icky love stuffs

Lately, I've been receiving the same question over and over at school & work: "Why are you married?" Followed by, "You're so young." For the most part, everyone has finished the conversation with a positive outlook, but I think that's because of how I answer their questions. It's easy for me to tell them the truth; I love being married to my best friend. I love having someone that I support and someone that in turn supports me. It's awesome going home to your favorite person.

I'm really happy about where Christian and I are at in our lives.

I love that I have a husband who likes being on this never-ending adventure. Now don't get me wrong, I love where I grew up and I love going home, however; it is NOT the place for me live the rest of my life. We've lived in 5 different apartments/houses since we've been married, including 3 different states: Idaho, Colorado, Arizona. I need busy. I need people. I need city. And I'm so thankful that Christian feels the same way. Seriously though, we love going home; whether it be Oregon or Colorado. But we're excited to establish our own roots.

We're really happy that it's just us right now. We'll be so happy and excited when we do start having kids, but for right now, we like just having each other. We love jumping in the pickup at 11:45 at night just to go for a drive with the windows down, listening to music...Or buying tickets at 6pm, SPRINTING to the light rail just in time to make it downtown Phoenix for the 6:40 game. And going to see our favorite bands live, even though we're deaf for the next 24 hours...Or trudging through the snow (when we were in Idaho of course) in the middle of the night after spending hours at the Bevans.

I love that Christian doesn't expect me to be a stay-at-home-wife right now. He's supporting me 100% about earning my degree and later using it for a professional career. Even if I don't want to work once we have children, he will never view my degree as waste because it's important to both of us.

I'm so thankful that Christian wasn't satisfied with only earning his Bachelor's degree. It shows me how passionate and hard working he is. Even though Graduate school requires many hours to be put in, I know that he will be a successful architect and will be rewarded for going the extra mile to learn as much as possible. (Haha, he just walked in and was mad that he got 133% on a test when he could've got 135%...he earned almost ALL of the bonus points.)

I'm not saying that people "settle" when they move home, or that they're boring once they have kids, or that they're dumb when the don't get degrees. Everyone's situation is different and each person needs something specific for them. I'm just saying that right now, I'm just really, really happy about where we are in life and the decisions we've made to get here.

technically famous

Did you see us on TV last night? What? Really? You didn't? Well...we were on it. Maybe. Last night we were in the 9th row at the Diamond Backs game, just past 1st base. I got us really cheap and fantastic seats through my school district. We had a blast. They won, and Upton even hit a homer! We danced and jumped and screamed the whole game. Of course we ate hotdogs & peanuts. It wouldn't be a baseball game without em'. After the game, they opened up the roof and the side-panels and had a fireworks show. It was a really fun date night.

Labor Day Weekend

We met the Hulme side in Tucson for the weekend. It was so much fun! Most of the time, we stayed at the house and swam, ate, or played games.





On Saturday we went to see "Mission San Xavier del Bac," an old catholic church.




It got pretty hot in there...that Holy Water was looking mighty tempting.

Sunday, the guys went to the Biosphere...*cough* crickets chirping....yep...I don't know anything about it so you'll have to ask Christian.




Since the whole family was together, we celebrated all the September birthdays; Scott #22 Finley #1 and Me #23.


Our family is awesome.

a week with my Mom

I'm awful. It's been almost a month since I updated, yet I bug my friends about not updating? (Example: Taylor) Yeah. Oops. Forgive me.

Christian finished his first semester of Grad School! He did great and he loves it. Last Friday, my Mom and Annie got here. We've had a really fun week with them, but I didn't take very many pictures.

We shopped everyday, and ate out at all the good places. My Mom spoiled us with lots of groceries and things we don't need. We love our new bed set momma!


Sunday we drove out to Buckeye. My mom wanted to see if the house we used to live in was still there...


....nope. It was gone.

On Monday, we sewed some pillows for the living room. They were fun and easy and look cute on the somewhat boring couch.


On Wednesday, we went to the pool with Steph and the kids. Christian had lots of fun with Eliot.



Thursday, we had Scott with us and we went shopping in Scottsdale. I had fun picking out all of Annie's school clothes. For lunch we went to Lolo's Chicken & Waffles. Mmmmmm. Later that day, I finally did it. I mastered the art of bread making. It's delicious but takes up a ton of time.


HA! This picture makes me laugh. It's one of those weird self timer pictures of everyone only because I forgot to take pictures the whole week.


My Mom and Annie left for Oregon early this morning. I'm so sad already...but we had so much fun. Did I mention that she drove? Yeah, 17 hours in the car to see us. I love when I get to see my Mom. She's the best.

a birthday

Christian had his 26th birthday on Friday. We had so much fun celebrating with his family. Friday night we had dinner at Famous Dave's. That's only the 2nd time we've eaten there, but it's definitely one of our favorites!

After dinner, he opened presents at our place.




Eliot decorating herself for the party!



Fin helping with the presents.


And it can't be a party until we've teased the baby a little bit.

She loved it. Okay, not really. But it IS monsoon season, so we're actually just helping her.

Instead of birthday cake, I made Asphalt Pie. Mine didn't look as pretty as this, so we'll just pretend. It tasted even better than Winger's though!


Rocking some of his new gifts. Check out his sweet shoes from Stacy!


Christian is awesome. He is perfect for me. He is very, very funny and can always make me laugh and smile. This was his 4th birthday we've spent together and we look forward to many more. Happy Birthday Christian!

the weekend

SATURDAY:
We had a great weekend! On Saturday, we went to an awesome fish store. Someday we want a tank full of clown fish.

Then we drove around and stopped wherever we pleased. I wanted to stop at the "On Auk Mor Trading Center" in Scottsdale. I was thinking it would be something cool...like a trading post for furs...or fine jewels. I was thoroughly disappointed. It was nothing more than a boring old indian smoke shop. I hate when that happens. But at least the outside of the building was cool to look at.

Then we drove through a really fancy neighborhood in Scottsdale and looked at hou$e$/man$ion$. We thought about buying this lil' beauty...but the 3 guest houses are still under construction so it might be a few months. And yes, there are really 3 guest houses that come with this.
Half of the front view:

Other half of the front view:

Side view:

So perhaps this house will do in the meantime:

Later Saturday night, we got pizza and rented a movie, and then watched fireworks downtown Mesa from the back of our pickup.




MONDAY:
We had so much fun celebrating the 4th of July yesterday! Christian made a great friend in his architecture program so we got together with him and his wife and their 2 boys. We went swimming, had a fantastic bbq, and then went to the fireworks in Chandler.

With my American Doughnut:

Christian with his new best friend:

The fireworks were so good! But we all decided they would've been better with music.