Thursday, December 30, 2010

A Whole Bunch Of Christmas Pics

Chrismas Eve day in Tucson with Nana and Papa
 
 
 Christmas Eve Night at Grandma Verry's (Jay's Grandma) 
 
 
 The result of Christmas in Tucson. I think we should have called it good at this point and saved the rest for birthdays.
Our little Christmas morning BEFORE
and Christmas morning AFTER!!
 And some of the in between....and I don't know about this no shirt phase these boys were going through, good thing they both got a new outfit for Christmas so they didn't spend the day like this.
 Christmas morning at Grandpa Verry's (Jay's Dad)
 
 
  And last but not least Christmas morning with Grandma and Grandpa Anderson
 
 
 
Can we say SPOILED.  We are very blessed to have such loving and giving families.  And that despite the craziness we got to spend a little time with them all for Christmas.


Monday, December 20, 2010

Holiday Cheer

The big question about baking....does the enjoyment of the end result outweigh the tedious process and the mess left behind?
I always think I want to make sugar cookies....the first few minutes are fun, the first dozen you cut and decorate are enjoyable...and then no one wants to help and your left with another two hours of work.  I don't remember if I ever frosted the rest of the cookies or if we just let the kids eat them plain.

Tis the Season

A family outing to see the Christmas lights.  I am always the one taking the pictures and hardly ever in them so I included this, even though its blurry, it may be some of the only proof that I actually exist.


What a handsome group of of boys.  Hayden (6), Keaton (4), Conner (1)

Friday, December 10, 2010

Our First Bi-weekly Date Night

Dating when you already have kids gets a little complicated.  I always have Keaton and Jay has Conner and Hayden for a week at a time, Friday to Friday.  So having three boys at home under 6 can get a bit hectic, three different schools/daycare drops and pickups daily.  We are all gone from 7 to 6 almost every day, then dinner, homework, bath and bed....its the exciting life.  After we got married we decided it was important to have some "us" time.  So every other friday when Jay's boys go to their moms, my parents are wonderful enought to watch Keaton and Jay and I go out. 
I think this was actually the stat of our date nights....we went to Fiddlesticks (oh the high school memories).  This place was super slow and a bit run down but not a bad deal for the cost.  We did a special for 3 attractions it was like 15 bucks each. 
 We rode the go-carts, each got 3 tokens to the batting cages (my specialty) and each got a small bucket of balls (I can not hit a golf ball to save my life so that was humorous).  We are always up for a little competition so it was a good time for us. 
 Bonus...since we're usually out late my parents keep Keaton overnight.  He loves having his time at grandma and grandpa's and we get to sleep in.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Pre-Christmas Fun

A dental office in Tempe always has this big party before Christmas.  My mom took Keaton and Conner, I think I was at a meeting at work or something.  They got to see Santa too but I wasn't there with the camera yet.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

The Honeymoon

We wanted to get out of town but time off work is so hard at the end of the year.  Jay was pretty much out of days and well I'm not really allowed to take days off before or after a holiday so we settled for Fountain Hills...it's almost out of town.

Next question where to stay...so we tried two places and they both had pro's and con's.  Pro for both...each one we got on a special rate for about 80 bucks a night, since they were both the same price that's why we tried them both.

Ok first we stayed at the Raddison at Fort McDowell Casino.  I knew it had been built only a few years ago so it must be kinda nice and the commercials on the radio talked about the good deal.  Its really pretty the water fountains, and rocks and they have a pretty lobby etc.


  The room was contemporary and it had a sleep number bed....just in case you ever try one of these we both say start a little firmer than you think you'd like because if you go soft you feel like you've sunk into the bed by the time you wake up in the morning. We both had our set at 45 but think we should have gone with about 60...just an FYI.


 The casino is not attached but a quick walk down the breezeway, if that's your cup of tea...not mine though.  We did get  free $10 slot credit so we pulled the slots and won nothing of course but really it was too smoky for us.  The one thing we did do which neither of us had done before was play BINGO there was a midnight session and a non-smoking room.  It cost about 15 bucks to play and it lasted almost 3 hours!   We used an electronic thing cuz we thought we'd get confused with all the cards and different patterns.   They did have cheap, yummy food that they delivered to you while you played and free soda.

 Since we didn't get back to our room til nearly 3:30 we slept in for a while in the morning...so we got there about 10pm and left at 10 am....we did get a free buffet but arrived too late in the evening to use it and didn't end up going back to it the next day.  As a funny side note, I forgot my make-up...so our next stop was Target to get a few essentials!
Our next hotel was The Inn at Eagle Mountain.  The reason we went to this one was the fireplace in the room and the two person Jacuzzi tub.  The room had southwest decor which is not my fav.
 The bed was not nearly as "luxurious" (did I mention the Raddison had a down comforter) this was just a regular bed with a regular hotel type comforter.  We did use the Jacuzzi and fell promptly asleep that night.  I will say that Jay and I are a little bit larger than average people but IMO I would call the tub over sized but not really a two person tub.  My little romantic goal was to get room service in the morning and eat it out on our patio where our view looked like this.

But alas, I literally could not get  my husband to wake up til 10:30 and we had to be out by 11:00.  Perhaps we had done a little to much of this at Dave and Buster's the night before.
We didn't use the pools or spa's at either hotel because they both closed at 11 and we just kept getting back to late but they both looked beautiful.  The Radisson had some water features and pretty rocks and stuff and the Eagle Mountain pool looked like it fell over the side of the mountain onto the golf course.  We had good experiences at both and would stay at both hotels again for the right price. 

So there it is a honeymoon and hotel review in one.