My Mom came to Phoenix!!

My Mom flew in on Thursday afternoon.  I picked her up from the airport and got a little teary when I saw her coming down the terminal.  I didn't realize until I saw her how much I missed her! 

We stopped for lunch and then headed home where Jordan met us.  I showed her around our apartment complex and then we went to dinner at the local BBQ restaurant, Joe's BBQ which is in our neighborhood. 

Friday morning I had to work so my Mom slept in and relaxed until I got home at noon.  Jordan came home early and then we went to look at houses.  Last week we found a house that we loved and wanted to put an offer in on but at the last minute the offer didn't go through.  Jordan and I have decided to take a break from looking, save for a better down payment and then start looking again in a few months.   Even with taking a break we wanted to show my Mom the homes that would be new builds and the neighborhoods we are looking at buying.  It is so exciting to think that the next time my Mom comes to visit it will be in our first house!

Friday night I wasn't feeling well so my Mom and I stayed home, made dinner and watched TV.  Jordan went with our friend's Brad and Lindsey to audition for a new TV show The X-factor.  Yes, Jordan auditioned.  Yes he sang and yes I am horrified at the thought that they may put it on national television.  Brad also sang which makes sense because he is really talented and Lindsey singed Happy birthday to Simon Cowell for her audition. After auditioning they went to see the new movie 'Rio' which they loved.

Jordan won movie tickets and free popcorn through work to see the new Disney movie 'African Cats', so my Mom and I got up early on Saturday to go to the show.  I found watching the animals fascinating but the story and narration were pretty basic and I kept waiting for some dramatic event to occur, which never happened.  Over all I found the movie to be a little slow and boring.  Still it was fun.  They had booths set up with face painting, they took our picture and handed out animal print bandanna's. 

After the movie we went shopping!  We spent all afternoon just the two of us.  We walked through the mall which took us most of the afternoon and then we picked up the Boise State bowl that I painted a few days earlier as my birthday present from Jordan, which I loved. Then we met Jordan for dinner at an authentic Italian restaurant that we have been wanting to try.  After dinner we came home, watched a movie and then I went to bed early still fighting a cold. 

Sunday morning I had an appointment at the fertility clinic so we took my Mom with us.  This appointment was a quick ultrasound checking to see how the medication that I am on is working.  She found it very interesting and it was nice to be able to share my journey to become a mom with my Mom.  Everything looks fantastic and we are hoping to become pregnant very soon!! 

After my appointment we took my Mom to the airport.  It was a quick trip but I loved every moment.  I miss my family and spending all weekend with my Mom made me really miss the rest of my family! I think that Jordan and I may have to start planning for a trip to Boise soon.                

Mesa Temple Easter Pageant

Jordan and I had a date night with Brad and Lindsey last night.

 

First we went and played laser tag at Stratum Laser tag arena.  It is apparently the world's largest laser tag center.  It was 18,000 square feet with 90 towers, bridges and ramps to explore.  Your main goal is to find the other four team's home base, shoot their base until it "explodes" and then you get extra points for shooting the other players vests along the way.  It was so much fun.  We ended up played two rounds.  The first round I just wandered around lost and got shot at, a lot.  The second round we went as a team and managed to get two of the team home bases and ended up with some of the highest scores. 

After laser tag we went to Texas roundhouse for dinner and then to the Mesa temple Easter pageant where Lindsey was performing as a sign language translator. It happened to be the night that they performed the pageant in Spanish so we wore ear pieces that translated everything to English.  It was so interesting to watch the performance in three languages!  

Because we came with Lindsey we were given front row seats and sat in the sign language section.  The pageant was incredible. You could strongly feel the spirit as you watched the story of Christ's birth, life, death and Resurrection, all while sitting on the temple lawn.  It was breathtaking.

I can't wait to go again this next week when my Mom comes to visit us. 

It will nice to see the pageant again, this time in English.   

Lindsey interpreting

 Christ as a young child with Mary and Joseph

Christ teaching the people

The Last Supper

The Crucifixion

He is Risen!

House hunting has begun.

Jordan and I met with a lender this week and got preapproved for our first home!!  We had decided to wait until our credit cards were paid off before going into a lender to help improve our credit scores.  It worked!!  We both had great scores and easily qualify for a new home. 

We then called our real estate agent to let him know we were prequalified and that we wanted to go look at two homes.  One that I really liked and one that Jordan liked.  Unfortunately the house I wanted to see sold before we could go look at it.  We did however go look at the home Jordan liked.  It was an interesting experience.  The homeowners and their six little kids were home.  The house was how can I saw this nicely.....an absolute mess.  It was hard to look past all the junk to actually see the home.  We liked the main level of the home which had a huge living room, a guest suite with attached bathroom, a really nice kitchen and dining room with a small den off of the kitchen.  All the other bedrooms were upstairs.  They had converted the loft into a bedroom which we would convert back to a large loft.  The master bedroom was nice but the bathroom had no counter space and that is one thing that really bothers me in our apartment.  We would have to replace all the carpet and repaint everything.  Our real estate agent told us to think about things and to keep an open mind.  It was only the first home was saw.  

There is so much to think about and consider when buying a home.  We went to look at the home that we absolutely loved again last week and it is still our top pick.  It is however at the top of our price range because it would be a newly built home. We just aren't sure if it building a home is what we want to do.  In the meantime we are going to keep praying and keep looking.     

I also spent the week baking!  Jordan and I are trying to eat healthier meals at home and slowly convert to an organic diet.  I decided that I would make freezer meals for those days when I don't feel like spending a lot of time in the kitchen.  I researched recipes online and then went to whole foods and trader joes to help with our organic goal.  I ended up making:

 3 lasagnas made with organic spaghetti sauce and no hormone, free range hamburger meat.

3 spaghetti casseroles with whole wheat pasta, organic spaghetti sauce, and no hormone, free range hamburger meat.

2 cranberry orange chicken dinners with no hormone, free range chicken.

and

12 bean and beef burritos with no hormone, free range hamburger meat and homemade re fried beans for Jordan who randomly gets hungry between meals. 

I still want to make a few more things but we started to run out of room in our freezer.  All the meals looked and smelled amazing! It was well worth the time. 

Remember this?

Remember the free dresser we got a few months ago?

Its finally sanded, ready for priming and paint.

 This project would have taken a weekend anywhere else but living in an apartment created a few challenges.

  We bought an electric hand sander but it was WAY to loud to use, so I had to go back to the basics and sanded...and sanded...and sanded this dresser by hand.  One trick that I learned (and Jordan found hilarious)was that every Wednesday morning our apartment complex mows the lawn.  So each week I would wait to hear the lawn mowers outside our window and I would run outside and sand with the electric sander for the minute or two while they were making a lot of noise to cover the sound of our sander.  It may have been a strange thing to do but it worked and I was able to get the sanding done a lot faster.  

I still need to buy new handles and figure out what color to paint it.  Maybe grey with black hardware?            

Canyoneering rendezvous

Jordan and our friend Jonathan went to a canyoneering rendezvous this weekend.  It was six days where they  meet other canyoneers, played for a few days in the canyons of Arizona and learned more about canyoneering.

They ended up only staying Friday, Saturday and came home on Sunday.  They had a lot of fun in the canyons but decided to cut the trip short and go hiking on their own.    

Jordan rappelling

Jordan

I had to work this weekend so I wasn't able to go with them.  Luckily I have great friends who invited me over to watch conference with them on Saturday afternoon and both sessions on Sunday so I wouldn't be lonely.  During the priesthood session Nicole and I went to desert book for women's night.  It was kind of fun.  I won a plaque and bought the primary songs on cd to listen to in my car.  I hardly know any of the words when we sing in sharing time and figured with children in the near future it would be a good thing to learn.

I was very glad to have Jordan home early.  Although he was only gone for two nights it was still hard to get to sleep at night and feel completely safe.  I love that Jordan is able to go hiking and canyoneering on the weekends and has a job that allows him the flexibility that I don't have to go on these trips.  We do have our big trip next month planned for havasupi falls and even added a few days to stop in San Diego on our way down. I am so excited!!  

Weavers Needle

Jordan and Aaron (a friend from our ward) spent Saturday hiking Weavers Needle.

 Jordan had told me before I left for work to expect them home by two.  Around three I received a text telling me not to expect them home until seven or eight.  What happened was just before they reached the climbing section they ran into a group of four who didn't have enough rope or any safety equipment.  Jordan and Aaron stayed behind to guide them to the top. 

Look closely and you can see Aaron rock climbing.

 Jordan at the summit.

 The registry

 Aaron at the summit

Weavers Needle

Angels vs Giants

Intel gave Jordan's group the afternoon off, tickets for them and their families to watch the Angels play the Giants and free concessions!

We parked pretty far away so that we wouldn't have to pay for parking.  Just as we were getting out of our car a guy on a rickshaw asked us if we wanted a ride?  We decided to go for it and paid the $5.00 (which was still cheaper than parking and much more fun).

The group that Jordan works with are a lot of fun, still we didn't last very long at the game. 

It was hot and....a little boring.  Baseball is going to take awhile to get used to. 

Spring Training

Jordan and Brad served their missions together in Thailand and have remained close friends ever since.  It just so happened that Brad was going to dental school in Glendale when Jordan got his job in Phoenix.  We try to get together with Brad and his girlfriend Lindsey a few times a month.  We love spending time with them.

On Saturday Brad and Lindsey invited use to go to a spring training baseball game.  We watched the LA Dodgers play the Milwaukee Brewers.  We had amazing seats sitting only four rows from the field. 

I am not a huge baseball fan and find it to be a little slow at times, but spring training games are a little different.  With such a small arena fly balls would fly into the crowd all the time.  I felt like I was watching a hockey game where you have to pay attention or you are the one getting hit in the head.  No one got hurt from what we could tell and it defiantly added a new element of excitement to the game.

The Brewers won the game even though the Dodgers had a much better pitcher.           

After the baseball game we went to Brad's house, ordered pizza and watched BYU play Gonzaga with his roommates and friends.  It was so much fun! 

Ostrich Festival 2011

The other day Jordan and I were driving down the road when we saw a sign that said 'Ostrich Festival 2011'.  I thought it was so funny and we joked for a long time about what you would do at an ostrich festival.  Well, we found out. Jordan won tickets at work so we went Friday night.

We watched Ostrich racing

Ready, set...

Go!

The races were hilarious. 

The ostriches would run randomly and the riders usually fell off right away.

Then they would chase them back to the pins and start again.

Jordan also won unlimited rides at the carnival.

 

We quickly learned that an ostrich festival consists of ostriches, ostrich racing, ostrich burgers, music, magicians, shows and carnival rides.  It was a fun night.   

Favorite moments from February

Bought overnight backpacks and new hiking shoes for Jordan in preparation for our ten mile hike to Havasupi Falls.
Bought a two man tent.  (This is mainly for me.  Jordan and my idea of camping are much different. Jordan would be happy sleeping under the stars.  I prefer shelter, no matter how thin a tent may be.)

Got our taxes back and paid off most of our debt!!!!!! 

Looked at dozens of homes and finally hired a real estate agent to help us in our search for our first home. 

Signed up for Skype and talked with Caitlin, met my beautiful new niece Maya, Kylee, Mom, Ella and Kres.  What an awesome thing.  There is just something about being able to see the person you are talking with.  The little ones couldn't get over being able to see and talk with me.  It was adorable. 

And our top moment...we got accepted into the fertility specialist!  I know it isn't talked about often but this was such a blessing for us.  We meet with them in two weeks.  The doctor we are seeing is one of the top specialists in Arizona and is covered by our insurance.  We are so excited to have some answers and to see what the future holds.           

  

 

 

Our new house?

After many hours of house hunting this is still our favorite house.  Its a 2,600 square foot home, has four bedrooms, three and a half baths and would be built brand new on a large lot.

The just dropped the price by $15,000.00 so it is now comfortably in our price range.  We never really thought about building a house but we LOVE this home.  Luckily we have the time to really think and pray about such a huge decision. 

In the meantime enjoy the tour.

When you walk into the house on the left is the study. 

We would add french doors and turn it into Jordan's office. 

The house then opens up to the family room/dining room and kitchen.

The pantry.  Love!

I love having the dining room in its own area but still open to the rest of the house. 

The Master bedroom

The master bath that has a walk in closet.

 Upstairs has a loft which we would use as a playroom and then turn into a theater when our kids are older. 

So weird to think that far into the future!

 Closer look of the loft

First bedroom upstairs has a bathroom right outside of the room. 

We would use this as our guest bedroom until we needed it for a bedroom. 

 On the other side of the house upstairs are two more bedrooms that share a Jack and Jill bathroom. 

View from the loft.

 View coming down the stairs

 The backyard has a covered pateo with a fan.  Perfect for playing games outside at night. 

We still have a lot more homes to look at but always seem to keep coming back to this home.   It will be interesting to see if this is our home or if something even better is waiting for us. 

House hunting can be stressful but this is so much fun!