#HighFamilyVakay

Yay!!! My family came to visit!!! We were so excited to have our first guests come to see us since we've moved. Plus it had been a while since I had seen them! They got here early Thursday morning so I could pick them up from the airport before work. 

They look pretty excited!!

Thursday night we took them out to eat at The Chuckbox in Tempe. It was good. Friday after work we went out to South Mountain once again. Are you catching on that we like that place? Atlee read my old posts and saw I mentioned if anyone came to visit we would take them up there and make s'mores. We did precisely that. Here is our view of the city.

My Eagle Scout husband got our fire going.

The lighting was not great on all of these with my phone, but you get the idea!

Then we headed out for some Authentic Mexican in Mesa. Atlee ordered a lemonade, and she got it in a fancy margarita glass. 

Friday night we had our first overnight guests at our apartment! We do not have an air pump for our air mattress. Last time we blew it up we used my hair dryer which has since broken. We were about ready to give up and go buy a new air pump when we decided to try the vacuum. We decided it went much quicker, and one section of carpet got really clean!

Here she is. Got enough pillows??

Our first guests! Hope they enjoyed their stay!

On Saturday morning we took my family to our favorite thing-mountain hiking. They had been up Camelback with me a few years ago so I thought we would try this one this time. It is not quite as tall as Camelback, but the trail in longer-still pretty challenging!

A great track workout for Jadyo.

Look at these awesome parents who made it to the top!

The whole family on top of Piestewa Peak. We made it!!! Missed having you, Nolan.

Headed back down the mountain. We saw one guy with an oxygen mask on that climbed up and down 5 times in one morning. We thought once was enough, and I was very proud of everyone for making it the whole way up.

The afternoon we headed to Salt River Fields at Talking Stick for some Spring Training action.

Are you seeing how many people are in the stands? It was crazy!!!

Rockies vs. Angels, record attendance! It was so packed!!

It went into extra innings and then ended in a tie...But at least the Rockies didn't lose.

Saturday night we rode the light rail to downtown Tempe. It was Spring Break so luckily there weren't tons of people down there. 

Sunday morning we took my family out for brunch and to Mesa Riverview Park. We FINALLY got to climb this huge jungle gym! 

It was much higher than I expected!

I gave up, but Matt made it to the top!

His view of us and the rest of the park!

These two climbing the other jungle gym. It was so good to see them!

As we were dropping my family off at the airport, this thing pulled up behind us! Apparently he is a photographer and travels all around the country. He has all kinds of figurines attached to his Jeep. It was kinda cool, but very interesting.

It was so nice to see my family again, and I hope they had a great trip. Come see us again anytime! Can't wait for another great #HighFamilyVakay

Lunch with a view

One great perk about living in Arizona, no time change. I feel like we even got to "fall back" an hour. Maybe it was because the rest of the country was"springing forward" or maybe it was just because we went to church Saturday night so I didn't have a reason to get up early Sunday morning so I actually felt rested!

For those of you that follow my blog religiously, you may recognize this place from this post. Yes, we have been here before.

Then again, all of my posts look pretty similar because they are all of Phoenix mountain ranges. It is just so beautiful here; I can't get over it.

Thus, more mountain pics. 

We have been wanting to take a nice long hike which included us packing a lunch. So Saturday morning we set off for South Mountain. 

This time we chose the Guadalupe Range on the southeast side of the park. This mountain range is so big for being in a city, in fact it is the largest municipal park in the US.

Of course we got lost. Any hike that takes us more than two hours is an automatic: we are going to get lost. 

I have no idea how this hiking the Grand Canyon thing will go...Maybe we should look at a map for once before we go.

Check out the new Camelbak Matt got for me. I love it! We almost look like official hikers now!

Our view at lunch. We did hike one of these trails to get up here. Couldn't tell you which one...

Is this real life?

On our trip down the mountain, we got lost...Big surprise...We ended up in this really cool ravine. It can't be that bad when you have views like this, right?!?

Check out our new friends!! Hehe, can you see the faces on these cacti? (Click on the pictures to enlarge them if you can't, especially the second one). The woodpeckers down here have quite the sense of humor!

Even though we got lost, it can't be that bad when you have views like this! I also put sunblock on twice and still got sunburned. Nevertheless, I think we will be back for more!

I never uploaded a post from last week. I guess we didn't do a whole lot. We had some friends come down which was very fun, and it also rained A TON so we didn't get a chance to hike!!! I also think we were finally catching up on some long overdue sleep. Apparently there was also a tornado exactly one mile to the east of us. Luckily, we weren't home and had no idea it happened until we were flipping channels and saw it on the news the next night. We thought there wasn't supposed to be any severe weather in Phoenix, another great perk of living here...I guess it was the lowest number on the tornado scale so it barely counts.

I did finish my wreath

And Matt finished the puzzle at my grandparents, just in time before they head back to the Good Life.

That's all for the week. So excited for our visitors this week!!!!! Expect some excitement next post! Until then, hope you all are having a great time!

Mountains, Mountains and more Mountains

Sorry this post is a little old. Here is where we were last weekend. I ran out of time over the weekend and got home late all week. So it is just coming up now!

Gold Canyon

On Saturday we visited Matt's aunt Callie and her husband, Ben, in Queen Valley. We had a great time visiting with them. They took us jeeping in Gold Canyon which is basically their backyard. I was a little scared going over some of the hills, but it was pretty cool. 

The views were pretty awesome. I took these pictures on my phone so of course they don't really do this place justice. But hopefully you can get somewhat of an idea!

We found some more mountains we need to climb!

Look at this saguaro!!! It's huge!

Once we got to the highest point, more fun began. We did some golfing in the desert. It was pretty fun hitting the golf balls. Picking them up however.....not so great...

Ben has been making the coolest backyard. He has done tons of masonry work! It's so cool, I can't even describe it. We sat beneath the open sky next to his fire pit. You can barely tell, but the fire is all different colors. There was brilliant blues, greens and purples!

Mesa Riverview Park

So they just built a new spring training facility for the Cubs in our neighborhood. They also have a huge park that they built along with it. We went bike riding there two weekends ago and last week took a walk around. I thought I should share some picture of this neat place! Last time we were there there were TONS of people!! This weekend, again TONS of people! We are guessing well over 1,000. Some people had even hired a band to play music at one of the picnic areas! There were tons of grilling, bikes and kids galore!

Here is the water station. Keep in mind, it is February. I can't imagine how many people will be in here come summer.

They also built this really cool jungle gym. I have been dying to climb it, but as you can tell, there isn't usually a lot of space! I keep driving by it, and if there is ever less than 10 people on it at one time, I'm going up there!

And of course, there is the boardwalk. How gorgeous is this view??!!?!?

The colored fountains are also neat. There were SSOOO many people! I was trying to get a picture with no kids in it, but the girl on the right was really busy modeling on the side for a good 10 minutes so I gave up.

We are still loving our time down here. I have been working crazy, long hours, but it is nice to have the weekend to go see some things instead of studying all the time. Matt is still loving his job and getting ready for his Series 7. Soon the weather will be getting really warm here. We will enjoy what we have now!

I will leave you with this beautiful February Sunday evening sunset.