Things, they are a changin'

Are you there blogland? It's me, Melissa. Not sure if you remember me, but I'm still here! And man, have things changed! Last time we spoke, it was 3 years ago. That was pre-new house and pre-kids! Yeah, you heard that right- we have KIDS now- plural!

I'm not sure when I'm going to find the time to blog but I have high aspirations. So you'll have to bear with me. You see, blogging is a stress reliever of sorts. Gives me a chance to unload so-to-speak. Not to mention, I feel like every person in my field has a blog these days. Not that I'm going to start a nutrition blog, but I might have a post here and there. To keep you on your toes, you know? This blog started out as a chronicle of my married life and I intend it to be that way. And since I'm a dietitian by trade, nutrition posts are bound to sneak in there!

So, let's jump in! I'll give you a 30 second recap of what you missed over the last 3 years:

Hubby and I love Arizona so we decided to stay a little while! He got a new job which allows him to travel, we bought a house in an amazing area- much safer than our last place, I got pregnant- with TWINS, they were born in February of this year, we lost our sweet dog to old age in April, and now here we are!

Aren't they the sweetest? Fast forward 9 months and these little boogers are cruising around the coffee table as we speak! Its amazing how much your heart grows after you have kids. I can't imagine my life without them. They are such joys! Full of laughter and smiles!

 

Anyway, I'm making this post short and sweet. My goal is to blog once a week. There may be weeks where that doesn't happen and there may be weeks where I blog more than once a week! We're just going to go with the flow! I don't want to be too ambitious, I am a full time mom and a part time dietitian! Leave me a comment to encourage this renewed endeavor and stay tuned till next time!

xoxo,

Melissa :)

An Eventful Week!

Whew! Its been an eventful week for sure! Started with Sunday- Mother's Day (love you Mom!) and then continued onto Hubby's birthday!! We had so much fun last weekend celebrating with our super fun friends we met here in Phoenix.

Tribute to our favorite show, SUITS! Hubby says he's Harvey.

Fun at Copper Blues with Robin and Saunders!

It's Hubby's Birthday!!

Robin has a painting that gets better with each drink you have...

We had a fun time for sure! Never a dull moment with Saunders and Robin! Can't wait for this weekend too. we have a very busy weekend planned. For our birthdays Hubby and I decided to get ourselves Beach cruiser bicycles!!! You know, the old school looking ones with fenders and bright colors? Tomorrow we're heading all the way out to the East Valley to shop for bikes. Can't wait to show you what we found! :) And for tonight, movie and cookie cake (hubby's birthday cake request)! YUM!
Stay tuned!

XOXO,

Run for the Roses- Arizona style!

And they're off! One thing I really miss about Kentucky is the horses; in particular the horse racing. My family and the court they live on always have a Derby party. Ever since I moved away from Kentucky I have continued the tradition at my house (or someone's house).

This year was a little different. Like i've mentioned before, settling into Phoenix has been a little difficult for Hubby and I. We just haven't been able to meet many people. Not finding a good church we fit into has been a big factor as well as the second shift fiasco Hubby had to endure for 6 months.(Yay for being on first shift again!) My work friends all live in the east valley about 30-40 minutes away and not to mention we haven't signed up for cable yet. Having a derby party just wasn't in the cards for us this year. So, we decided to mix it up a little this year!

Phoenix has their own horse track a little north of us called Turf Paradise. Cheesy name and not at all like Keeneland but it was the best we could ask for. They were having their own derby celebration and with the price of admission to the track you got an official derby glass! The glass came empty and I still had to pay for my mint julep but I was a happy girl.

There were local races going on every 30 minutes at the Turf Paradise track and they offered betting for several other tracks including Churchill Downs.

Hubby and our friend Robin in the Grandstand!

I won the first race we put a bet on!

Me and our friend Robin

We had a lot of fun! We bet on both the local races and Churchill Downs race, including the derby. We lost more money than we bet but that's part of the fun right!?

Next year we might have to go to the actual Derby since Hubby's never been... Who wants to join us!?

xoxo,

What I learned about the desert...

Last week Hubby and I visited the Phoenix Desert Botanical Garden. I bought half priced admission Groupons for us with the intent of attending their flashlight garden tour. The flashlight tour sounded really cool because in the desert most of the wild life comes out at night! But, alas, story of our lives, we waited too long and they ended the flashlight tour. So, we decided to wake up early one morning and visit the garden before the heat got too unbearable!

We were pleasantly surprised, the garden was really interesting!

Who knew there were so many different types of cacti!?

Octopus Cactus

Old Man of the Andes Hairy Cactus

Organ Pipe Cactus

I don't remember the name of this one...but it's pretty!

The iconic cacti that we typically see in Western movies is called the Saguaro (pronounced Sah-whar-oh):

The Saguaros are the cacti with the thick stem and multiple arms. The cactus at the bottom of the picture is called a Prickly Pear. You can eat them!

 Saguaros are only found at a certain altitude in the Sonoran Desert, which happens to be mostly in Arizona!

This is what a dead Saguaro cactus looks like!

You may or may not be able to see in the pictures, but there are little holes in the cactus's body. They are made by Gila Woodpeckers! The birds peck holes in the bodies of the cacti and build nests inside the cacti to raise their young. The holes are well insulated from heat and cold. Pretty smart!

The garden even went as far as educating us on the first Native Americans that made the Sonoran Desert their home.

Oh! And you know how I've been commenting that there are no squirrels in the desert? I was wrong! There are two types of squirrels that live in the desert: Harris Antelope Squirrels and Round Tailed Ground Squirrels. I actually saw one at the botanical garden too!!! (Kane was super jealous when I told him about it...) I wasn't able to get a picture though, because they are amazingly fast. Here's one I found on the internet:

Harris Antelope Squirrel

They're kinda cute aren't they? Like a cross between a chipmunk and squirrel!

The botanical garden was totally worth the price of my half price admission ticket! I learned a lot. Now I can pretend to know what I am talking about when people debate me about desert trivia. Because that's totally going to happen. People debate about desert trivia all the time, ok?

Until next time,

(Your resident desert expert)

Go Take a Hike!

One of the many joys of living in Arizona is taking advantage of the beautiful mountains surrounding the valley! Recently the weather has been bearable enough to venture out and explore the countryside. And by bearable I mean, less than 100 degrees. Hubby and I attended a few Meetup groups that meet at 6 pm on Monday nights and hike Dreamy Draw Mountain. Meetups are great. They are a bunch of people who have similar interests that meet up together to do or discuss said interest. Check it out on Meetup.com! I am a member of a hiking meetup, a vegetarian meetup, and a young professionals meetup! But I have only ever met up with the hiking group so far. Hiking AZ mountains is FUN! And beautiful... Check it out:

Hubby and I have also ventured out on our own a few times and have taken the dog with us as well:

No, we didn't break the rules and go into the closed area. We were going to, but i chickened out...

View of Phoenix from a mountain top

There's Hubby and Kane! can you see that tiny speck in the picture? Yep! That's them!

Not only is hiking fun, but it's a work out too! Poor Kane had to take an entire recovery day after his morning hike! Even though Hubby was moved to second shift this week (boooooo) I still plan to meet up with the hikers on Monday night by myself. We still  have plenty of room if anyone wants to join us!! =) Next time you see me I'll probably have buns and thighs of steel from all this hiking. hahah or maybe not.

xoxo,

The best part about May...

May was a crazy, hectic, fun-filled month that ended with a moving trip across the country (see this post for details). I would do it again in a heart beat! Looking back at it all, I have to admit my favorite part of the month was being able to celebrate our one year anniversary with the best husband in the world. =)

On a side note, year old wedding cake really isn't all that bad!! Since I didn't get to eat any of the cake at the actual wedding, this was a real treat! Brown sugar cake with Nutella frosting. Delicious!
I love my husband!
xoxo,

May in Retrospect, part dos

WOW. Where did the time go?? I cannot believe I haven’t posted in so long. Oops. These past couple of months feel a little like summer vacation when I was a kid. I didn’t have anything structured to do and the days just kind of melted away in a blink of an eye! No leads on a job yet. So I have been busying myself with other things like reading (I’m on my 5^th novel), decorating, DIY projects and the stupid internet. I’ve come to find out; I can waste some serious time on the internet.

So here we are again, more about that infamous month: MAY (part dos). I am super excited to show you all my pictures from the cruise but first a shout out to some awesome Atlanta people! Around the middle of May, our small group hosted a baby shower for the expecting members =). The theme was “Little Man” and everything had mustaches on it. It was SO fun!

A snippet of the fun we had in our homemade photo booth!

Don’t we have the best small group ever!? I miss them. (We tried a small group here in Phoenix and it was disastrous. Everyone had at least 30-40 years on us. Sigh)

OK! Now onto our cruise adventure! In honor of our 1 year wedding anniversary, Hubby and I decided to go on a 7 day cruise to the Western Caribbean. It was my first cruise ever and we had a BLAST! The ship stopped 4 times during the trip: Cozumel, Mexico; Belize City, Belize; Roatan Bay, Honduras and Grand Cayman. Only two days at sea.

About to board the ship!

Before dinner on the balcony after our first day at sea.

At our first stop, Cozumel, we decided to hail a cab to take us to a quiet local beach where we could get a drink if we wanted and just lay in the sun. He took us to the awesome tiny little beach with a bar and lounge chairs. It was pretty much empty except for us and an occasional diner. It was awesome! 

Our basically private beach and bar service!

Our next stop was to Belize. We spent our honeymoon in Belize last year and the only thing we didn't do then was go cave tubing. So, we had set up an excursion to go cave tubing when we got there. unfortunately due to heavy rains the river was flooded and the park rangers closed the river. So, we went snorkeling and grilled out lobster and chicken on the beach afterwards! Not to mention free rum punch!

after snorkeling on our tiny private island! Literally: a dock, palm trees, a bathroom and a grill. that's it!

 Once we got back to the ship dock, we had time to kill before the ship was set to sail. So, we stopped off at a local bar and had our local favorite from the honeymoon: Belikin Beers!!

 In Honduras, we had signed up for zip lining and were super excited! There were wires strung up all over the jungle. It was a relatively new set up and everything was very secure (to my relief, especially since this was right after that GA student fell off a homemade zip line and ended up in the hospital).

I highly recommend zip lining! It was exhilarating!! Afterwards they had a little monkey out that could sit on your shoulder.

He really liked my sweaty hair. Honduras is a really beautiful place! Still very natural and underdeveloped.

This is an old boat that got stuck on the coral about 20 years ago.

Roatan Bay, so pretty!

 Later that night, we had a formal dinner. I've come to realize I get a little seasick when the boat is over rough waters. The whole trip we were chasing a storm and this night- we found it. Dramamine is your friend! But don't take too much or you won't be able to keep your eyes open. Just trust me on this one...

 The next and final stop was the Cayman Islands. It was raining most of the day but when the rain finally let up a little we decided to venture out and go shopping since the Caymans are known for their shopping!

 We didn't find anything awesome. Turns out, the Caymans are also expensive! Our last day was a day at sea and we spent most of it enjoying the sun on the deck and reading. I totally understand why people love cruises! There is so much good food, constantly tons of stuff to do, exotic places, the beach, all wrapped up in one cost effective package! I think we might need to try out some more cruises... you know, just to make sure they are all equally as good... ;)

The last big May event that I didn't delve upon was our official 1st anniversary, the day after we got back from the cruise. Just to keep you on your toes, i'll save that for next time =) Until then...

 

Stay classy,