Poor Neglected Blog

Our little blog has been so sad and neglected lately. Sorry blog and sorry readers. I've been behind on posts for awhile now and then life threw us a curveball (one we've been hoping for actually) so unfortunately we won't be back on track for a little while longer. The curveball is that we're moving back to Boise! Casey landed a fantastic job up there and is going back next weekend. I'll be following with all of our things at the end of June/beginning of July. So between packing, job hunting, house hunting, and wrapping up our life in AZ we're a little busy :-) There are lots of changes in our life right now and we're so excited about them. We'll keep you posted once we get a chance to catch our breath...

Because posts are more fun with pictures, here is a random smattering of what we've been up to the last few months:

New Neighbors

We live at the base of some "mountains" (large hills, really) so we get our fair share of wildlife around here on a routine basis. Bunnies, lizards, and javelina are the usuals. I don't mind any of these. The bunnies are kinda cute, the lizards small, and though they eat our landscaping (cactus), the javelina don't really bother me.

Last year I saw a roadrunner on our street. That was a rare, but fun sighting!

Lately, though, we've had some new visitors that I don't really like having so close to home. Last week Casey and I were sitting in the living room - I happened to look out the window and there was a bobcat walking past our patio. A bobcat! Casey maintains that it wasn't much bigger than one of our cats but I would say he was the size of a medium to large dog. It was crazy to see such, well, wild wildlife literally right outside our window.

And then today, I was vacuuming the living room, happened to look outside and saw a snake slithering by the patio. Ew. I really dislike snakes. I know we live in the desert and I know they are "out there" - I just don't like seeing them so close!

Again, I know that we live in the desert. I know that all of these critters were here before we were, but I'd appreciate it if the bobcats and snakes would stay out of our backyard. The bunnies can visit anytime though :-)

(Photo credits: bunny, lizard, javelina, road runner, bobcat, snake)

Winter Adventure Pictures

We finally got our disposable camera

from our ski/snowboard adventure developed. Enjoy!

Sick...

I am sick :-( I have been since last Tuesday. Boo. Sore throat, cough, congestion, laryngitis - the works. I think I'm finally starting to turn a corner though. During the day I'm feeling better but at night I just cough and cough and cough.

But enough of my whining - the good news is that I'm finally updating the blog! Shocking, I know. I can't believe I haven't updated since Christmas. Bad Molly. So while I have this extra time on my hands I'm going to try to finish up some posts I started and make some new ones as well. And so you don't have to go back and sift through old entries to find the new one's I'll add the links to them right here at the end of this post:

* Winter Fun in Arizona

* Happy 50th Birthday Todd!

* Wahoo Nicki & Donny!!! (Don’t know why I never published this one – I think I accidently hit “save” instead of “post”. D’oh!)

* more to come...

Hopefully once I'm caught up I'll be more apt to keep up with the blog on a more regular basis. Here's hoping!

Winter Fun in Arizona

While cheering on Team USA during the Olympics, Casey and I realized it had been a while since either of us did any fun winter sports. With the warm weather and lack of mountains Arizona doesn't exactly lend itself to winter athletics...or so we thought. After a little research we found a great deal on a stay and ski package at Snowbowl up in Flagstaff. So last week we dug out our winter gear (from the very back, bottom corner of the closet) and headed north.

We hadn't been to Flagstaff before. With it's pine trees and close mountains it reminded me a lot of central Idaho. The small college town feel reminded Casey a lot of Moscow. It was such a refreshing change from the Valley of the Sun. We hit the slopes first thing Wednesday morning and only stopped twice before they closed down the mountain at 4. I chose to ski and Casey boarded. I was so impressed at his skills! He had only been snowboarding a few times before (at Ski Camp) but he was really good. I've only been boarding once and spent most of the day falling on my you-know-what. It was so fun, though, to get back out there and ski after several years. I love the feeling of the wind rushing by while careening down the mountain; I love being outside in the snow all day long; I love the adrenaline rush of conquering a run you were too intimidated to try earlier in the day. I loved it in case you couldn't tell!

Because I didn't want to take my digital camera on the slopes with me, we used a disposable camera to snap a few shots. We haven't had it developed yet (remember the days when you actually had to wait to see how your pics turned out?) I'll add pics when we get the camera developed but in the mean time, these should give you a pretty good idea of what we looked like. Here's Casey showing off some sweet moves:

(credit)

And here I am attacking the mountain:

(credit)

One of my favorite parts of the day was riding up the chairlift with a kiddo from ski school. There was one instructor with two students so he asked me to ride up with one of them. His name was Nathaniel and he was five. We had a very entertaining conversation on our way up the mountain. He spelled his name for me (only missed one letter), told me about his family dog named Ike or Mike (he couldn't remember which), and informed me that he could count to ten hundred. He was adorable.

After calling it a day we headed down the mountain to check in to our little cabin. It was such a cute place with a fireplace and mountain view. We took a much needed nap and then had dinner at the main lodge. We spent the rest of the evening in our own private little cabin. No phone, no internet. Awesome. What a great day :-)