Fun in the Sun

Friday night J and I went to Ruby Tuesday for supper. They have coupons in the newspaper every month, buy one entree-get one free. This is our third time using it. They are really great coupons and a nice way to try something new from their menu. Their BBQ Bistro Chicken, Parmesan Chicken Pasta and ribs are really good, I recommend trying them out. Afterwards, we headed to San Tan Shopping to browse around, I needed to go to Soma to use my $10 off coupon! We stopped at Helzberg to redeem my free cultured pearl bracelet and also left with two 10% off coupons for Gordon Biersch Brewery. We ended our night at Wally World. I had a few things on my list I needed to pick up, one of them being little smokies. I'd be bringing them to my work party for Saturday night.

Saturday we went to our community Fun Day in the Park party. They had free hot dogs, popcorn and snow cones. They also invited several businesses to set up a booth and two of them included nearby pizza shops. Naturally, they both bought pizza, so we also had pizza. They had free chair massages and lots of things for the children. We came home to relax for a couple of hours before heading onto our next party.

My department has a party every year and they take turns with the Leaders houses for hosting. We headed up around 4 for the party. There was a pretty good turnout and it was a good time. There were lots of Tequila shots going on, margaritas floating around and the beer was plentiful. Of course I brought my camera to catch the action. Now I have my blackmail, haha.

Sunday was another beautiful sunny day. The temperature was at least 90. I did some house cleaning, some shopping then came home to jump into my swimsuit and sit in the pool to work on my tan. Afterwards we headed to Pizza Factory for our free supper. J put his name in the drawing at the community party and wha'd ya know he won! Won a free large pizza, two pops and two salads or breadsticks. We headed to see 'I Love You, Man' after our awesome pizza meal. This movie is a must see, my eyes were watering from all the laughing.

It was another fun filled weekend. The weather is now warming up like real Arizona weather should be like. 80's, 90's, and 100's from here on out!

(The picture is from the cactus we planted from Uncle B's. It has started to blossom!)

Windy City

The temperature has been low the past two days. Mid 60's is rather chilly when you're used to 80's. It feels like winter all over again. The wind was 35 mph yesterday and 15 mph today. When the wind blows, everyone allergies acts up and there is so must dust and debris in the air that you can't see the mountains. We can always tell at work when it's real windy out when you can't see the mountains. Since the wind was so high yesterday, our solar blanket blew off the pool. What a hassle that was.

Work has been real busy this week. Partly because tax season and the other part is everyone calling in sick. The stomach flu has been going around, either the kids have them or the adults are getting it. This seems to be going through the whole U.S. since my sister has the same thing going on in her household up in Chicago.

The picture above is from a neighbors yard. I love how some cactus have pretty flowers.

Nebraska Easter Trip

I'm currently watching American Idol and I love Adam Lambert on this show! Paula actually doesn't seem to be drunk or on drugs for tonight's show.

On my way to work this morning I heard about this story. Check it out. Wow!

Ok, onto the weekend. The Nebraska trip went well. We arrived in Omaha at 11:45 Thursday night. Our flight was delayed due to a dirt storm in Texas, which is where our plane was coming from. We awoke early (Nebraska timezone, 2 hours ahead of Arizona) Friday morning, visited with my parents as my mom made us breakfast. Then it was onto Wymore to visit J's family. We visited with J's mom, ate at Runza that night then visited with his brother. We arrived back in Plattsmouth around 4:00 Saturday afternoon. Relaxed a bit and ate cheeseburgers my mom cooked up for us.

That night J and I went to The Ozone to watch our favorite local band, Lemon Fresh Day. Some of my old co-workers met us there along with close non-work friends. It was good to see my dedicated friends come out and have a good time. We tore up the dance floor and had lots of drinks. Thanks to all who came!

Sunday started off as a rough day. This was due to the fact J and I only had 4 hours of sleep. We were up at 6:00 Nebraska time to get ready to go to church. Thank goodness I can have coffee again! After church we had a nice breakfast at Perkins. Back at home we relaxed and I showed my brother my hundreds of Arizona pictures. It was time to eat our Easter lunch. I ate so much food and it tasted extraordinary. I miss eating my mom's cooking.

After spending a few hours with family and eating tons of food, it was time to pack up and head out. Our flight was schedule for take off at 7:00. We took off after 5:00 since we had to gas up the rental car and return it to allow enough time. We made great time and actually ended up in Arizona 30 minutes early. Uncle B picked us up from the airport along with Tory. She was very much spoiled by Uncle B during her stay with him.

The trip went by too quickly, but we were able to spend a reasonable amount of time with both families to balance it out, then fit some friend time in there also. It feels good to back at the house with warm, sunny weather. Although, I'm still trying to catch up on sleep.

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Here is one man's take on the Tempe Music Festival we went to posted here.

Pictures can be seen here:

I liked the Tempe Festival. Next year we'll be going to Country Thunder down in Florence. Too bad they were both going on at the same time.

Intriguing

April has come and going very quickly. Last weekend we bought a solar blanket for the pool. This will help raise the temperature about 10 degrees and lengthen the season. We also got rid of the pool guy which means we'd be saving $90/month. J has been learning to care for the pool himself. We also bought a volleyball net for the pool, we're looking forward to using it.

The curtains are almost hung up in the living room and they are looking really sharp. They are helping absorb the echo nicely.

I made it to the gym 4 times last week, which was my goal. I won't make it 4 times this week since I'm coming back to NE on Thursday night, which is the night I usually go to the BodyPump class and I didn't feel like going today, but I'll just make my 3 workouts this week a little harder to make up for it. I still would like to meet my goal weight. I've been a little too laxed about it the last month.

Saturday night we went to the Tempe Music Festival. We saw The All American Rejects and 3 Doors Down. They had a lot of activities to do, other locals bands to watch including the dualing pianos and lots of food vendors. The All American Rejects were really good and entertaining. The joints were being passed and marijuana filled up the air. 3 Doors Down were really good and I wasn't sure what to expect from them actually. They did an encore of 3 songs which included the ever-anticipated "Krytponite". The night was chilly, in the low 50's which meant we were dressed like it was wintertime.

Friday the winds were real strong. You couldn't see the mountains because they were shielded from the dust. I couldn't believe it. I snapped a picture of a mini dust-tornadoish thing from a nearby field. It was pretty incredible that it was so dusty that you couldn't see the mountains, the giant Superstition Mountains! It was just pure whiteness, not brown, white.

It's really the little things that intrigue me.