A Visit from the Murrays

I have been waiting for Patrick and Angela to come visit us since we moved to Phoenix, and last weekend was the chosen date! Patrick had a work conference down here earlier in the week and Angela came down for the weekend. I went to pick up Patrick on Friday afternoon and Matt and I took him out for supper before we got Angela. That night we hung out at our house and caught up on life. We also played a few games of bags with our neighbors and some of their friends in the front yard. One of our neighbors we had not met before came out to hang out as well!

Saturday we hiked up Camelback Mountain. Matt and I hadn't been up there for a while. It's a little bit tougher than our usual South Mountain.

We made it to the top!

They told us they wanted to do all the things we normally do so we happened to spot an open house on Camelback. And when we see a cool open house, we go in! It was probably the coolest open house we've seen. They even had a wine cellar built into the mountain under the house! 

We headed to lunch at The Henry. It was the cutest place ever!

The food was amazing, too!

Then we ran over to Matt's office and Patrick pretended he was trading stocks on Wall Street, or something like that...

Then they decided to pull a little prank on one of Matt's colleagues.

...Boys will be boys...

We made a quick stop to one of our favorite places, Bahama Buck's!

And played a round of Headbanz while we were there!

I ended the day with more than this, but 100 floors!?! Yikes!

We took them out to Downtown Chandler that night and showed them around. 

Sunday we headed out to Schnepf Farms. First we looked at the animals and really enjoyed the new peacock exhibit!

It was just so pretty!! We picked ourselves a fresh salad and a bunch of peaches which I used to make salsa!

We spent the rest of Sunday playing games and eating! Of course the time went way too fast because they left on Monday morning. It was so great to have them visit. I hope they come back soon!!

Six weeks in paradise

It's hard to believe this past week marked my halfway point through my first fieldwork site. After the first couple of days I thought it might take forever. Now, I think it will be over before I know it. I am on the downhill! I have already learned so much. It seems like I learned nothing in school, comparatively.

We stayed in for Valentine's day and grilled steaks. We also finally saw The Internship. It was pretty funny. It was a nice evening of hanging out. I hope you all did something special! We decided to get in the spirit of the day so we wore our best red and pink to work. Sorry the picture is not the best, but I thought I better prove we were trying to celebrate!

The Husker Classic was in town. They played a few Western teams-Oregon State, Pacific and Gonzaga to be exact. They went 2-2. They had an Alumni tailgate so we went and checked that out.

The food was fantastic! This was their first year having this tournament and look how many people were at the tailgate...I think this will become an annual tournament.

 Look at us showing off our Husker spirit!!!

We got new rally towels, which I think I will use for working out. And they even gave us peanuts and cracker jacks-how authentic!  

Everyone at the tailgate put their name in for door prizes, and I won a baseball signed by Darin Erstad! His daughter won the other one so I think I was probably the most excited!

Here are a few action shots of the team in their new uniforms.

All in all, we had a great time! We both got a little sunburned...oops.

I have continued to craft. It's nice to have some more free time. I am working on another wreath. Here is my progress so far. I love burlap!

We hiked up Camelback. It was closed for about a year and just re-opened a few weeks ago. It was my first time back up since it has re-opened. I have to say, I love the new trail!! It was pretty cool. I feel much safer, and it seems easier. We didn't really take a break the whole way up so either I have gotten into much better shape or the trail is much easier. I'm going with the latter. The new trail gives much cooler views than I remember. It was so packed!! I have never seen so many people at the top.

Do you see all these other people?!?! So crazy!!!

At least we don't look out of place for taking pictures then because most everyone is a tourist!

Hope everyone has a great week!