Projects and Frogs :)

This week was good! We are continually seeing our land growing and blooming. Our grass is greener and looks more lush everyday and our rose bushes are gorgeous. This is a picture of what all 4 of our bushes looked like when we had moved in. 3 of them have bloomed beautifully but we're still trying to bring this one back. We think it might not have enough sunlight during the day. So we might have to move it eventually. In the Winter we'll cut them back even more. They started to have little pink flowers blooming on them but the other day I went out to water the ones in the back and the one in the middle had these HUGE pink roses. It had a bunch of them but they were more towards the inside not so much on the outside. Its so rewarding to see the work Bridger and I have put into our property pay off and turn into something so beautiful. :) We are very pleased.

If you look at our last post you'll see one of the mesquites we were cleaning underneath. This is a different mesquite but we did the same thing to it. Notice the difference?? Hard work definitely paid off again :)

After Bridger gets of work we usually work in the yard until the sun starts to go down and the mosquito's come out. (The mosquito's are insanely attracted to me, I get a million bites a night if I forget to put on bugspray. Bridger doesn't have that problem. SOOO annoying ha). So this is the view of the sunset out of our back window. This is our backyard. We love it :). That line of trees back there is our own personal grove of mesquite trees. Then the mountains in the background. It's so picturesque. :)

Then comes the monsoon season. It has been super nice this last week or so. It rains almost everyday! I love the constant blue sky/no clouds in Arizona. But I LOVE rainy cloudy days. It's also been way nice because we haven't had to water our property. Definite BONUS :) When the rain comes, out comes the frogs. It is insane driving on the road while and after it rains. There are frogs EVERYWHERE. Most of them are small. We found this big guy on the side of the road. I hear frog legs are super tasty :) ha only kidding.

On friday, we hung out with friends and family and played a game some people called Skadush. Others called Gator Ball? I think. It is like soccer and football basically. It's super fun!! On Saturday we attended a funeral of a relative to the family. It was a very good service and a good time to see family, catch up and spend time together. Then we hung out and played video games with family and friends at our house. Sunday, we relaxed, went to church, and hung out with family. It was a great weekend :) Today is my last day of summer vacation. My plan for today is.... nothing. Ha I figure it's my last day this summer to do absolutely nothing. So I cleaned the house this morning, and and preparing for work. I start working at the elementary school tomorrow. I'm excited!! It'll be nice to work and bring in some extra income. Then we can begin decorating our house :)

-XO-

Life keeps going :)

First of our projects this week was to clean our mesquite trees up that we have on our property. As you can see in this picture the bottom of the trees were full of weeds and dead stuff. Also, we had to trim the branches so that instead of growing out like a bush they grow upwards like a tree. :) Bridger did most of the hard stuff, like cutting thick branches, while I raked out all of the stuff underneath. They look a million times better and now it actually looks like we have trees instead of bushes. It's not completely done, but when it is I'll post a picture! Next, My big project I'm working on! We have a wrap around rock driveway and in the middle is this circle that is currently just dirt with rocks around it . It has a big mesquite tree and a HUGE red circular slide that has no stairs up to it. (We don't know what we're doing with it yet) ha. So I am fixing all those rocks and digging the ones out under the dirt and putting them in a better circle. Eventually we'll put grass and maybe a rope swing or something from the tree. :) When I get it done, I'll post a picture.
SOO, we got another dog. I promise we're maxed out on dogs now. We got a pure Australian Shepherd. Some people in our ward were giving them away and I went and just fell in love. (I've wanted an Australian Shepherd for the last year or so.) Her name is Athena, and she loves water. She loves to follow Maddie and Spartucus around. She's cute, and we like her a lot. I guess if we're not going to have kids right now we might as well have dogs... haha.
We are still in the process of decorating our house. This room is supposed to be our dining room, but right now it is our "sitting room". We were given the chairs by some people that we moving out of the state, and the side tables (My favorite) we found at a big yard sale. This room we have debated on putting a pool table and making it a game room or something like that.
These side tables are my absolute favorite! They're kind of rustic, but fancy. I love them. We will probably put them in our living room once we decorate it. That will hopefully be in the next month or so.
This is my last week of summer vacation before I start work. I got my fingerprints back but I have to get them done again because I was given the wrong form to fill out. So I'll get them done this week and get ready for starting work and then starting classes. Life keeps going on :)

-XO-

Screaming...

This is a story about a spider... This spider is about the size of my palm, maybe a little bigger. Last night after Bridger got home from work we decided to pull some of our weeds that had grown while we were gone. So after we pulled weeds and it had gotten dark we decided to sit on our deck on our patio chairs. We do this quite regularly as we quite enjoy it :) now the real story begins.

I look over and Bridger has this Tarantula crawling up the back of his shirt. I immediately stand up and begin to scream hysterically as I run backwards pointing to the back of his shirt. Bridger looks around and starts to stand up as I yell, "There is a huge spider on your back!!!" This kind of freaked him out so he starts to pat down himself trying to get it off. Meanwhile I am patting myself down and putting my hands through my hair like crazy screaming at the top of my lungs and in midst of screaming asking Bridger, "Is there one on me?" He responds, "Is it off me??" I scream and then reply, "No!! It's still on you! " He then really freaked out and bailed off of our deck. He started to run in circles in our yard frantically trying to brush it off, I am still screaming hysterically (I literally screamed straight for 2 minutes). He then ripped off his shirt and threw it on the ground. I was still screaming. I then quieted down a little bit as Bridger asked, "What was on me??" I told him that it was a tarantula crawling up his back. He shook out his shirts and couldn't see anything. He then turned on the flashlight on his phone and started looking in the grass. He found it a couple feet away from his shirt. We then settled down a bit and Bridger said that, "I nearly gave him a heart attack." (We then decided the Tarantula was probably on the back of the chair and when he sat down it crawled up the back and onto him.)

Later in the house Bridger said I handled the situation in the wrong way and that I should have just brushed it off of him. Are you kidding me??? There was no way I was going near that!! The other way he said I should've handled it was to tell him it was a tarantula instead of a "huge spider". I guess clarifying that it was a tarantula is different than "huge spider". They are the same to me :) Bridger said it's good to have tarantula's because they eat the bugs... I can't decide which is better: bugs or pet tarantulas?? Our lovely spider friend is still somewhere in our yard by our house, but the good news is they don't bite. They are just extremely scary to look at. :) BONUS! We also have a pet toad in our front yard that likes to hand out in the long grass. So I guess our two new pets can be friends and hang out. Bridger and me both almost had heart attacks last night. Oh the wonderful wildlife of Arizona. :)

p.s. I wasn't going to post again for another week, but I figured it was a good post. :) Would you have reacted the same way I did?? I'm sure almost everyone would!

-XO-

VACA to Denver

So this last week we were able to take a vacation to Denver! I usually visit Denver a couple times a year by myself to visit my family and such but it is my favorite when Bridger comes along! :) He was able to take a week of vacation, so to Denver we went. To kick off the week we went to a Rockies game. Here is us at the entrance of Coors Field. It was a perfect way to start our week. We got hot dogs and enjoyed watching the Rockies try to win... but they lost! Shoot...

It was super hot that day, which didn't compliment our black Rockies t-shirts very well. We were drenched in sweat.. YUCK :).
To make the experience all that it needed to be my mom surprised us with a bag of cracker Jack's. (We had peanuts too). This was Bridger's prize in the bottom.. he doesn't look too excited about it ha. Oh and they caught us on TV!!!! Best Rockies game ever! :)
Here's the group. My wonderful Dad, Mom, Me and Bridger. The whole clan.
Monday- the fourth of July. We went to see Transformers in the morning, which we enjoyed, then hung out the rest of the day until the evening where we were able to go have dinner with my sister-in-law and her adorable son. We came back to my parents house and drove to the end of the street and were able to see fireworks from many surrounding cities. One of the benefits of city life. :) After those finished, we came back and lit off little fireworks we had gotten and lit sparklers galore. The neighbors put on their own firework show.. some of which were probably illegal... yikes :) Unfortunately we really didn't get any pictures of the fourth.. We'll remember and take some next year!

Tuesday, we went and spent the day up in Estes Park. Estes is a tourist town in Colorado about an hour from where my parents live. We spent the day in the "old town" part of it. We went shop to shop and just looked around. Unfortunately we didn't get any souvenirs. Here are some friends we found :) Bridgers face is kind of weird...
We decided afterwards that Bridger should've bought this next hat. He looks pretty studly we agreed.
Wednesday, my sister Andrea came and surprised my parents. It was great to see her! We drove to get here in the morning. The rest of the day we just ran errands and hung out. My brother came up with his two boys so we just had a good family day. :) All gearing up for WATER WORLD on thursday. Water World is a huge water park in Denver. All the pictures from that are on a water disposable camera that I took. So after I get them developed I might throw some on here. Look for them in the next post or so! My mom, Andrea, Bridger and I were able to go. Water World was a complete blast! We spent the whole day going on group rides, two person rides, single rides, and spent a lot of time in the wave pool. We got really lucky, and about an hour and a half before closing it began to rain. Lucky? You ask. It rained for an hour as we waited and ate funnel cakes. After an hour they closed the park and we got "raincheck" tickets for half day. So we get to go back in this season or next and get a half day free. We are so stoked :)

Friday was another relaxing day. Bridger and I went to see "Zookeeper" which we also enjoyed. We were planning on going mini golfing that night but it rained like CRAAAZY! So we just stayed inside and played games. A complete BLAST! So we postponed mini golfing until Saturday morning, before we all took off to head home. Here is Mom and Dad. :) I'm pretty sure they came in first and second.. I might be wrong though. Mom was the only one to get a hole in one! She's the best.

Here is Bridger, me and my dad relaxing in some shade partway through the course. :) I lost terribly.. I'm not the greatest at mini golf, but it is a blast!
Here are the girls :) Me, my mom, and Andrea. See the resemblance???... me neither :)
My favorite way to take pictures with Bridger... :) He is the love of my life and more. I couldn't have been more blessed with finding him and falling head over heels in love. He's a complete stud!! :) Not to mention he is the funnest to take road trips with. We take turns driving because he says that if he drives the whole way that I'll just sleep.. so I drove almost the WHOLE time :) We sometimes have dance offs and he is HILARIOUS in them. He always has new moves to bring to the competition, but I usually win. No big deal ;)
Saturday we began our journey home. We went half way and stayed in Albuquerque with Bridger's dad. Then drove the rest of the way the next day. Now we are home and luckily we came back to cloudy weather in Arizona. I LOVE IT! Our weeds grew, our animals were excited to see us and the house didn't magically get painted... so we'll get back on that. :) It was a wonderful week away, and we were able to do everything we wanted to and more. Back to working on the house, work, and soon to start a new semester of school! YAY! Until next week

-XO-