules

1.) The labs are not allowed in the house

2.) Ok, labs are allowed in the house, but only in certain rooms

3.) The labs are allowed in all rooms, but have to stay off the furniture

4.) The labs are only allowed on the old furniture

5.) Fine, the labs are allowed on all the furniture, but are not allowed to sleep with the humans on the bed

6.) Alright, the labs are allowed on the bed, but only by invitation 

7.) The labs can sleep on the bed whenever they want, but not under the covers

8.) The labs can sleep under the covers every night

9.) Humans must ask permission to sleep under the covers with the labs

10.) In all cases of dispute...

The labs rule

Yeah yeah yeah...they wish!

School House Rocks

School Supplies:

 Check

Books:

Check

Binder:

Check

Why yes, it appears that I am going for the "Lisa Frank" look, because I'm old, and mature, and in in Grad school, Thanks for asking.

Clean workspace:

Check

I love my desk-hutch-thingy, but it's totally cramping my style in my super cool red room (it used to live in a different room where it actually matched). I just can't bring myself to shell out the Benjamin's and buy a white one to match the rest of the room; so this'll do for now.

Who's ready to go back to school?!

I AM!...Kinda

...

On the other hand, I am also the Queen of worry. You name it, I can worry about it. I start to get worried when my grocery cart starts to get too full at the grocery store. I worry about most things that people wouldn't even think to worry about. Which is weird, cause I'm married to Nate, and Nate is the King of cool. Nate never worries about anything, not a single thing; not even getting blown up in Iraq. ...I guess opposites attract eh?... But right now there is a list of potential things about starting school that I'm begining to worry about: 

-What if I'm not smart enough?

-I don't know anyone in my program yet

-What if it's too much to handle?

-What if I don't have any idea what the teacher's talking about?

-What if the teacher's mean?

-What if my classmates are mean and no one wants to talk to me?

-What if we have to break into groups and no one wants to be in my group?

-What if I can't find a parking spot?

- What if I get called on in the middle of class and don't have the answer?

-What if everyone thinks I'm stupid?

-What if people can tell, right when I walk in the door that my undergrad was in something totally different?

-I don't have the same professional experience as everyone else

-What if I go to the wrong classroom number? (always been a worst fear of mine, show up in the wrong class)

EEK!

Trust me, I could go on...and on...and on.

  With that being said...I'm gonna go take a few deep breaths now.

...

On a lighter note, Nate got issued a bunch of new gear this weekend at drill. 

So naturally, I played dress up.

Hi, I'm Nathan and I'll kick yer @$$, and yer @$$, and yer @$$

The dogs were even getting nervous...can't you tell?

Flavor of the Week

The Flavor of the Week is:

The Civil Wars

So the other day as I was playing around on the internet, going through my usual list of websites I check often, I was on CMT.com gettin' my country on when the featured headlines scrolled through a title reading

"Check out the new Video of The Civil Wars' "Poison and Wine!"

I had never seen these people before, never heard of the duo, nor heard of the song; but there was something about its title that made me click on it. After the first line of the song was sung I was hooked.

It's a pretty sad song and I'm not typically a debbie-downer about things, but the way these artists deliver the lyrics, their harmonies: it's haunting, and I can't stop listening. The pain and sorrow in the words they sing is palpable; almost makes you, as a viewer, want to take pity on what they're going through, what they're stuck in.

"You only know what I want you to...I know everything you don't want me to..."

OUCH.

"Your mouth is poison, your mouth is wine...You think your dreams are the same as mine..."

Double OUCH.

I could listen to their voices over and over again. They're talent (and they have a BUNCH of it) is truly something unique.

So naturally, after I watched their video, I made my way over the the Tubes and searched their name to see what else came up. Their album out now is called "Barton's Hollow" and the title track of that album is equally as amazing! So needless to say I'm hooked.  So please enjoy my flavor of the week!

Weekend

This weekend was good to me for a number of reasons.

Reason #1:

GLEE in 3D! My mom and I went to see the new Glee concert movie and I totally lost my 3D movie V-card, if you know what I mean. I had never seen a movie in 3D before and what better movie to start with than Glee?! Since it was my first time sporting the awesome and totally flattering 3D glasses I thought it was only appropriate to take a picture in them.

Needless to say we enjoyed the movie, along with our popcorn, red vines, peanut butter M&M's, and diet coke...we're watching our figures, after all.

The movie was awesome, Puck is hotttt, I wish I sang like Rachel, I wish I danced like Brittany, and the Warblers are too cool for school.

Reason #2

The D-backs! 

Saturday Nate and I went to the Dbacks game as part of a promotional thing his company was offering. I hadn't been to a baseball game in a while, so this was long over due and much enjoyed! AND...how 'bout them Dbacks eh?! 2 game lead in 1st place in the NL West... not too shabby! AND we won the game, AND Nate actually attended a baseball game! (we all know how much Nate loooooves baseball)

Can you tell he looks happy to be there??

Reason #3

Pool partaay!

We had a pool volleyball tournament with both our families over at my parents house on Sunday....and my team, composed of the lovely and talented Sherri Townsend, Carl Townsend, my dad, and my sister Audrey's bf Adam, won 2 out of the 3...I'm just sayin'. So since Nate was on the losing team it means I have household bragging rights for at least, like, the next 10 years (I never have bragging rights so I gotta milk it for what it's worth ok?). 

We lost two balls to the neighbor's yard and one to the alley. But have no fear, Adam is here!

Can you find the action shot here?

This one's a framer, my favorite of the weekend =) ...just missing Jess =(

And because a pool party would not be complete without dessert...AND because I can't seem to go one blog post without mentioning dessert...

BEHOLD! I give you,

DESSERT!

Scoops upon scoops of ice cream on top of a brownie, and ice cream sandwiches with layers of cool whip, chocolate sauce, and caramel, topped with your choice of Reese's Peanut Butter cups, or peanuts and Maraschino cherries, is the other masterpiece pictured here. 

Just these treats alone is enough to make it a good weekend for me, so all the rest of it is extra icing on the cake (no pun intended...)