Birthday Boy

Happy Birthday, Lyle! I feel blessed to have been apart of your life for 3 years and look forward to the many years to come! Happy 26th!

We celebrated Lyle's birthday by going to Texas Rodehouse with Doug 'n Brenda (thanks for dinner!) and the clan and even though we were very crammed in and with very loud music, we enjoyed the time with the fam (no he didn't have to sit on the saddle even though we all told the waitress and she forgot)...then we went to Brian n' Jess' for a round of Poker...great times!

So after MANY phone calls of 'happy bir-th-day toooo you! Cha cha cha...' and other renditions...AND after multiple uses of 'but it's my birthday' we can happily call the day a success! One year older and wiser!

Love you, babe!

Here Comes the Bride and the Family

We were lucky this last Friday to be able to be a part of Jess n, Brian's wedding. It took place in the back of Doug's yard...very simple and beautiful!

So this, of course brought all our loved ones...well part of them...

And even Brian's family from New York flew in...here's the boys...

n' the girls...

n' there was so much excitement that Chloe couldn't handle it. :) At least she is stinkin' cute!

Like I said, the wedding was very simple...the decorations...hawaiian...

n' the pool was beautifully lit up with white lights on the wall and...

... teeki torches on the garden.

Our Bishop was the one to marry them...it took place on the grass...the only problem was that we couldn't hear what he was saying without a mike, but I know he did a good job.

AND of course, Brenda pulled off her wonderful talent of cake creating and designing...she's good!

Finally, I thought we'd capture a recent photo of Lyle n' I. That doesn't happen often.


We really enjoyed having Norma, Dave, Very sick Wes, Grandma, Grandpa and so many others. Dave n Norma were sweet enough to take us grocery shopping, the Dark Knight, n Norma and I went shopping for shirts and Norma EVEN was wonderful and went to my abs class one night and the gym the other night since my typical partner was occupied with a wedding. It was fun seeing family again! Just one week of surgery...ugh!...and then we are off the ABQ for the first time since Christmas...can't wait!

The Garden of Sweat and Blood

We have been trying SO hard to get our garden ready to put in strawberries and other roses, but the area we have been working on...we took a HUGE bush out when we first got our house...then the bush kept coming back...nothing would kill the stupid things...then it got hot and then it rained and was just feeding the leeches!

The other day, I came home to find these tracks...

No, it's not the blond joke where she got ran over a train while she was trying to figure out what tracks they were...deer, bear, car...

It was Lyle with machinery to tear up the yard...so here's what he accomplished...

BeforeAfter! So now it's ready for planting!

ALSO...

I know it's hard to see but the tree trunk in the

corner that we broke Doug's metal lever because the tree branches were SO BIG and IMPOSSIBLE to get out...

It's GONE!!

He also cleaned up around all the trees we planted and put rocks around them...

He really got TONZ accomplished. He took care of what it took us weeks to TRY and get done.

Lastly, proof that things do survive the desert heat...

I love my yard! AND my brilliant husband!

The Art Work...

The full view...it really is amazing that this is all that happened...

It's hard for us to open the tailgate now since the bumper was shoved up.

Closer view.


The ball is pretty sad since it's bent so much...time for a new one!

It was quite funny to drive into work this morning and see our exact skid marks. It looked like this...

It's great to be able to live another day to laugh about it. Sigh of relief...except now Lyle's sick...

thanks for another day to take care of him!

Bad morning, but full of gratitude!

You know those days that nothing goes right...that was this morning. We woke up a little late for a work day. I had showered the night before and that would be good and save time, but MY hair...that's not good! It takes longer because of my hair's personality. I ended up leaving the house with a hat on. Then, I decided to make some breakfast for Lyle and reached for the eggs and dropped it on the floor making a BIG mess. So then, we are ready and Lyle gets sick to his stomach, so he ends up in the John for a while AND we have to be to Corporate by 10 for his manager meeting and it's 9:00 (it takes an hour to get to work. ...bad morning...and we finally got out the door. I'm thinking, okay, at least my morning is almost over.

Yesterday, Lyle and Doug did some dirt work and put it all in a trailer that we borrowed from a guy at work. We filled the trailer up 2/3 of the way and told Doug that we would take it in with us in the morning and dump it at the landfill...no problem! Done that before.

This is where the gratitude part kicks in. I'll point these out...
So we start out on the freeway going 30, 35, 40, 45...and the trailer started to swerve back and forth. Lyle, not ever being in this situation but knowing that you should never hit the brakes, took his foot off the gas and tried to coast to a stop (Doug had said to keep it under 55, he didn't mention that 45 is also bad!). The problem at this point is that the trailer is swerving so much and it's heavier than we anticipated, that we begin skidding. The trailer pushed us forward, turned us in a donut, headed straight for the wall (still going at a very fast speed), and AMAZINGLY stopped right before, Gratitude #1-we REALLY could have been hurt because of the speed we were going towards the wall.
We were finally stopped facing the wall, the trailer jack knifed, and covering three lanes of the freeway! Gratitude #2-thanks to the fact that we slept in, we were not in the middle of rush hour traffic! If we had been, we surely would have hit someone and others hit us...which my door was facing the on coming traffic, but amazingly enough, I glanced out my window and saw all the cars sitting there just waiting for us like it had been planned for them to stop.
Gratitude #3-Nothing was damaged enough to make us stay in the middle and wait for the cops (we surely would have been fined a pretty penny!)
So we pulled over to the side, checked things out...by this time, I am a MESS, shaking, crying...willing to walk (Lyle was so calm for me and the situation! I love him for that!!). Of course we still needed to get to the landfill so we start out again going 25, 30, 35, 40...here we go again! We started skidding and swerving and were thankfully able (Gratitude #4-we didn't hit the workers on the shoulder) to pull safely to the side. From that point...I was more of a wreck and Lyle's nerves were fried! So we ended up taking Baseline all the way going 30 with our flashers. F.Y.I., it takes us 45 min to get to work just on the freeway...to go 30 on the side roads...let's just say we didn't make it to work until 11:00. Plus, even on the side roads, we had to go thru yellow lights because it was impossible to stop...that's why we didn't do side roads in the first place.
Thankfully, the bad morning ended and we got rid of the aweful trailer...and even though it was such an aweful experience and wish it to never happen again, it opened our eyes to how watched over we were/are. Looking back, I am in awe at how many times in those couple of moments, we could have been hurt or even killed, but He was watching and keeping us safe!
Lesson learned!
Lyle's truck is a bit banged up...the tailgate is smashed in and the back right side is dented, but that is really all...Gratitude #5).
Pictures of the truck to follow...

Rain, Rain!-Monsoon Season

Arizona has had such hot, dry weather (It's a dry heat!) since mid-May...until last weekend when my family drove in from ABQ with a monsoon season attached. Since then, our monsoon (which apparently doesn't happen 'til end of July and is not so moist like last year) is in full gear and I LOVE this time of year. I remember our first year in Arizona, our bedroom had a sliding door going to a patio. I would wake up early in the mornings to beautiful lightning and thunder and good ole RAIN! Last year, the monsoon hardly occured so I did not get the same joy as the first year. BUT our WET monsoon is here and I'm loving it!! One night the rain was POURING off the house and I caught a view of the water...there was literally a river running in our street.

(Top) Rain coming off the house in the day, (Bottom), rain pouring off the roof (same view) in our first pouring rain storm.

View from our backyard.

Water running off the roof on other side of patio.

I love these next two views. It's from our backyard and captures the left over blue sky (let's chase it!) and the storm clouds taking over.

"Rain drops are falling on my head" (tune)

I LOVE the rain!

Whenever it rained in ABQ we would typically get a huge river running in our street over flowing the gutter. My fam would take off our shoes and stand in the running water. It was always warm and we'd try to get the cars to honk and spray water on us as they passed...so much fun!! Erin and I would also run in the rain on the lawn. Oh! The joys of rain!

I'm singing in the rain! Just singing in the rain! What a glorious feeeeling I'm happy again! Splish, splash, splish, splash!

Just to show how much it really rained in one storm today, here's a news report for the flooding of the major highway by our house...it got shut down it was SO bad...

http://www.azfamily.com/news/homepagetopstory/stories/Phoenix_local_news_071308_monsoon-storm.518c8b6b.html

Van Vleet Fourth

What a fun weekend!! The VanVleet clan arrived Thursday night and began a weekend of fun and relaxing!






On Friday, Jill and I decided that the family was going to get pedicures...which was a first for some.

Daddy's first! And Jill's.

The gang.











This is the guy that did my feet. He was so fun and entertaining. I had the entertainer, Dad had the FRIENDLY one (if you get my drift), and Jill had the married, but flirter (see next pic for explanation).

Jill got two things added on to her bill more than the others. So when our bills came to $50 or less, Jill's came to $3 more...it's because she was a HUGE flirt! She even admits it! Just don't tell Tim!

The beginnings of Keri's toes. They were all very creative when it came to designs on the toes.

Katy's toes (left), Keri's (right)

Jill with the perifin on her hands.

Mom getting her callous remover done. They paint goop on and then use sand paper on the foot and all those that know mom know that she is VERY ticklish!

We all did the basic pedicure that included hot lotion and salt scrub...AAHHHH! Then we all got different things added on that included perifin (wax on the hands and/or feet), callous remover, and foot facial. Then we all (not daddy of course even though he was mocked by the fam AND the chinese ladies there)

The final products! Mom (left), Katy (bottom), Keri (right), Jill (Top)

Then on Saturday morning, we had Richard and Becca over for breakfast...they brought along their CUTE kiddo, Bryce.




It was so fun seeing them and playing with Bryce.


We then played for hours in the pool at Doug and Brendas (Thanks guys!)

Saturday afternoon, Dad and Jill and I went to the Diamondbacks game (they lost!).

Last of all we, of course, played games at all at-home-hours and ended Sunday with a few games of the typical Settlers.



Now that the fun weekend is over, it's time to recoop and recover...still working on it!