Last Day

Yesterday was my last day on the job and when I arrived, this is what I found in my office. Wall of packing peanuts! It was so great, and I was totally surprised - we only prank those we like and I guess they like me!! :o) It took a little while to clean up but it was well worth it. It was a fitting end to 2 weeks of awkwardness and such. A group of us went to lunch and I got a lovely parting gift from my boss. It was a good day, although I think I might be the only person to stay until 530 on my last day. My boss had to come get me and tell me to get outta there! So, the Hemisphere Chapter is closed for now and a new chapter opens on Monday at the new firm. Although leaving HEM was a bit bittersweet because of the great working relationships I had formed, Im anxious to hit the ground running.

Today starts 3days off and I have a lot planned. Its already 10:16 though and I havent started anything, so well see how far I get. Its interesting to see what happens here at the house each day while I am at work, and as I sit here eating my caviar, (parting gift from my boss!) I have noticed the following:

• Marcel loves to bark at anything and everything. That one I kinda already knew. He sleeps in the entryway (something he never does when everyone is home) and barks at anything stirring outside. A leaf blew across the front door and he barked.

• Craig and I suspect that Marcel is also slowly moving Craig out of our room one item at a time and into the spare room. If I go to bed early, Marcel comes with me and sleeps on Craigs side. If Craig comes to sit next to me on the couch, Marcel jumps up and sits down next to me first. So, it is confirmed and I will have to take out a restraining order on Marcel, as its a bit unhealthy.

• I havent been on the family computer in awhile, and now I noticed that the screen is fading a bit and the apostrophe key doesnt work. Thats why I havent used any (apostrophes) in this post. Maybe well have to get a new one for Christmas.

• I have found our neighbors. Since Craig and I moved in over the summer, we havent seen any of our neighbors. No one came over to meet us and no one answered their doors when we knocked. Friends told us that it was because of summer, people were in the back yards enjoying the pool and whatever, well its winter now and still no one is out on weekends or nights. But, they are here and out and about during the week days. This either means that we live in an older retirement age community or we moved into a neighborhood where everyone got rich on a .com and now they dont have to work? I dont know what to think. What do these people do for a living I wonder if they are home during the days? Its everyone, moms, dads, dogs....everyone is out. Its like Who-Ville here during the day and weve been missing out.

• Has anyone noticed that the Target Christmas commercial is a little tense? Its a couple opening presents that seem a bit extravegant and they argue about the recession under their breath while smiling. Weird and tense.
  

I suppose its time for me to get started on my tasks. My cell phone has rung twice with people calling me from the office, maybe they need help? hmmm...

Halloween & Weekend Fun

This weekend was busy for all of us as usual. The family comes and goes from the house while I work on the many projects I still want to get done. (Right now I'm refinishing a night stand and an armoire for Mallory's room ~ Cute!)

Saturday morning, Craig took Nick to a PGA tour event at Scottsdale, Grayhawk Golf Course. The Fry's (Electronics) Open is a more subdued PGA event geared a bit more for families as opposed to the Phoenix Open that normally entails a lot of cocktailing for most, not hating, it's just that I wouldn't take Nick to that particular event. He had a great time, came home beat tired and was happy to see some players up close. He mentioned Fred Couples and Rickie Fowler, who Nick thinks looks a lot like Zac Efron.

Then Sat. night, we left an exhausted Nick with a sitter, and Mallory with a friend and her family at the AZ State Fair, and headed out to a Halloween party. Some friends of ours invited us to his bosses' all-out Halloween event. They had some serious decorations, a caterer, bartender and a DJ! Not to mention the psychic who told me I was going to have twins this year, and told Craig he would have one more child? Huh? Anyway, it was a great time ~ Thanks Shel and Mike for inviting us!

We originally went in search of "Bunnies" costumes for Halloween this year, and even though we all ended up ordering something from stores on-line, only Shelsea was brave enough to be an actual 'Bunny' and looked great. We settled on the Kitten, the Bunny and the Lion, but I couldn't find a photo of us all together? At least you can see Semi-Pro, Jackie Moon in action as well. (when Craig wears the wig, Marcel goes nuts!!)

Alex

Popping on to post an updated photo of our nephew Alex with his Mom, my sister Stephanie. We haven't seen him since Feb of this year and he'll be a year old in Nov. We're hoping to see them around Thanksgiving... He's got teeth now and I hear that he's cruising around fairly well.

I love his little cheeks!

Love these jeans!!

Any woman knows, (or maybe just me and I'm a freak), that you can spend countless hours searching for the right pair of jeans. Each brand has a different way of sizing, so the size that may fit you in one name may not fit you so well in another. ugh. So, it's a process - on and off until you find the right ones. Like I said, it could be just me that goes through this process?

Anyway, I determined last weekend that I needed to find another pair of good fitting, perfect jeans as I'm down to about 2 pairs now. (Craig will tell you that I have a closet full of jeans and I do, it's just that for one reason or another and over time, they are not quite right.) So anyway, I hit Anthroplogie yesterday because I heard about a huge sale on everything and I find odds and end accent pillow cases and cute things for Mal's room there most of the time, but I didn't realize they also have a big selection of jeans?! They have JBrand, Joe's Jeans (which I normally love) and several others to choose from. So I head into the dressing room with no less that 26 pairs - all different, skinny, dark, faded, riped, frayed, boot cut, straight leg - a very random assortment. And wouldn't you know it, the very last pair of jeans I try on are 'the ones'. I settled on a pair of worn looking Adriano Goldshmeid, boyfriend cut, Tomboy jeans. They are a bit of an investment I'll admit, but I love them and I know they will be my go-to jeans for the season as they are classic.

And since this post is already kind of random, I'd like to add that I have Shakira's She Wolf song in my head again today and I like it.

Oops

Yep, I admit it. I goofed up the colors on the blog and now i don't know how to fix them because I used a service for a custom template. Oops! I'll figure it out, or you could just see something totally different the next time you check in here.

Not a lot to report, busy busy with work and.. um... work. Oh, and the house. We (really me) are not happy with the red kitchen, so we are bringing it back to a lighter color. I am planning to have all of the work done when Craig is gone to Seattle in a couple of weekends. It's for the best this way - hee hee.. There could be a new backsplash installation during that time as well - if we can find one we both like. :o)

Marcel continues to be a source of joy for the family. He's such a good heart to have around, and he is sllowwly getting used to our family and the house he lives in now. It comes with a whole new set of noises that he must get used to. He loves to bark at the pool guy - I found that out this morning.

Here's just a fun summer photo I took of the kids playing in the pool. Happy times!

One more thing...

Marcel is not allowed on the bed. Heehee...

Our Newest Addition...

Marcel is the newest furry addition to our family! He's a great cocker spaniel (mix) with the cute little white spot on his nose. He's a rescue dog, so he's a bit skittish, but we can already tell that he has a big heart - he will do just about anything to please! He's such a good doggie!

He loves to swim too, he actually has a rather smooth doggie stroke under the water. If you throw the ball to the edge-ish of the pool he won't jump in for it, instead he'll make little waves with his paw until the ball reaches him and he can bend down and pull it out. If you throw it in the middle of the pool, he'll jump! See progressive photos above! Wish my good camera had a video feature? You'd think it would.

Prayers for Maximus

A quick note this morning to ask for prayers for my friend Claire, her husband Jordan and their sweet baby Maximus, who is in the fight of his life. Max was born about 3 weeks ago with a condition called CDH, a defect in the diaphragm that allows the abdominal organs (stomach, intestine, liver, bowel, and spleen) to migrate into the chest cavity in utero. Since surgery, his recovery has been steady and progressive until last night when he crashed a bit and is now stable on the heart and lung machine. Hopefully, this machine will do a little work for Max and give him the rest he needs to continue fighting in the coming days, weeks, months...

This family needs all the prayers they can get! You can check out their story at www.clairegriffinsblog.blogspot.

Australia Update

Just a brief update as Vic's still in Australia, but from the pic she seems to be doing well making friends across the pond... She leaves today (Sunday in Aussie land) on the 22 hour or so trip back. Say hi to Vic's new friend Khole. Animals love Vic; I guess Khole was hugging her like crazy!

For our Golfer Followers....who'd like to visit!

I apologize I haven't been posting as much lately; been busy with tiling, painting, work, etc....need to get more pics up. But, I do have a quick post for all our golfer followers out there. I played the course we live on (across the street) this past Saturday and I'm extremely glad to report it's a great track (83--driver and short game good, irons awful. FYI: R9 460 TP is $$$). I went in cautiously optimistic but thinking there was a 50/50 chance I'd not be a fan. Well, I can now say I'm really impressed. I'm over the super desert-like courses and this is not one of those. Plenty of grass so you don't feel like every shot is going to go in the desert, even if you miss hit it. I'm sure the Colorado River isn't a fan but I am. Lot of different terrain and two par 3s where you literally tee off on top of mountains overlooking the foothills.







I hope those of you that follow our blog that are golfers will get to experience the course soon. The guest room is furnished and ready to roll so come out and visit. Sure it's hot but the pool is only a minute drive away...

http://www.clubwestgolf.com/

Benny Update

Well, I give up. I didn't get a call back, no emails, and no response to the application I sent in. So... no Benny. Sad :o(

Benny

This is Benny, he's a cocker spaniel & papillon mix. He's featured on a website called PetFinder.com and he's looking for a home. The more I scanned through the dogs last Thursday, when I was the only one in the office practically, the more he grew on me. I looked at cockers, same as Brittany was and decided that would be too weird, I looked at Bernese Mountain dogs, we looked at Golden retrievers, but I kept coming back to Benny. When you first look at him he has a forgettable quality about him, but the more you look at him, he's really pretty. His fur looks 'cocker' soft and he definately has the cocker snout, without being a cocker. Anyway, he grew on Craig over time too, me sending messages to his blackberry with Benny's pictures that said Hi, probably helped! Here's the thing.

I've called the shelter twice and even sent an email to get an adoption application. No word. Are several people lining up to adopt each dog they have? I can't belive this to be the case since their website is seriously begging for foster families. So, why don't they call us back? If we had a shelter organization with bunch of contacts from a family that wanted to adopt one of our dogs, I would definately be calling back. What if Benny is in the kennel somewhere chillin' alone when he could be with us? ugh.. poor Benny. Or maybe he was already adopted since he's so cool. Who knows I guess. Keep your fingers crossed that it was just the holiday weekend slowing things down, and we get the call to come and pick up the Ben-ster. Doesn't he look like he just wants to give you a high 5?

DLove's Wedding

Last week Craig was able to take off on Thursday to help DLove start celebrating his wedding weekend. He had a great time, able to play Torrey Pines with the boys. Being that we had the children that weekend at home, I was able to get a sitter for Saturday and flew in around noon. When I got there it was raining and June gloom, but it was so good to be there at the beach and smelling the ocean air!

I know our friends are tired of hearing about it, but I must blog about it anyway. Being that we booked our room on Hotels.com, we thought we were in for another view of the hotel parking lot somewhere, so imagine our huge surprise when they told us we would be in the presidential Suite. This place was an amazing 3 room suite - bedroom, seperate dining room with a table for 10?! and a seperate living room - all with double door access to our own private beach? I seriously thought it was a mistake! This suite would later come in handy as we invited anyone who wanted to keep the party going over for drinks. Even the bride and groom came to our after party, how cool is that?!

Derek and Julie's wedding was amazing and just before the ceremony started, the clouds parted and the sun came out. It was a beautiful ceremony filled with quite a lot of emotion. Julies face when she saw Derek waiting for her is something I'll always remember. I'm a crier at wedding's anyway, but this just caused me to lose it entirely. What a moment? After cocktail hour, Derek and Julie surprised their guests with a choreographed dance to Fly me To the Moon that was amazing! They are very smooth. Such a lovely wedding, thanks so much to the May-Laake families for hosting such a fabulous night! They are on a 2-week honeymoon that includes 1wk at a very nice hotel/resort on an island, and then switching to another island and another lovely hotel for the second week. Nice.

On Sunday, after reluctantly checking out of our awesome suite, we tried to go see a couple of things we always like to see in la Jolla and just spend some time. But instead, I got horrible sick and we ended up missing our flight. Oops. They were seriously overbooked and just gave our seats away, for us to fly standby for the rest of the night. Craig put me on the flight right after ours, so I could get home for the kids and he came home finally around 11pm.

Thanks Babe!

It's time for me to say thanks to my beautiful wife Victoria. First, she puts up with me daily which is not an easy task as most of you know. Second, she literally has taken our new house from a Grandma palace to a really cool, great house. Finally, we recently had our 1 year anniversary and I can't say enough about how great things are going. Vic, you supported me throughout law school, in taking the Bar and now as a great wife with a beautiful family. Thanks for a great first year of marriage and many more to come. Life is good. We are lucky.

Is anyone still reading this Blog?

We haven't really been on top of the posts lately. Its not even that we don't have spare time, its just that when we do, we veg out. Literally. I love reading everyone elses posts...

The last few weeks have been just us settling in at home. We've been really happy with some of the things we're getting accomplished. The painting of the common rooms came out really well. Its pretty amazing how talented these guys were. They managed to paint 3 big rooms and a hallway (with ceilings) in 2 days time, while we managed to barely paint, 2 small-ish bedrooms, a halfway finished master bedroom and bathroom in 4 weekends. Huh? Since I am 'the closer' (the girl who does the trim and finishes the connection from wall to ceiling) I asked what they thought of my skills. They were not overly excited to have me on their crew?

Kitchen before, nice shade of apple green - not really our taste though. Doesn't actually look too bad in this photo, maybe you had to see it in person?

Kitchen after - Warmed up a bit, we think. More exciting. Will look good after some darkening of the cabinets with new hardware, new countertops and new floors too. The stuff on every surface has been put away now.

This is the family room, which was a goldenrod, yellow baby poo shade. Can't really tell a difference in this photo. Cannot wait to plaster over those weirdly shaped, useless cubbies next to the fireplace and really make it the focal point. Not a big fan of the old fan either.

After. Kind of looks like we successfully made the room look smaller, but I think it's just the way I shot my photo. Now a nice shade of khaki on 3 walls, with an accent wall on the back. Again, stuff will be moved out of the center of the room.

Formal Living room. Also a yellow-y shade of baby poo. Not horrible, just not us.

Formal Living room after painting. Khaki shade on 3 walls, accent wall in the back.

Perhaps the 'after' photography could be a little better, but I took those shots right after the painting was mostly complete. Now, I can't get new ones uploaded, so....

Here's one more, not a before/ after yet since it's really still work in progress. The status of the master bedroom is not good right now. There are still boxes everywhere in there, which I'm slllowwwly chipping away at. Even the bed is a bit in disarray as I can't find the bedskirt or the duvet cover? It's odd. But thank goodness the TV's hanging on the wall. Never mind any of that other stuff all over the place...TV is hung. Whew. Thank you Craig.

Painters for hire?

We've resurfaced briefly for a quick post about what we've been up to. Was it 3 weeks or 4 weeks ago we were sitting in lovely San Diego with friends celebrating a wedding? Our lives of leisure have changed! We've closed officially on our home, that news is probably old to most of you, but we've started making our changes already and with the hope that we can get the painting done before the actual move. The master bedroom that was a fabulous peach color everywhere is now turning into a nice gray/blue. It was seriously everywhere, ceilings and windowsills too. Is that normal?



Its nice having some extra help when the kids are home for the weekend. Even though they spent most of the day in the pool while Craig and I taped, painted and labored in general inside the house - they pulled out some hard labor at the end of the day on Sunday. Nick is all business, he wants to help. And Mallory? - well this is how you paint when you've been outside in the sun all day and are completly exhausted. Its rough playing in the pool...

We're hoping to get the painting all done this weekend, Saturday actually. Then on Sunday our goal will be to purchase the 2 items we deem to be the top priorities. We'll try to purchase a guest bed and bedding, and a really nice outdoor dining table for the patio since we'll be spending most of our summer out there.

We're planning our move for May 22 and haven't packed a box yet. We're more of a box it while you move it family, I think. It's just been a crazy month of major projects coming due, end of year school parties, birthdays coming up and our 1 year anniversary too. To say that I'm overwhelmed is an understatement, but these are all good things. At some point, I'll post some photos from our Chicago trip. The wedding was gorgeous and it was nice to see the Fellows/Riebe side of the family as well as spend time with friends in the downtown area. Mallory is still talking about our 4-mile walk to the (wood)Shedd Aquarium.

Our Honor Student

Congratulations to our Mallory who was inducted into the National Jr. Honor Society last night. She's worked very hard throughout her school years so far, this accomplishment is her reward. We're extremely proud of our wonderful girl!