Nana

A few weeks ago Trevor's mom came to town.  We had pretty much been looking forward to her visit since we moved to Arizona.  I had a list of crafty projects I wanted to her help me with, Trevor was looking forward to her famous sugar cookies, and Kirra just wanted her Nana time.  It was definitely a visit that went by way to fast.  The first night when we picked her up from the airport Kirra saw her getting into her car and gave her a very funny look.  Then her first words to Nana were, "where Papa?"  haha.  She thought this was going to be a two for one deal.  After her initial disappointment about no papa, She was very excited to have Nana.  I had a Young Women's meeting that night so Trev got some quality alone time with his mom.  The next day was Valentines day.  We spent the morning making delicious V-day cookies which Kirra thought was very fun.  Kirra followed Nana everywhere and pretty much demanded that she play with her anytime she wasn't doing other things.  Then we went to a delicious Thai restaurant (our new favorite) with Trevor's uncle Doug and aunt Melece for lunch.  I was soo full after lunch and just wanted a nap but we promised Kirra we would go to the choo choo park.  It is a beautiful park that has tons of duck ponds, playgrounds, and of course a choo choo train you can ride.  Kirra had been asking to go there all week but we were waiting for Nana.  Unfortunately I forgot that the train only runs on the weekend.  Luckily we still had the ducks and the playground to entertain her. We played for a while then headed home.  Trevor had something up his sleeve for V-day.  He started cooking dinner which I thought would be for all three of us but instead it was just a special dinner for his mom so that we could go out on a date (first one since we moved).  We went to an indian food restaurant that was delicious but Indian, Thai, and sugar cookies all in one day are a very bad idea.  Needless to say I was sick for the rest of the night.  That night we watched "Here comes the Boom"(My new favorite movie).  We laughed so hard that it hurt.  Then the next day Sherrie and I did some shopping while Trevor went on a bike ride.  We picked up some stuff for the many crafts I needed help with.  Then Trevor took us up to a few different lookout spots on the mountain which were beautiful.  I love where we live.  We hurried home to get ready for a night at Dougs of delicious pizza.  Trevor took me four wheeling in the desert at night.  I am not sure if I liked it.  It was pretty scary.  Then We went home and Sherrie and I sewed until 12:30am.  We knew we had to stop when I sewed the bottom half of Kirra's dress to the top half.  In the morning we woke up and finished some sewing.  Then Sherrie helped me to put together a picture mural for my wall.  My walls have been so bare since we moved here and I really hate it.  We also sewed some pillows for my couch.   Then we went back to the train park so Kirra could ride the train with her Nana.  She was in heaven.  Then we did a little shopping before Trev had to leave for a priesthood session of conference.  Sherrie and I drove to a mall not too far from us and it was amazing.  A huge outdoor mall with lots of activities.  Then we hurried home to get Trevor and head to dinner.  We were celebrating Trevor's acceptance to Nursing School even though at the time it wasn't official.  We came home and sewed some more and then the next day we had a short conference at church and headed to Doug's house for Sunday dinner.  It was so fun but sad because from there we had to take Nana to the airport.  We all decided that the visit was not long enough.  We are anxiously awaiting her next visit.

What I love about Arizona!

I love living in Arizona.  I don't know what it is...I think maybe because we haven't had our own place in almost a year, or maybe its the fact that its always sunny, or it could be our awesome ward at church.  I don't know for sure, but I know that I LOVE it here.  Our apartment is much bigger than our last place.  We have lots of storage and bathroom space.  We have the best managers who are always so nice.  We have a huge pool we can use anytime.   There is a workout room and computer room.  I love it here.  Also I can walk to target, church, and Winco.  I love all the shopping and restaurants here, even though I can't afford either.  You seriously have everything you need.  Also the parks here are amazing.  We have a park close by that has a choo choo train and a pond with ducks and three play places.  I love the bike paths around here that follow all the beautiful rivers. I love that my favorite college roommate lives super close and will hang out with me all day.  We hang out with our kids and go shopping at ikea and work on projects.  Most of all I love sharing this new place with Trevor and Kirra and working towards our goals together.  We love exploring our new home and are excited for what the future holds here.

A fun park in Phoenix

Kirra loved the ducks and birds

And she loves long bike rides

helping me do dishes

taylor swift

My roommates little girl sky

 

And her little boy tate...these guys are so much fun together

Hiking in the desert

Snuggled in mommy's bed

biking in the desert

I totally went over that jump...on foot..not on bike

In love with ice cream

Fun playgrounds

A fun park in Phoenix

Getaway

So I need to go back in time a little.  My card reader for my camera broke and I didn't want to write any more blog posts without my pictures.  So back in December, Trevor's parents offered to keep Kirra so we could have a night away alone.  We found a great deal at a hotel in Santa Cruz, so a couple weeks before Christmas we headed down to the coast.   We had not been on a trip like that since our honey moon so we were pretty excited.  We drove down and checked into our Hotel.  It was awesome.  Everything was decorated to look like the Santa Cruz mountains.  The front desk was even a giant log. It was very different then other hotels I have been to.  After we dropped off our stuff we decided to take a nice long run along the coast.  It was beautiful and definitely one of the more interesting places I have run.  It was fun to see all the people and the surfers out in the ocean.  It was nice to just be alone with Trevor and talk and look out at the ocean and of course get some exercise.   After our run we headed to my favorite pizza spot in Santa Cruz, Pizza my heart.  We each got a piece of pizza as our appetizer.  What would a Romantic getaway be without lots of good food.  On our honeymoon we got up really early to watch the sun rise in the east so on this trip we wanted to see the sun set on the west coast.  We found a nice spot on the beach  and snuggled up to watch the sun set.  It was of course beautiful.  Then we headed back to the hotel to change and we met up with Trevor's brother Jeff, who lives in Santa Cruz for dinner.  We went to this fun little hawaiian place and got poke.  It's basically a sushi salad.  We hung out for a while and played giant jenga and listened to the  live music.  Then we all went back to our hotel to hang out in the giant hot tub.  We were hanging out just talking and a group of really loud girls came out.  They were kind of crazy and I think a little tipsy.  They were there to film an exercise video and at first we didn't really talk to them until they brought up the subject of kids.  I think it is so cool how being a mom connects you with women everywhere.  After a nice chat with them we said goodbye to Jeff and before we went to bed we went out to Pizza my heart one more time for a refreshing drink and just to hang out and talk.  In the morning we woke up early and went to the hotel restaurant for our free breakfast.  We had looked up the menu online and already knew we wanted the crab cake beni.  Unfortunately they were not serving it because it was a weekday.  We begged our waitress and told her we had our hearts set on it, then she begged the chef and eventually he caved.  It was the MOST delicious breakfast I have ever eaten.  Anyways for the rest of the day we just took our time at everything.  We did a little shopping in the morning.  Then we started our drive along the coast headed up to San Francisco.  It is one of my most favorite drives in the United States.  It was so beautiful and the day was perfect.  We stopped a few times and got out and explored.  We walked down the the coast and Trevor carried me out to some rocks in the ocean.  We felt young and free again and it reminded me of when we were dating.  I used to come out to California and Trevor would take me to all his favorite spots and we would play and explore.  Those were some of my favorite memories and I am glad I got to add this one to my list of unforgettable moments.  After a few hours we made it to San Fran and again we had so much fun.  We just walked around and did some shopping and then we went to get some cheese cake and eat it in Union Square by the giant Christmas tree.  I  think my favorite part was just being with my boy and being free to do whatever we wanted.  My other favorite part was that we practically raced home so we could get back to our baby girl.  We both missed her so much.  I feel extremely blessed to have those two in my life.

Our run along the coast

The sun starting to set

my handsome guy

So beautiful

giant jenga

Hawaiian restaurant

giant log desk

strange squirrel decorations on the wall

the beautiful coast

out on a rock in the middle of the ocean

Trevor carrying me to the rock

OH yea...we are that lame

Not sure but some type of sea whip

Union square

huge mall

Big girl bed!

My cutie patootie is becoming a big girl fast.  We switched her to a big girl bed and I can't say it was an easy process.  The first day was hard.  We made the switch in the morning because I wanted to see how she did during her nap.  We put her in her bed and closed her doors like we always do.  The problem was she now can get out of bed and now that she realizes she is shut in her room during nap time she was not happy.  SHe cried and cried and cried.  The more I went in and tried to comfort her the worse it got so finally I had to go in the living room and turn the TV up to drown out her crying.  Eventually she gave up, got a book, and fell asleep reading at the edge of her bed.  I thought we were in the clear but bed time was worse.  She fell asleep quick because she was so tired but woke up around 10 30 and was not happy.  I ended up getting in her bed and rubbing her back till she fell asleep.  The problem was I couldint get out.  I was stuck in there.  Every time I moved she sat up wide awake.  After an hour and some serious mission impossible moves I made it out safe. Unfortunately and hour later she was awake and 20 min late in our bed for the rest of the night.  Trevor and I were both so tired and we had to give talks at church and we had friends coming for dinner.  The only good part was Kirra was so tired she slept through both of our talks.   So after being so tired all day I was in no mood to be the good guy so when we put her to bed that was it.  No going back.  She cried for about 15 minutes but finally gave up and got in her bed, pulled up the covers and fell asleep reading.  She slept until 8 am.  I am so excited because this is a part of the potty training process.  If she does well we will be starting in the next couple of weeks.  This is all good because my new calling may require me to be gone sometimes and it will make Trevor's life a lot easier.  I am still a little worried she is not quite ready but we will see how she does today.

New start

I guess I should start blogging again since I have more downtime.  We just moved to Arizona and I guess I am getting old because the whole thing has really worn me out.  I feel like I need more sleep than usual and also more chocolate than usual.  We got here about 2 weeks ago.  We packed an amazing amount of things into our tiny little car.  Now that I think about it I should have taken a picture and tried to see if we broke some kind of world record.  I really was impressed with Trevor's packing skills.  We drove through the night so that we would not have to deal with a very cranky Kirra and it turned out pretty great.  Kirra slept pretty much the whole time while Trev drove and I tried to keep him awake with as many conversation topics as I could think of.  The only problem was that when we arrived, Kirra was wide awake and Trevor and I were ready to fall over from how tired we were.

We unpacked our car-which by the way was not easy.  We live on the third floor.  Trevor did most of the work while I tried to keep us as organized as possible...Also something I should have taken a picture of because we were the complete opposite of organized.  We had some friends (Brittany and Ryan)  that we knew from Idaho that had also just moved to the area so they came and helped us a ton. The boys made multiple trips back and forth from our storage unit to the apartment while Brittany helped me hang up clothes and try to work my way through the mess.  It was such a pain because everything that came in from the storage unit was dusty and gross and just needed to be cleaned and I didn't really know where to put stuff and there were so many things we needed from the store.  I was completely overwhelmed and extremely tired.  We didn't get the crib set up until late that night and by that time Kirra was way past a nap.  She had laid down on the floor in a pile of cheezits she spilled and tried to take a nap but it was just so crazy.  I can't imagine how people with more than one kid move.

Anyway it took a few days to get things put away and set up the way we wanted them.  When we finally finished and had some down time we did a little exploring.  We found a fun trail by a huge lake to bike on.  Kirra loved it because there were ducks to feed.  I loved it because it was amazingly clean and had very unique bridges to look at along the way.  Trevor just likes to bike anywhere I think.  It has been nice to have some down time with just our little family.  In the past 8 months we have been living with or close to both of our families and had not had a lot of time for just the three of us.  We had fun doing little things like making dinner together or watching movies.  Also there are the perks of the hot tub and gym.  The pool is still too cold.  The gym is nice because no one uses it so we can bring Kirra and just turn on cartoons while we work out.  We also got to spend some time with Trevor's uncle and his family.  We went to dinner at their house on Sunday and were spoiled with delicious food.  Since we are back to student mode we have been eating mostly Top Ramen.

At church we have still not made too many friends.  The people are very nice though and I don't doubt we will make friends quickly.  I have not had too many friends that I can just hang out with since we have been traveling a lot and I guess I have been feeling a little desperate.  A girl at church that lives in my same apartment complex asked me if I wanted to run with her some mornings.  She is a beautiful columbian girl and is in great shape.  She is training for a marathon and teaches Zumba.  Basically all the things I would like to be but am not.  She told me that we could go Monday morning at 6am.  I failed to mention to her that not only am I not a marathon runner but I haven't woken up at 6am since I was in seminary.  I was so desperate for a friend that I agreed to go anyway.  Trevor was teasing me a little about the fact that I would have to wake up before the sun and run in the freezing cold.  It got me a little anxious and I couldn't sleep.  I didn't get to bed until 1am thanks to him and Downton Abbey so when my alarm went off I thought there was no way I was going to make it.  I got up and dressed and walked outside.  Sure enough it was freezing and pitch black outside.  My new friend had brought another friend and we took off on our run together.  Everything was going great.  We were running at the same pace, talking about girl stuff.  It was everything I missed about having a friend.  Unfortunately about 20 min into the run I realized that they had picked up the pace quite a bit and that it was becoming harder to breath.  I continued to stay with them for the pure fact that I didn't want to be the slow one.  I thought the run must be almost over but I was so wrong.  We just kept going.  I was beginning to feel my legs cramp and my lungs felt like they were bleeding.  I started to fall behind and that is when I realized that I really was running with marathon runners and WHAT THE HECK WAS I THINKING!!  I felt like a loser when I had to stop towards the end and walk for fear that I might collapse if I continued.  We finally made it home and I crawled up the three flights of stairs to our apartment.  After my body cooled down and I wasn't sweating anymore I became so cold that I couldn't stand it.  I was cold, sore, and tired for the rest of the day.  The things a girl has to do these days to make a friend.  Needless to say, I will need to train for a few months before I run with my new friend again.

Anyway. I wish I had pictures to post but I don't yet so No one will probably want to read this and what the heck is a blog post without a picture.  So here you are...This was me running at 6am yesterday morning