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,

Welcome back!

Hello Blogland!
Yep, it's been over 6 months since I last posted. I took a little vacation from blogging.

Ok, ok, an EXTENDED vacation.

Truth be told, I had only planned on taking a small break but then one thing led to another, the holidays came and went and I got bogged down at work. Then the thought of having to go back and re-hash everything for the blog seemed like a daunting task. Honestly though, I've missed blogging! Even though no one reads the blog it's at least a place for me to record the happening of our life so I can go back years from now and read the memories :)

Before I delve into what you've missed, I did want to share a crazy story that happened today.
Hubby and I have been trying to go hiking for several weeks now but things just keep coming up or we get lazy. Well Hubby finally said, "we're going hiking today"- despite my indifferent attitude. Its hot today- 90 degrees but there was a nice breeze and Kane was being a spazz so I caved and got ready to go.

We start our hike and I am not at all enjoying myself. Its spring time here and not quite hot enough to kill the bugs so there are tons of them out with the sole purpose of annoying humans. And they are relentless! You can swat them away and they just come right back buzzing around your face and in your ears. I was already whiny about the heat, the elevation we were climbing and my lack of endurance, the stupid bugs just were icing on the cake.

Just then,I swung my arm at a bug and I hit a Cholla Cactus. Now if you've never seen a cholla cactus (which most of you probably haven't) imagine a short plant with a million stubby cactus branches and inch long spikes covering the entire thing. See the picture below.

Buckthorn Cholla Cactus

Luckily, I only ended up with one giant 2 inch long spike lodged in my hand. These little things aren't poisonous they are just scary looking at this giant porcupine quill sticking out of your hand. Of course I whined about it and babied it. Every time I tried to pull it out, it hurt so I would stop. I must have looked pretty ridiculous.

Hubby stopped at the top of the hill to examine my damaged hand and check to see where we were supposed to be going next. All of the sudden out of the corner of my eye, I see Kane lifting his leg to pee on another cholla cactus. Right then he loses his step and literally SITS in the cactus.

Source

I immediately forget my stupid hand and looked to see Kane's rear-end covered in these spikes- ranging from 2 inches long to a few centimeters long. That poor dog was a champ as Hubby and I immediately delved in to try and pull the 100s of spikes out of his skin and fur. He had them in his pads, in between his toes, under his belly, and all up and down his legs. He was bleeding around a few of the really deep thicker spines. Hubby and I worked on him for a good 15 minutes right there until we could get enough out so Kane could walk safely out of the area to some shade where we pulled out the rest.
I hope he's learned his lesson. No peeing on cacti- no matter how bad you have to go! hahah

In the spirit of time, I think I am going to post about our Derby Day- Arizona Style tomorrow. So, don't forget! Put a reminder in your phone or something. It'll be worth it, I promise!

Until tomorrow,

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,

What you missed during my blog vacation...

So, I guess you’ve noticed. I took a little hiatus from blogging… all right, all right, a LONG hiatus! My apologies! I guess I just haven’t been in the mood to blog. Moving to Arizona hasn’t been the greatest thing for my cheerful mindset. We moved away from a lot of things (and people) I loved and adapting to Arizona life has been harder than expected. But none the less, Hubby and I have had a TON of fun, even if it is just the two of us!

Here’s a little of what you missed…

4^th of July

Kane still loves the pool!

We went to Vegas for my dad’s pool tournament

We visited the Hoover Dam

 We flew back to Atlanta for an amazing lake weekend with our awesome friends!

We flew BACK to Atlanta again for a wedding

 Kane turned 9 years old!

I went to my first major league baseball game (Go Diamondbacks!)

That's pretty much the highlights! But, I'm back to blog land! No more vacations like that again for a while- I promise! Fall is coming and hopefully we'll start to see some milder temperatures. I'm just hoping for less than 100 degrees! Until next time...

xoxo,

May, in retrospect, part uno

Heyo! I'm here to fill you in on the happenings of MAY. It may have to be in parts, we'll see how long this post gets. I know you all are busy people and don't have time to read long novels about our life- nor do I want to sit here and write you a novel. SO- let me see where we left off... whoops, looks like there is still a little of April left too since the last thing I blogged about was my birthday!

Let's get started. On my Atlanta bucket list, one of the things I wanted to do was hike the Chattahoochee river with Kane. So for part of my birthday celebrations, Hubs and I took the monster down to the river!

It was perfect weather and we all had a blast. We even packed a picnic! I just wish we had done this more often while we were in Atlanta. I am sure there will be times like this in Phoenix too, as soon as it cools off some.

Derby marks the first Saturday in May, every year. I usually host a Derby party a my house but since Hubby was gone, our friends Laura and Matt volunteered to host it. AND since it was also Cinco de Mayo, we had a Cinco de Derby (Derby de Mayo?) party! Actually, we had such a good time at the party, I didn't remember to take many pictures!! oops. But luckily, I did snap a few before I had any margaritas!

half Cinco de Mayo, half Derby!

My hand painted Derby plate is adorable, but looks even better with my made from scratch horse cookies on it!

Laura was in charge of Cinco de Mayo decorations. Didn't she do an awesome job!? LOVE!

We had an awesome time, a bunch of people came over and we informally bet on the ponies by drawing horse names out of a bucket. The son of our small group leaders won it all! I think he thought he was rich! The pot was worth almost $40!! Hopefully we'll be able to make some cool friends in Phoenix that we can invite to next years party. Otherwise, all of our friends in Atlanta are going to have to fly to Phoenix for the first Saturday in May 2013 ;)

The next significant even in May was Hubby's 30th birthday!! I made him a special little carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and may have gone a little overboard with the presents. What can I say? I really love to see people open gifts!!!

Kane likes to help open presents too. He is eagerly awaiting present opening time in this picture. You should have seen him when we were unpacking from the move. He was ripping paper off everything!

Even Kane got to have some ice cream! Frosty Paws!! Nose lickin' good!

Overall it was a success! The night prior to his actual birthday, we went out with a bunch of our friends to a great little Indian restaurant on Buford Highway. If you know Buford Highway, you KNOW it was good! But, like my milestone birthday, it was slightly overshadowed by the impending move and the fact Hubby was already in Phoenix =(

MAN! May was an eventful month! Lots of pictures and events to share! I think I'm going to break here and leave you in anticipation for part dos! heh heh heh

On a side note, there are NO squirrels in Phoenix. I'm talking zero, zippo not-a-one that I've seen in the 3 weeks that we've been here. Kane has noticed too. His new favorite animal to hate is the pigeon. They come and sit on the telephone wires behind out house and he goes nuts. Barks and barks at them. But they never fly away so eventually he gets bored (or hot) and gives up. ...until he notices them again and the whole scene starts all over again. sigh.

That's all I got! Over and out until next time =)

xoxo,