October Fun

Duststorms, anyone?


I have always loved October since I was little because it is my birthday month, my mom's birthday month, and Halloween finishes it off with a bang! Then I got married and October got better still - it's my mother in law's birthday and Charlie's parents' anniversary as well!

We had a nice little party at our house for Charlie's parents a couple of weekends ago and had lots of fun. The theme was Italian and I got to fix some delicious dishes for dinner. I love playing hostess. :-)

Here are some pictures. We made this cake from scratch on Donna's actual birthday and we were going to write her name on it, but the icing started shooting out everywhere so we made a "Jackson Pollack" creation instead.




Me and my parents - it was the night before their trip to Hawaii



The star of the party of course was Emma, the daughter of Donna's friend. She loved the colored lights I put on the stair railing and kept naming off the different colors.

And I thought we lived far away

Higley. Queen Creek. San Tan Valley. My eyes are opened to the crazy growth that is still happening in Arizona, despite the economy, after a long drive this Sunday. Charlie and I went out the the Olive Mill in Queen Creek and we decided to keep driving to "see what is out here." Well, there is alot. I don't know why it impresses me so much - maybe because I lived in Chandler for so long before college, and yet enormous communities have sprung up without my knowledge. I am one of those people that loves looking at model homes for no reason other than to look, so I convinced Charlie to follow the signs out to one of a dozen builders. We found one, stopped, and got out, and I was laughing to myself because I had no idea what town we were even in at this point. It was sooo far from everything! Well it turns out it is San Tan Valley. It's about half an hour drive southeast of our house. So now I know a little bit more about what is out there. And maybe I won't complain about my drive as much.

Because that. is. seriously. far.

What do you think about...

Clients who can read your thoughts? Not kidding, even a little bit. I started a new rotation of clients today and my last person of the day (he communicates by typing) typed out the thoughts of the other therapist and my thoughts as well, at the beginning of the session. Like, specific things that nobody could ever guess. I literally had goosebumps for like 5 minutes.

Wow.

Anyway, before this happened today I was going to write about what a fun weekend we had! Our friend Trevor was in town from Colorado, and he took turns staying at our house and another couple's house. We had a great time playing games and chatting before going to very cool places in Scottsdale for dinner and after dinner. The first place was a restaurant called Stax, which serves these little 3-oz burgers in many different varieties, with very trendy toppings. Charlie had one that was Wild Boar burger. It was a little pricey but very fun. And they had yummy sweet potato fries.

Then after dinner we went to a wine bar called Kazimierz, where everything was super dark. Like only lit with candles, literally. The walls of the place were stone, and I felt like I was transported to Medieval times or something! I didn't have any wine (just chocolate fondue, yum) but I would definitely go back, just for the experience. We also did a lot of people watching. I was never in the "going out" scene, especially in Scottsdale, so I was just fascinated by how everyone acted and dressed. And had lots of plastic surgery. Like they were movie stars or something.

The next morning we all drove to Flagstaff to go hiking ... and we didn't know until we got there, where we would go. We went to the lava tubes!! Which, if you have never been, is a very fun, challenging, hike through a cave made from volcanic rock. It is literally pitch dark, and Charlie and I were sharing one flashlight the whole time. I think our marriage grew alot in those 2 hours, haha! It was really hard to get a good picture because the flash on our camera didn't do a whole lot, but I found this picture online.



We heard at the beginning that everyone rips their pants on this hike (can you see all those jagged rocks?) so I made it my personal goal not to have this happen. I was wearing my favorite pair of jeans, after all! Well, I triumphed. I came out with my intact jeans (just slightly dirty), slightly sore quads and triceps (who would have thought?), and most importantly, my husband.