Sunday, September 28, 2014

Storm Round Two

This past weekend we experienced yet another storm. It was CRAZY!!! On Saturday we were over at the Maricopa County Home & Garden Show (because that is what you do for fun when you are married). It was held at the state fairgrounds. We had made it through one of (at least) four buildings and were just getting ready to head into building two when the storm began. First the electricity went out. Then came the rain.

It rained HARD! And the wind blew like crazy! The rain was coming down sideways. The roof started leaking. We saw one guy that got caught in the storm for a few minutes and would have totally won a wet t-shirt contest had there been one. 
Once the wind quit blowing so hard we made a run for it over to the second building. We were there right? What else were we to do? 



We made it into the second building where the flooding waters seemed to get worse.








So this booth....The artificial grass was claiming to soak up less water than other types...After this rain, none of them were holding much of anything!


After two buildings we called it quits and headed back to the car.


On our drive home we saw quite a bit of damage. A power pole fell into someone's second story window and broke their window. Some of the streets were flooded, many of the street lights weren't working. 



I was so glad we made it home safe! We had no idea it was supposed to rain so hard. 
We enjoyed the show. Nicole Curtis from Rehab Addict was supposed to be there, but we didn't make it far enough to see her. We did get 12 fancy light bulbs which was by far more than the price of admission. 


Hopefully all the damage wasn't as bad as it seemed. I wonder how many more storms we will be getting? Who knew we would get this much rain in the desert??

Sunday we spent some time at Mesa Riverview (a pretty typical Sunday afternoon for us). It seemed busier than usual. Here people are scouting out parking spots. They are turning for at least the second time to wait for people to leave. Crazy vultures.


Let's not forget this is a FREE park. Like, let's go play at the playground for a little bit, park. We thought it was amusing and had to share.
That's all I've got for now. Have a great week!

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Favorite Recipes

Hello again friends! I thought I would do a little switch up for Tasty Tuesday today. I have been trying out many new recipes, and they are all so good!!! However, I haven't changed them at all, therefore I don't need to make any recipe tutorials! No tweaking, no modifications, no anything. They are amazing as is! So I thought I would share them with you!!

Here are some great dinner ideas! Click on the links for the recipes. Of course, again most of these come from my favorite blogger, Shay.

It was so yummy. And it made a lot for us so we had it several times. It made amazing leftovers!


This one is a copycat recipe. I have to say, I couldn't find about half of the ingredients! I added a little soy sauce and called it good. It was still very good! We thought it would last us two meals, but we ended up eating the whole thing on the first night...oops!

(photo courtesy of Damn Delicious)

Here are two new soups for you to try! Of course, it is still really hot here, but we are slowly getting into soup mode anyways.

Yum!!!!! I think I have highlighted this one before, but I thought I would mention it again. It was that good!!

(photo courtesy of Mix and Match Mama)

It had lots of veggies which made it look very colorful. I was a little worried it would be too veggie tasting for us, but it wasn't at all! It was great, and I felt like I was eating a really healthy meal! Win, win!


Of course, you can find all of my favorite recipes on my Pinterest page, HERE. Hope you all have a great day. I'm off to work! ;) (YAY!! I can finally say that!!)



Friday, September 19, 2014

Things I am excited about

Some of the blogs I read have a series they do called Friday Favorites. I have a few things I have been getting really excited about so I decided I would try something new and link up with Andrea, Erika, and Narci this week. Enjoy some of my current favorites!



Downy Unstoppables

One of the girls, Erika, posted this as one of her Friday Favorites a few weeks back. She said it worked wonders on her laundry. Since we have moved into our apartment our clothes have begun to smell worse and worse-like smoke and mildew. I thought I would give this a try. It has been awesome! Our clothes smell much better. I would recommend them to anyone! I got this scent and love it.



New Jeans

Another blogger I follow mentioned how awesome these jeans were. I thought I would give them a try. Plus they were on sale. Who doesn't love designer jeans on sale!?! And how special did I feel when they arrived like this? I could try jeans on in the comfort of my own home and return them for free! Does life get much better?? It really is all about the little things.



Hummus

A few weeks back when we were at Matt's family reunion they had this hummus. Two of my favorite things combined-spinach and artichoke and hummus. What could be better?!? Nothing!!! It is great with pita chips, cucumbers, and bell peppers. Maybe I have been living under a rock because I had not found this flavor until then. If you haven't had it yet, go try it today!



An Empty Sink

Again it's the little things. Is there really anything better than a clean, empty sink? We have one of the most shallow sinks in the history of time. It only takes about one dish in there to make it look like we haven't done dishes in a week. So when there are none in there, it is a satisfying feeling. And no, I didn't even have to move any dishes out of the sink to take this picture-it did take a few days though!



ipad

Many people had told me I should get an ipad for work. When ipad minis came out, I thought they seemed like a bigger version of the iphone. But can I say how happy I am to have an ipad mini! The screen is about four times bigger than the one on my phone (I checked), but I can still hold it with one hand. Apple you have done it again! Plus I got it $100 off at Target a few weeks ago. I am so excited to use it for work. Lately it has been making a great Facebook reader.



OT license




This may not be as glamorous as my new jeans or an ipad, but it is certainly the most valuable. After countless years of sitting in class, paper writing, project meetings, studying for tests, hours of paperwork, and waiting on the government I am DONE!!! I finally have the piece of paper I need to start my career-my occupational therapy license!

There you have it friends, a few of my Friday Favorites. I will be sure to post some again whenever I find a few new favorites! Have a great weekend!!

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

The Hundred Year Flood

Last Monday we experienced what people are calling "the hundred year flood." Those people are 100% accurate! Here is a super mathematical article about a 100 year flood. Granted, it is Wikipedia so take it or leave it.
The storm woke me up around 2:30 AM and did not stop until 10:30 AM.
I attended my first meeting for work-great day to start, right? I was the only therapist that made it to the meeting. Everyone else was dealing with flooding basements, pools at the cusp of overflowing, and a doggie door about ready to bring the rain into the house. It was pretty crazy!


I thought about calling in, but my husband thought that was ridiculous. These were his exact words to me, "You don't think you can make it because of RAIN?!!?" Uh yeah.....there I was on the treadmill with the roof leaking at the gym watching five TVs showing floods, roofs collapsing, a police SUV getting stuck, and roads turned into lakes.



The mayor and governor declared us in a state of emergency. Since he was driving into downtown Phoenix he thought I could drive east (at this point in the morning it was much worse to the west of us than it was to the east.) The freeway I was going to take did not look good so I took back roads the whole way, and made it without too much trouble. You can read more about the freeway HERE
The hardest part was getting out of and back into the apartment. It was pretty flooded so I kept my car parked a ways away for the day.
It turned out to be the wettest day on record. THIS article shows I-10 (a little further west than us) that turned into a lake.



Thank you to my friends and family that texted or called to check on us! I am so thankful so many were able to keep safe during this state of emergency. I thought I better post this now because it sounds like we may be having our second hundred year flood within two weeks in the next couple of days.Wish us luck!!!
(Pictures taken from Google)

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Surprise Weekend Home

I am taking a break from Tasty Tuesday this week. I have some other things I need to get you caught up on first. Many of you know I made a quick trip home to Nebraska to see my family and surprise Jadyn. 
Since they are now charging for carry-on bags I thought I could attempt to get all of my things in a "personal item."I did it!!!


Can you believe it?! FOUR DAYS worth of luggage in that little bag!! Normally I take at least twice as much for an overnight trip.
My parents picked me up from the airport and took me to eat at Flippin' Sweet. It was just as yummy as I remember. We made it back home before the girls got back from school. Jadyn was definitely surprised to see me. Everyone else had figured out I was coming back so it was nice to surprise someone! It was senior night so I helped my mom get some things prepared for it. We hung signs on their lockers.


And got some cookies for them to share with the team (and their family!)


Here we go, pictures galore!












Family pic! 


These made it home so we got to enjoy them!




On Friday evening I was planning on meeting Angela in Grand Island to catch up. Well my dad had other plans. He was flying to somewhere in eastern Nebraska for a meeting during the day and asked if I wanted to come with. Luckily, Angela was super flexible and made it work! We ended up landing in Wahoo. We thought we needed a selfie in front of this mailbox. How cute, right?! I'm not quite sure what Wanahoo Aviation is....Maybe they had a couple extra letters so they decided to throw them on the mailbox...


After she picked me up we headed to Nebraska Crossing. It is such a great place! Freezing, but awesome. Franscesa's had just opened. Over half of the store was $14.98 and under. If you Nebraskans are free this week you should totally go check it out! I wish we could have stayed longer, but it was very fun while it lasted.
And she made me this adorable luggage tag. How cute is this?!? She is so talented and makes it looks so easy!!


It was so good to see her. I wish she lived next door...Maybe someday...
We headed back to Phelps County, but first we had to take a little airplane selfie. I asked my dad if he was upset...


He said no...

Saturday we hit up more volleyball with a tournament in Loomis. We got to watch another Elwood vs. Bertrand match-up as well as two other games.







They played so great!! It was very enjoyable to watch. They ended up winning the whole tournament!




Look at those seniors!


I got to watch four games and four wins. A totally successful weekend I must say.

That night we went uptown for a game of pool.




Turns out Jadyn's and Atlee's pool game is just about as good as mine...


We ended the night with a big round of Scattergories. We had some real interesting answers that led to lots of laughs.


Sunday the whole fam took me to the airport.


 It was such a blessing to sneak in another visit home before I start working. I was also sure to get in lots of eating out, seeing almost my whole extended family, and a little boutique shopping in Holdrege.
Come back later this week as I recap the flood we had last week.