Mike & Steph's Spot

Sedona

2009-12-23T13:35:00.006-07:00

So when I said that I didn't take any pictures in Flagstaff, I forgot that we took the small detour through Sedona to get to Flagstaff. And of course I took pictures there. Just thought I'd share a few. They are also posted on Picasa with the link under my Pictures list here. Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and wonderful New Year!

Thanksgiving 2009

2009-12-06T21:19:00.004-07:00

Thought I better do a quick post about Thanksgiving so that I can try to get caught up on things. The weekend after we came back from the dunes we went to Flagstaff to visit some friends (believe it or not, I didn't take any pictures in Flagstaff) so I didn't get this post up right away. I started the post a while ago (which is why the posting date is not actually correct) and am finally finishing it up. Not much to say other than we had a ton of fun, as always. Thanks to Eric and his family for letting us camp with them. We all had a huge potluck Thanksgiving dinner, almost 40 people total. The riding was great and we especially loved the big group rides. We made it over to Gordon's one day to see the sand drags. The weather was great. It threatened to get ugly Saturday and sprinkled for just a little bit but then the sun came back out. All in all, another great trip to the dunes. Bonus for no wrecks or injuries!

Taking a break during a group ride

Mike deep frying our turkey

Enjoying Thanksgiving dinner

The sand drags were packed... people/cars/bikes as far as the eye could see. The drags were probably about 1/2 mile long!

Mike and Zane making a pass down the drags. They are the two dirt bikes on the right side of the picture.

Lindsey, Diana, Cade and Scott hanging out at the drags.

This is Blake riding behind the Rhino in his super cool, custom wagon.

Blake also loves to get pulled behind the quad on his sled....so cute!

Our Cabo Vacation

2009-12-01T11:01:00.007-07:00

OMG! Where did November go?! It's already December and I still haven't posted our vacation to Cabo in October! So here it goes....
We had an amazing time in Cabo. We are so glad that Lonnie and Angie were able to make it, as we had a blast with them. We spent lots of time hanging out at the pool and making full use of the all inclusive food and drinks (okay so maybe more drinks than food). We spent 2 days fishing. The first day was kind of slow, only caught 3 dorado. But the next day was great. We caught 16 (some were catch and release). By 9:30 we had caught 15 of them then we trolled around for Marlin. We saw a couple, but no bites. Caught another dorado on the way back to the marina. The place we booked the fishing through vacuum sealed and froze the fish so that we were able to bring it home. We brought home almost 40 lbs! We'll be eating fish for a while. We had the chef at the hotel cook some up for us Sunday night and it was amazing!
We also spent 2 days diving. The visibility wasn't spectaucular, as the hurricane had just come through, but the diving was still good. Saw lots of stone fish, some eel, a turtle and lots of other fish.

Our first trip down to the beach shortly after arrival. The clouds looked cool and the weather was perfect the whole time. You'd never know a hurricane had threatened our vacation.

Shortly after Angie and Lonnie arrived on Friday we were all at the pool just hanging out

View of the arch from the fishing boat on the way out to catch some big ones!!

Steph's big catch

One of Mike's catches. Love the markings on the dorados.

My cousin Angie started to reel this one in. As you can see she is quite petite, so she wasn't making that much progress. Lonnie helped her reel it in the rest of the way. It was the biggest fish of all the ones we caught.

Lonnie caught this pretty dorado. Another good sized one.

The chef cooked up our fish several ways - fried, baked, grilled - and it was all delicious

Relaxing at the pool with drinks and a good book

Mike on one of our dives

Hanging out at the sports bar, watching football

Celebrating Angie's birthday a little early

Angie and Lonnie helped us celebrate our anniversary with a bottle of champagne.

This is Emmanuel. He was practically our personal bartender. He made these rainbow shots for us. Believe it or not, all of the shots are mixed in the same shaker and as he poured them, each one was a different color. It was so cool - and they were good!

Another bartender inside the dance club made us this version of rainbow shots - also delicious

On our last day we stopped at the fire station and Mike was able to trade a shirt.

The latest...

2009-10-06T23:03:00.006-07:00

So, we both survived the race this weekend. We went up to Pinetop on Thursday and did a short ride in the afternoon. Friday we did a 10 mile ride on the loop that made up most of my ride so that I would know what to expect. I wrecked lots of times and have more bruises right now than I have ever had at one time. But the good thing about that was that I didn't wreck at all during the race. The weather Thursday and Friday was gorgeous and sunny. The forecast for Saturday was rain but luckily the weather held out and it was beautiful Saturday too. Thank goodness no repeat of the weather last year. The rest of our group came up on Friday afternoon/evening. Some of us went to lunch at Darbi's on Friday afternoon (love that place) for a great lunch. Saturday morning we all headed out to the race starting area. The guys' race started at 8:30 am and mine started at 9:30 am. I ended up finishing right around the same time as the guys did. So yes, it took the guys only about 1 hour more to do 21 more miles than me! But my only intention was to finish the race, which I did. I started at the back of the pack and any time someone got behind me I pulled over for them to pass because it made me nervous to have them behind me. There were about 5-7 other people that I kind of went back and forth with throughout the race so that made me feel good that I was able to keep up with a couple people. I was pretty worried at the start of the race because it took about 2 miles for my legs to warm up and stop feeling awful. I was so excited to finish! It felt like such an accomplishment. The guys all did great in their race. JC finished first (in under 4 hours I believe) of our guys. Then Eric, Jeff, Mike and Scott. I crossed the finish line between Mike and Scott. I was glad that Mike got to see me finish because I got to see him finish last year. Kristin (JC's girlfriend) and Rhonda (Jeff's wife) were our photographers since I was racing. So glad they got lots of pictures for me...scrapbook pages to come. Since the weather was so nice this year we all got to hang out after the race at the start/finish area. We hung out and just relaxed, recapped about the race and drank beer. Saturday night we all went out to eat at a great Mexican place. Sunday morning we just headed home. We would have done some sight seeing with the fall leaves and everything but our truck was having issues so we thought we should just get home. Some other time we will go back to just sight see and hang out. The area is so beautiful!
In other news, we put our house on the market last week. We are just going to see what happens since the market is so crappy. But I just want to be able to sell it so that we have the freedom to buy a bigger house before the market goes too high again. Now that everything is finished it's really nice. Kind of sad to see the realty sign in the front yard. Lots of memories and hard work have gone into this house. Patience with be the key...
Saturday we leave for Rocky Point with JC and Kristin for 4 days. Then back for a little over a week and then off to Cabo!!! Hoping to get a tan started in Rocky Point so that I don't get too fried in Cabo.
Here are some pictures from last weekend. I also put them in Picasa so they are on the link on the sidebar where our pictures are. I also took a disposable camera that I haven't gotten developed yet that I think will have some good pics on it so I will add those later.

Scott, Mike and Eric ready to start the 37 mile race

Steph waiting to start the 16 mile race

Mike coming in to aid station 3. Only 11 miles to go...

JC crosses the finish line

Mike crosses the finish line

Mike, Eric, JC and Jeff after the race

Steph crosses the finish line

So happy to be done and so proud of each other!

Haning out after the race

And some pictures of the awesome sunset we had back at home Sunday night...

PROGRESS

2009-09-14T13:15:00.005-07:00

Well, we are getting closer to finishing all the projects on the house so that we can put it up for sale. I'm kind of sad that we are doing all this hard work and making the house nicer and then we will be selling it (hopefully). But I really hope that we can sell it and find something bigger and better. Last weekend we put rock in the backyard. Most of the yard was dirt and it was really too much dirt to do much landscaping with it. So we did rock were all the dirt was. Plus we have a little section of fake grass at the edge of the patio. We rented a Bobcat through my dad's work and it made the job so incredibly fast. We moved 10 tons of rock in just a couple of hours. I don't really have any "before" pictures of the yard, but you can see all the dirt area in the pictures of Mike in the Bobcat.

Here are a few pictures of the yard now.

We built this shed and did the tree wells to match the patio/porch. The small brown thing is the dog house. The small patch of grass right in front of the shed is just temporary. The dogs like to lay there so we are leaving there until we list the house.
There used to be a chain link fence in the back and we had the wall put in. Mike built the gates for the yard. One big one for the back (seen here) that leads to the alley and two small gates on either side of the house facing the front yard.
We built this porch and patio. There used to be 2 sliding glass doors on the back and we made the one into a window (on the right) and put a new slider on the left (did all that a couple years ago). Mike built all the wrought iron for the windows and doors. The big water tank on the left is our make shift pond where our goldfish and koi are until we get a big house and can build a pond.

Wednesday we are going to stucco the garage. Then all that will be left is to put rock in the front yard and Mike wants to pull up the asphalt driveway and pour concrete. Everything is looking nice around here. The end is finally in sight. In other news, we went for a mountain bike ride on Saturday and I wrecked and got a big bruise on my hip. My new bike has clip-in pedals and I didn't get unclipped in time and fell over. Luckily it was in a nice dirt spot with no cactus or rocks. Then we went again today and rode 13.3 miles. That is the most I have ever ridden. We are trying to get ready for the mountain bike race in October. My race is 16.2 miles long and it will be way harder than the trails I ride here. I'm just hoping to finish the race. Mike is doing the 35 mile race again and a bunch of the guys from his work are doing it this year.

What's up with us

2009-08-20T20:30:00.004-07:00

Our kitchen is finally done. Actually, it's been done at least a week but I haven't updated it to the blog yet. Mike did a great job on the backsplash. It is travertine tile with accent tiles that are the same granite as the countertops. It looks really nice. In the pictures we didn't have all the outlet covers yet (they are travertine also) but they are all on there now.

In other exciting news, we have decided on Cabo San Lucas for our anniversary trip this year. We are going October 22-28 and staying at the Riu all-inclusive hotel. We plan on doing some deep sea fishing and maybe some diving and lots of relaxing by the beach and pools. And my cousin and her husband might come, too. We are really looking forward to it. October will be very busy for us. We are going to the White Mountains for a mountain bike race the first weekend, Rocky Point the second weekend and then to Cabo. Here is a picture of the hotel:
Can't wait....

Pround new owners of a motorhome

2009-08-10T12:28:00.002-07:00

Well, we had thought about buying a new toy hauler for quite a while. But we decided a motorhome would make more sense for us. When we get a boat someday, we can haul it with the motorhome and camp at the lake. And we can take it to the dunes and haul our quads/bike on our flat trailer. We looked at some in Phoenix and were quite disappointed at the condition they were in. We had to get something older so that the price was decent, but we still wanted it to be in good condition. The minute we walked into this one we were really excited about how nice it was inside and how well it had been taken care of. It is smaller than what we were originally looking at but it was also cheaper and in good condition. We wanted something that would sleep "6" (which is really more like 4 adults or 2 adults and 4 kids). But it's just the two of us for now so this is plenty big for us. It has a walk around double or queen (not sure) in the back bedroom part and the dinette folds down into a bed which supposedly sleeps 2 people but really more like 1 adult or 2 kids. We are already thinking of lots of different places we want to go in our motorhome. Here are a few pictures. I don't think they do it justice but you can see what it's like inside.

San Diego

2009-07-14T20:56:00.007-07:00

Well, I would post about Rocky Point too, but we lost the pictures. I didn't take very many since each day was full of laying on the beach or standing in the ocean (perfect way to spend 4 days). But, we had them saved on our external hard drive but I didn't burn a CD yet and now our external hard drive died. We have the worst luck with computer stuff. It won't turn on at all so we don't know if the company is going to be able to save our stuff off of it. We'll see. But Mike was able to recover my favorite Vegas pictures that got erased from our memory stick somehow (threw that one away and had to get a new one). But anyways, we visited Angie and Lonnie in San Diego over the 4th of July weekend and we had a great time. We didn't do the big stuff like Sea World, zoo, etc because I knew it would be crazy on a holiday weekend. Plus, we did those last time we went to San Diego. We wanted to just hang out, catch up and relax. And that's exactly what we did. We got there Friday and grabbed lunch. Then Mike and I took a nap since we had been up since 4am and I had worked the night before. That night Lonnie and Angie made a delicious dinner. Saturday Angie and I checked out the scrapbook store and the guys killed some time while we were there. After shopping, we went to a lighthouse (can't remember the name) up on the hill and went to a cool military cemetery there. Then we hung out at the house until the afternoon and we headed toward downtown. We had some great seafood at a restaurant and then went to a park down by the water. We spread out some blankets and hung out until the fireworks started. The fireworks were really cool. There were 4 different barges with fireworks and they were all going simultaneously. It was neat to see them all going off. Sunday Angie and I scrapbooked. Mike and Lonnie went a couple places, including the fire station so Mike could trade some shirts. Then that night we went on a dinner cruise around the harbor. It was very nice. The food was soooo good, plus cheesecake for dessert. The view of downtown at night was pretty. We really enjoyed the cruise. It was a perfect way to end our time there. Monday morning we got up, packed our things and headed home. And of course, here are some pictures.

Our kitchen

2009-07-14T20:46:00.003-07:00

The kitchen is almost done! We still need to do the backsplash (we haven't decided exactly what we're going to do yet) but that's about it. I absolutely love it. It looks so much bigger and nicer. Mike did an awesome job on everything.

The granite black reddish-brown spots and veins of lighter colors. It complements the cabinets perfectly.

Remodeling progress

2009-06-29T16:28:00.006-07:00

Just wanted to post a few pictures of our kitchen remodeling project. Mike has been very hard at work to give us a new beautiful kitchen.

BEFORE...

LAST WEEK...

NOW...

We already picked out our granite countertops and hope to have them in soon after we return from California. Mike has done a great job. Can't wait to see the finished product!

2009-06-16T13:54:00.002-07:00

Just wanted to let everyone know that our computer at home is dead (AGAIN!) so probably no posts from me for a while. We leave for Rocky Point next week and San Diego the week after that so hopefully after our vacations we can get it working again. I also can't access my email from work so no emails from me either. Angie, I will get in touch with you when I can get to somewhere that I can access my email. We'll have to exchange phone numbers and I will get directions from you. Have a great week everyone!

Las Vegas Pictures

2009-06-12T15:50:00.004-07:00

The bachelorette party. We scored a free limo ride from the strip club to the dance club.

The happy couple - Lisa and JJ

Inside the venetian

Me and Kristen with our black jack winnings.

Vegas was fun, but way too busy. Lots of running around to try to see everything since I had never been before. Did a little gambling and came out $30 ahead so I was happy with that. Going to Rocky Point in 2 weeks for some real R&R.

Canyon Lake

2009-05-22T20:37:00.006-07:00

Okay Jackie! I know, I know...Update already! I just didn't really have anything worth posting about and haven't really had that much time on the computer lately. But here it finally is...a new post. We went to Canyon Lake on Tuesday with some guys from Mike's work. I love Canyon Lake, it is sooo pretty. We had a lot of fun. The guys wakeboarded all day. I took a turn on the tube at the end of the day but mostly just hung out on the boat. Nice way to spend a Tuesday afternoon. We leave for Vegas on Wednesday so I'm sure I'll have some pictures to post when we get back. Happy Memorial Day to all!

Our friend Neil. He is really good at wakeboarding and he makes it look so easy.

Our other friend Dan

Some Layouts

2009-04-18T17:44:00.005-07:00

Just wanted to share a few layouts. I did these at our last Crop. Love getting together with Kimberly and Tab. It's our monthly "date" and love getting to finally scrap more regularly. I'm also working on getting more layouts posted to Two Peas in a Bucket, as I haven't added any in a long time.

My birthday celebration

The zoo on my birthday

I pic of us that I love. It was taken at Disneyland when we went for my birthday last year.

A layout for my honeymoon album. It's about the morning we had breakfast delivered to our bungalow via outrigger canoe.

Sad news

2009-04-16T10:34:00.004-07:00

I sometimes follow links to random blogs of people I don't know and find interesting things. Yesterday I found some sad things. There are a bunch of blogs right now about 2 families in the blogging community that have recently lost their children. Many people have set up ways for people to help out these two families with things like funeral expenses. Click here for more information about the two families and their stories. This particular site I thought had the best and most information that I found and it has lots of links about the stories and ways for people to help. I know there are not very many people who follow my blog. But if a few people tell a few more people, it helps spread the word. It warms my heart to see how people from all over are coming together to help these families. I just wish that every family who loses a child had this kind of support, because this happens to people all over the world EVERY day. Please keep these families in your thoughts and prayers.

Happy Easter!

2009-04-14T12:31:00.008-07:00

Hope everyone had a great Easter. Mike had to work so I went to Benson. Keith, Sara and the kids came down Saturday night and stayed at my parents'. Dustin had to work so him and Monique did not make it either. We went out to Dragoon with a bunch of family friends and had a picnic and egg hunt. Just wanted to post a few pictures. Love taking pictures of Violet!

Violet and Nathan

Keith, Grandpa and Dad

Sara made some Kool-Aid for Violet with a bottle of water and a little packet of Kool-Aid. When Sara was mixing it Violet said, "That's why they call it Kool-Aid... 'cause it's cool!"

Sushi party

2009-04-10T20:33:00.007-07:00

The Saturday after my birthday we went out with some of my friends and some of the people from Mike's work (my friends too I guess). We were originally going to go to a sushi place called RA, but when I called to make a reservation they promptly told me they don't take reservations, just "call ahead" and that they were totally booked for Saturday night. So, I figured everyone was already planning on sushi, so I made reservations at the Sushi Garden instead. I'm not a big fan of sushi (except california rolls, which don't really count) but knew they had cooked food too. Mike has also never had anything more "sushi" than California rolls. So, imagine my surprise when Mike went all out and tried some of the craziest things on the menu. I ordered a cooked meal, but Mike decided to split sushi with Scott. Scott ordered the first round of stuff, mostly regular fish, nothing too crazy. Then Mike ordered the next round. He ordered stuff with scallops, stuff with eel, Vegas rolls and some sweet shrimp rolls. Well, the sweet shrimp rolls come with a fried shrimp head on the side. And, Mike ate it! I was so proud of him for being so adventurous. Seeing him bite into a shrimp head was a little creepy though. Then later, I got dared to eat the shrimp's eye ball, and I did it. It was just gross and chewy. I also branched out and tried the dragon roll (with eel) and it was actually pretty good. And you can't go out for sushi without doing Sake Bombs. So, I made my friends do sake bombs (after all, I don't drink beer and it was my "birthday") while I had plenty of other yummy things to drink. We closed the place down and had a great time...as evidenced by the photos.

P.S. I'm doing well since my surgery on Monday. No bleeding (knock on wood) and surprisingly less pain than I expected. I was prepared for the worst after stories I had heard. But I'm taking tylenol now and doing okay, making a list of all the food I can't wait to eat again. Mike took very good care of me and I sent him back to work today since I am doing better than expected. And I'm going scrapbooking tomorrow night. I'm getting very bored of being home so it will be nice to get out and do something fun. Hope everyone has a good Easter. I think my family was going to go on a picnic but the weather isn't supposed to be very good this weekend so we'll see.
Mike's order of sushi: something with scallops (looks like roasted marshmallows), dragon roll (eel), sweet shrimp roll (with the shrimp heads by them) and the vegas rolls. No, he didn't eat it all by himself, he shared with Scott. And pretty much no one ate the scallop things.
Mike eating the nasty shrimp head...enough said.

Tab and Craig getting ready for Sake Bombs, with a little help from Luke.

Me and Eric trying the dragon roll (he was a sushi virgin, too.) Notice the fork - proper sushi eating utensils are a must!

Me, Hugh and Craig rocking out with our chop/drum sticks and various empty glasses.

Tab and Hugh doing a sake bomb.

Andrea and me trying some sake (minus the bomb)

My birthday present

2009-04-10T20:20:00.002-07:00

For my birthday, Mike bought me a new digital camera. So far I love it. It seems to take great pictures and has a 10x optical zoom. Now, we just need to get an underwater case for it so we can take it diving. On my birthday, the weather was great and Mike said we could do whatever I wanted. So I chose to go to the zoo. A chance to enjoy the weather, try out my new camera, plus, I always love the zoo. That night we went out to dinner with my parents. We were going to go out with a bunch of people but Mike had to work the next day, so we went out on Saturday instead. More on that in my next post....

Just an update

2009-03-30T16:19:00.002-07:00

Things are going well here. I started my 3 weeks off of work. This week I have off work just because but then next Monday I am getting my tonsils taken out and will have 2 weeks to recover. I'm not going to lie...I'm nervous. I've heard the pain is awful. I'm kind of a baby when it comes to pain. I don't like it. We're going to stock up the fridge and freezer with cool creamy stuff for me to eat. Right now I'm sick, so hoping to get better before Monday. Not really able to reschedule my 2 weeks off. Tomorrow is my birthday and we're going out to eat with my parents. Then Friday I'm going to ride along with Mike at work. Hopefully they'll get some cool calls. Then Saturday we are going to go out with some friends for my birthday. This past Friday I got some scrapbooking done with Kimberly and Saturday Mike and I went to Phoenix for the World Of Outlaws race. Hit the scrapbook store and Rosa's while we were up there. Hope everyone is well. I'll keep you updated on the surgery.

Gotta Love The Dunes

2009-03-02T20:23:00.005-07:00

We went to the dunes for Rodeo weekend. We left on Wednesday so we got 3 full days and part of Sunday for riding. We did LOTS of riding and had a great time. The weather was great. Not too hot and just the right amount of breeze. We camped at Buttercup again because we ended up meeting up with some people who were already going there instead of Gordon's Well. The other people we went with rode quads, which was nice for me because it's much easier for me to follow quads instead of the dirt bikes. There were a couple of hiccups in the trip. Our friend Daniel wrecked on Saturday afternoon and broke his collar bone. Then on our last ride on Sunday Mike had a pretty bad wreck and got a concussion. He's still feeling the aftermath of the wreck, but is doing good. He got pretty lucky to get away with just a concussion and broken plastics on his dirtbike. On Saturday night our friend JC rode his street bike out from Tucson and stayed the night. Then Sunday we went for a ride to see what his street bike would do in the dunes. It did surprisingly well. But JC is such a good rider he could make anything handle the dunes. All in all it was a great weekend. Unfortunately it will probably be our last trip of the season. Usually we would go again for Easter but I'm getting my tonsils taken out the week before so we probably won't make it for Easter.

Our home for the weekend. Our camp is the circle in the middle of the picture. You can see our flags. We fly a Divers flag and the flag from the country of Montenegro (yes there really is a country named Montenegro) so that we can always distinguish our camp from all the others. Rodeo weekend is always nice because it's not super packed like other weekends. Thanksgiving weekend you probably wouldn't see any open spots between camps from this vantage point.

Our friend Daniel - before he broke his collar bone
Daniel again - he sure can ride a wheelie
Our friend JC brought out his street bike to see what it could do in the dunes
The VStrom tearing it up
Looking down on the group from up on Competition hill

Taking a breather

That little speck on top of the dune is Mike

Erik's rail in the bowl

WHY I LOVE LIVING IN TUCSON

2009-02-21T18:04:00.006-07:00

NO hurricanes, NO tornadoes, only enough snow to make it fun, awesome sunsets, captivating thunderstorms, just 4 hours to the beach or the dunes, and ...
IT WAS 81 DEGREES TODAY...IN FEBRUARY...I LAID IN THE YARD IN MY BIKINI...NEED I SAY MORE?!
Just loving the weather lately. And next week looks just as good. We are heading to the dunes Wednesday and the weather looks good there, too. Next month we plan on tackling the garage door (you have to manually open it) and we bought new cabinets for the kitchen. Right now they are just stacked in our already too small kitchen/dining room. But we got a great deal and had to snatch them up when we could. I think they will look great after all is said and done...if we live through a kitchen remodel. I'll keep you posted.
(No, I didn't take that picture...found it on the internet)

My newest obsession

2009-01-29T15:15:00.004-07:00

Yes, a video game. We finally bought Guitar Hero for our playstation (thanks in part to Circuit City going out of business- the extra savings was just the convincing I needed). The first time I played it in a store I didn't know what I was doing and therefore sucked at it and thought it was dumb. But our friends Kristen and JC have it at their house and everytime we go there I want to play it. I was hooked. So we broke down and bought our own. Mike seems to prefer the drums, I like the guitar, and we both agreed that neither of us should try the singing again.
As you can tell, not much else going on at the Montenegro house. We did finally get our brick wall for the backyard completed and Mike is doing a great job of getting everything organized and stashed so that we can start making the yard look like a yard. We have a big patch of fake grass that we are going to put in the yard and we rolled it out to see what it's going to look like and the dogs LOVE it!
I should be going now... have to get ready for scrapbooking tomorrow!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

2009-01-03T13:49:00.005-07:00

Happy New Year to everyone! Just wanted to get a quick post in today. Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. We both had to work Christmas day :-( so we spent Christmas Eve at our families' houses. We both also spent New Year's Day at work, so no New Year's Eve partying for us. The day after Christmas we went to the dunes for 4 days. Had an awesome time! It was not too busy and the weather was pretty good (warmer than it was in Tucson). It was raining/snowing on us while we were loading up to go on Friday but it was nothing but sunshine at the dunes. Some friends went with us that had not been to the dunes and I think they really enjoyed. We're trying to decide if we are going to go back at the end of this month or if we are going to Vegas instead. Definitely going back at the end of February though. Next weekend we'll be in Phoenix for Supercross. I don't have any pictures to post because I didn't take any on Christmas Eve and we all forgot to take our cameras to the dunes.
Hope everyone is enjoying 2009!

Thanksgiving pictures

2008-12-15T19:07:00.004-07:00

I finally remembered that I didn't post pictures from our Thanksgiving trip. I didn't take very many, too busy riding I guess. But here are the few that I took (mostly of our dinner).

Thanksgiving

2008-12-09T20:45:00.001-07:00

Well we finally got our computer back so it's nice to be "connected" to the world again. We spent Thanksgiving at the dunes. We went with a different group than we usually go with so we camped at a different spot (Buttercup instead of Gordon's Well). We liked Buttercup pretty well but missed having the sand drags right there. But the dunes were so close to the camp and the ride to the hill was super short so that was a plus. We had a great time. We went up on Thursday because we both worked Wednesday, so we had our Thanksgiving dinner on Friday. We fried up a turkey and had mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, corn and rolls. It was so DELICIOUS! I think Thanksgiving at the dunes will become the family tradition for Mike and I. I will post some pictures too. I tried tonight but it was taking too long - over 10 minutes for 5 pictures when I finally canceled it! Anyone else have that problem? Not much else new with us. Just getting ready for Christmas (Mike and I both work on Christmas) and another trip to the dunes the day after Christmas. We'll be there for Mike's birthday!

2008-11-21T14:36:00.000-07:00

FYI - Our computer caught a bug and now it's dead
:-( so I won't be posting for a while. Same goes for emails for the most part. So if any of you are thinking we are never to be heard from again, we're just waiting for our computer to get fixed. Having to use the library computer sucks!!! Hope all is well with everyone else.

Our Visitor

2008-11-12T18:06:00.000-07:00

Just a fun quick little post...Today we had some guys at the house installing our air conditioner and one of the guys had a little puppy with him that he had just gotten. I took the liberty of playing with it all day. I even made her a little bed in our laundry basket. So fun to have a puppy around. I'll be sad to see her go tonight.

The latest

2008-11-09T11:24:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Keith and his family came down to my parents' house to visit. Keith has been working in Texas since the hurricane and has not be able to come home much. It was so nice to see them all. I wish so badly that we lived closer to them so that we could see them more and babysit the kids. Violet just gets so much bigger every time I see her. She is soooo freakin' cute. I just love her to pieces. She just turned 3 last month (already!). I love playing with her when they're here. I think it's cute that she still doesn't have much hair. Poor thing can't have a real pony tail yet. Violet and Nathan both had on their Wranglers and cowboy boots that Keith got them in Texas - so cute! I've posted some pictures from when they were here. Unfortunately most of the pics I took that day didn't really turn out. I've also posted some pics that Sarah emailed me of Violet at home and at the store.
On Wednesday (the last day of our 2 weeks off before we both went back to work) Mike and I took our bikes out for a ride to make sure they are all ready for the dunes. It has been so long since I rode my quad. It was so fun to just get out there on it again. I can't wait for Thanksgiving at the dunes! (Hopefully we get the heaters installed in the trailer before we go) Again, posted some pics from our riding.
Hope all is well with everyone. Thanks to everyone who is visiting my blog. Hope you like it.

Show Low Bluff Tour of the White Mountains

2008-11-02T20:28:00.001-07:00

Just wanted to also add that last month Mike did a 37 mile mountain bike race up in Show Low. We went up with some friends. Mike and his friend JC did the 37 mile race and me and JC's girlfriend Kristen did the 8 mile race. It was so nice up in Show Low. We had a great time and stayed in a beautiful "cabin". The weather was beautiful the first 2 days we were there, but the day of the race was freezing cold and windy and it started raining about 1/2 hour after Mike finished. I am so proud of Mike for finishing the race (his first ever, and 17 miles longer than he had ever ridden before). Just wanted to get some pictures up of it. If you ever head up that way The Red Devil is a killer place for Italian food!

Lining up to start
(Mike in grey, JC in flag jersey)

On the trail

Crossing the finish line

Caving In

2008-11-02T19:55:00.000-07:00

Well, after spending quite some time viewing blogs of my friends and family, I (Steph) decided to give in and try blogging. I can't promise I'll be any good at staying up with it, since anything involving staying in touch seems to fly out the window for me. I'll try to post often (or at least when we do something cool or have big news) but we'll see how that goes. Right now we are both enjoying time off. We celebrated our anniversary in Rocky Point last weekend for 5 days. We can't believe how fast the year has gone. We actually took a trip to Cozumel in August as our "anniversary trip" but decided we had to get away to celebrate the actual day. It was wonderful as usual. FIve days of laying on the beach - glorious relaxation. This weekend we enjoyed several Halloween parties in town. Last Tuesday we went to MetalHead (an 80s cover band that plays here every week) for their Halloween bash. Then Friday and Saturday we went to parties hosted by people I work with. We were planning on making Halloween our first trip to the dunes for this season, but weren't able to get everything ready in time. Looking forward to Thanksgiving at the dunes though. I guess that's all for now. We'll see how this goes...
Below are some pictures from our recent trip to Rocky Point and some Halloween pics

Mike relaxing by the beach
Enjoying tacos at the swim up barWe stayed at Sonoran Sea this time Steph and Tabitha at MetalHeadWith "Lucky," the lead singer
Steph and Mike
Mike playing Beer Pong
(yes those are purple zebra spandex pants Mike is wearing)