A Tale of Two Mauros

The Bombing of Jasper Street

2011-10-28T12:32:00.000-07:00

Somehow, it seems that every living being in my house isn't feeling quite right.

As far as the humans go, we're on the verge of a full on rhinovirus outbreak. If you didn't know, rhinovirus is the virus that causes the common cold. I use the term rhinovirus here, because "cold" doesn't seem to quite capture the present situation the way rhinovirus does. And by that, I mean if you were to come into my bedroom at 4 in the morning, it would sound like you entered into the den of a family of sleeping rhinoceros (what is the plural form of rhinoceros?! Rhinoceroses?!). That is, it would sound like that if all of the rhinoceroses had stuffed up noses and snored like a freight train. Well, except for me - I never make any ugly bodily noises, whether awake or asleep, of course. I'm a perfect lady at all times. And I don't mean my baby either - all of his noises are freakin' adorable. So basically, I just mean my husband.

So here I am, at 4AM, sleeping next to a WWII bombing air raid, sirens and all. I may be exaggerating just a little bit, but at 4AM, any noise seems extra loud and annoying. Besides, the baby wakes me up enough at night, so every minute of sleep I can get is extremely valuable. I gently tried to move him ever so slightly in the hopes that he might wake up just enough to move into a new, quieter position, but nothing worked. It really is an art, the process of getting someone to stop snoring without actually waking them up. I have practiced this art often, to the point that I have him mostly trained to do it on his own (what a good husband), but when he starts to feel sick, all those years of training just go out the window. And this time, I had apparently lost touch with my skills.

So instead, I just ~~shoved him~~ lovingly repositioned him. That worked, but almost too well. He had no idea that I was the one to wake him up. I felt his arm clumsily grasping around the bed to see if I was there with him or up with the baby. Apparently when he touched my arm, I felt cold, so he pulled the blankets over me and made sure they were tucked up around me. What a sweet husband! I was so touched by his tender gesture.

And then he immediately fell back asleep and resumed his air raid.

My little fish

2011-10-26T22:48:00.000-07:00

First day of swim lessons! Woohoo!

Rio LOVED going swimming today! He was such a big boy in the pool, staying totally calm and relaxed and not crying or fussing at all. I'm so proud of him! Maybe since he's so long and skinny he could be the next Michael Phelps....hmmm....(then he could use his olympic earnings to take care of his dear momma!).

So many fun things to do in swim class!

My gorgeous friend Brooke and her daughter Gracie are in our class!

We're super excited for these classes (and not just because it totally wears him out and he's just about guaranteed to take a super long nap afterwards!).

Fun at the Farm

2011-10-24T22:25:00.000-07:00

Today we visited Mother Nature's Farm over on Gilbert and Baseline. I didn't even know it existed until a good friend of mine invited us to go on a field trip with her little preschool. We had so much fun! Rio loved staring at all the different animals, watching the other kids run around, and listening to all the different noises. We even got to go on a hayride! He LOVES anything bouncy, so this was a real treat!

We were there for over two hours and he was an angel the entire time...until I tried to take pictures of him. They had the perfect little settings, and it was all a major fail (but I still think he looks adorable!)

1 Month Old!

2011-10-14T17:15:00.001-07:00

1 Month Stats:

8 lbs 8.5 oz

23 in

Rio is getting so big, I can't believe it! He is still super skinny - no chubs on this baby yet! But he is sooooo long. Right now he is only in the 15th percentile for weight, but he is in the 90th percentile for height! Crazy!

I can't believe how smart he is already, too. He's always alert, always taking in everything around him. He never wants to go to sleep, especially during the day, and he will fight for hours before taking a nap. He can get pretty fussy, too (especially if Momma eats something she shouldn't, like baked beans - 12 hours straight of non-stop crying....we'll never do that again!). Most of the time though, he is just looking at everything and very intense.

Here's a little snapshot of Rio during his first month here:

Welcome to the world, baby Rio!

2011-10-14T17:15:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know this post is long overdue (my baby is six weeks old!), but better late than never, right?! And what better time to bring the blog back from the dead than the birth of my beautiful little boy?

Either way, he's here!

The whole labor process started on Wednesday, August 24^th.Up until that point, I had been having regular, painless contractions prettyfrequently, but nothing ever came of it. I had been 50% effaced since week 36,but I was only dilated to a 2, and hadn’t had much change since then – and ithad been 3 weeks. I was feeling a little discouraged. Plus, the ultrasound at37 weeks estimated that he was nearly 7 lbs already (plus or minus half apound), and typically babies grow a half pound per week, so he could be wellover 8 lbs! I was definitely not interested in pushing out a 9 lb baby, so Iwanted to get him out right away!

3D shot from 37 weeks

Nothing I did was making any difference though. I had triedevery natural labor-inducing remedy I came across, everything from walking (4+miles per day!) to peppermint oil to castor oil (couldn’t bring myself toactually drink it). I had tried acupressure therapy, eating an entirepineapple, super spicy foods, bouncing on a birthing ball (aka yoga ball),drinking pregnancy tea, using my breast pump, and taking evening primrose oil.The doctor had told me at my week 36 appointment that the baby would beperfectly fine to come anytime, so I had been trying to induce labor for quitesome time, and nothing was working. My little man definitely had his ownschedule and would do things his own way, regardless of what mom wanted.

On the 24^th, I went in for my week 39appointment, feeling pretty miserable. My belly was huge and uncomfortable, itwas starting to get difficult to just walk, and to top it off, it was 115degrees outside! My doctor offered to strip my membranes (he had done it theweek before as well, but nothing really happened), and then told me that sinceI was right at 39 weeks, we could schedule me for an induction at the hospital!I was thrilled – only a few more days at the most until I’d have my little one!Unfortunately, the hospital didn’t have any openings until Monday night at 8pm,and they were currently running a day behind on inductions. Regardless, I tookthat time slot.

Last pregnancy shot...I felt soooo huge!

By the time I got home, I had this crazy feeling like thebaby wasn’t going to wait until Monday. He had been trying to be so defiantalready, working on his own time schedule, that I just knew that since we had adate he absolutely had to come, he was going to try to throw us off by comingearlier. Not long after that, I started getting contractions. They weren’t badand they were completely irregular, but I could actually feel them now. Inaddition, every time I used the bathroom, I was bleeding quite a bit and I’mpretty sure I lost my mucous plug that afternoon.

That night, at just about midnight, the contractions becameharder and more regular. I stayed up reading a book so that I could keep bettertrack of them. At first they were about 8-9 minutes apart, but they graduallygot closer and closer together and became harder and harder. At about 4:30 inthe morning, when the contractions were about 6 minutes apart, I decided towake Anthony up. The doctor had told us to go to the hospital when they wereconsistently 5 minutes apart, so I figured it wouldn’t be much longer. We gotup and put on a movie to watch in the meantime. Anthony, of course, fell backto sleep within an hour.

At about 6:00, the contractions were about 5:30 apart, and Istarted getting nervous/anxious/excited. I sent out a text to everyone in thefamily, just letting them know what was going on so they all knew to keep theirphones close by today, as it was probably going to be THE DAY. I ate somebreakfast, knowing that once I got to the hospital, I wouldn’t be given anyfood.

Then, at around 7:00, I started having more irregularcontractions. Some would be only 3-4 minutes apart, and others would be nearly15 minutes apart. By 8:30, they were nearly a half hour apart, and losingintensity, and I fell asleep for the first time that night. When I woke uparound 10:00, I started crying – I didn’t want to have to go through all of thatall over again, a full 8 hours of intense contractions, just to end up withnothing.

I was pretty depressed and unmotivated all day, but couldn’treally sleep much either. Around 2:30 that afternoon, the process startedagain, an exact repeat of the night before. Contractions started at about 8-9minutes apart, then got harder and closer together until about 9:00, when theyfizzled out again. I didn’t sleep much that night either, waking up every 15-30minutes from another contraction, and then staying up to see if there would be anotherone right after or not.

By Friday morning, I was exhausted and still extremelypregnant. Contractions were still 15-30 minutes apart, occasionally comingcloser than that, just to throw me off. I was tired and hungry, but nothingsounded good to eat. I just wanted to have my baby and get it over with! Ispent another pointless day just lounging around the house. Late in theafternoon, I got a little spurt of energy, and thought I might try to walk thebaby out again. It was blistering hot outside, so Anthony and I decided to gowalk around Costco for a bit and run some errands. I kept timing mycontractions and by the time we finished shopping, I was consistently at 7minutes apart again. Then we met up with his mom, brother, and sisters fordinner and dessert at Bahama Bucks. While in there, my contractions increasedin intensity to the point that I’d have to pause for a moment during them, andthey were coming about 5 minutes apart. We left there at 8:45 to go home andpack our bags!

By the time we got home at 9:00, they had stopped again.This time completely.

The only benefit was that I actually got some sleep Fridaynight. It wasn’t the best sleep ever – I was quite upset over the whole thingand uncomfortable beyond anything I’d imagined – but it was still sleep,nonetheless.

Saturday morning, I heard Anthony get up to go to workaround 9:30. Ni’cko jumped up in bed with me, and Anthony told him to snuggleme because I wasn’t feeling good. When I finally woke up a little after 10:00, Irealized that Rhya was laying across my legs and Ni’cko had followed ordersexactly – he was spooning me, with his paw dangled across my neck and his headon my head. I laughed and carefully reached for my phone to take a picture ofus.

I got out of bed a few minutes after that to use therestroom, then went back to bed. A few minutes later, the cat wanted out of theroom, so I got up again to let him out and saw a little wet spot in the bed,about 3 inches in diameter. I had heard about getting a slow leak in your waterbefore, so I wondered if that was it – I had just peed a few minutes before, soI was pretty sure I didn’t wet myself. I went to the bathroom again just to besure, then went back into bed (I deserved a lazy day, after all, and Anthonywasn’t there to make fun of me for being in bed all day!). About 20 minutesafter that, the cat realized that nobody followed him out and that he was alonein the house, so he wanted back in the bedroom. I got up once again, and sawanother little wet spot, this time only about 2 inches in diameter.

I didn’t want to call Anthony just yet, because I knew hewould freak out, and I didn’t know for sure if it was really my water breaking.Besides, I didn’t have any regular contractions at all, and the ones I had wereso weak that I had to really think about them in order to even notice themhappening. So I just started going about my day. I ate breakfast, played aroundon the computer for a bit, talked to my mom on the phone, etc. At noon, Anthonycame home early from work. I told him about what had happened, and he told meto call the hospital. Of course, they told me they wouldn’t be able to give meany information unless I came in to be examined, but the nurse let me know thatif I wasn’t continually leaking, then it probably wasn’t my water. Anthony hadme call the doctor on call just in case, and she told me basically the samething.

By 2:00, I just felt depressed. Even Anthony looked at meand said that between a few hours ago and now, I had really changed and lookedbeyond miserable. I was very discouraged from what the hospital and doctorstold me. I laid down on the couch and tried to take a nap. Just after layingdown, I started a contraction (it had been about 20 minutes since the lastone). This one was the hardest one of the day, and kept getting stronger. Justas it peaked, I felt a triple-jump/kick feeling in my stomach, like nothing I’dever felt before. My first thought was that the baby had totally farted, reallyletting one rip, and I laughed for a moment. My next thought was that somethinghad exploded in me, and I freaked out thinking the umbilical cord had rupturedor something. My baby had never moved in the middle of a contraction before,and I was really worried that he was ok, but he started moving again after thecontraction finished, and it put my mind at ease.

As I continued lying on the couch, I had this feeling ofwater pooling around me and running up my back. I felt around me, buteverything was completely dry. I had the urge to use the restroom again (I’mpregnant, go figure!), so I got up to do that. When I sat down on the toilet,all of this fluid gushed out of me. I looked down, and it was this clear, milkylooking stuff, almost iridescent, that I knew definitely wasn’t urine. Besides,I still had to pee. I couldn’t hold it any longer though, so I went ahead andpeed, then spent a good 15 minutes just sitting on the toilet using my phone togoogle what amniotic fluid actually looks like, figuring that it probably wasmy water that just broke. But really, I had no idea.

I went out then, and just felt like snuggling Anthony on thecouch. A few minutes later, I told him what had happened. We called his mom,and she agreed that it was most likely my water that had just broken. We talkedabout it for a while, and then decided that we should probably pull everythingtogether. I still didn’t have any contractions yet, so I was taking everythingslow. Finally, I decided that I probably should get up off the couch andactually get dressed so we could leave soon.

As I walked into the bedroom to grab my clothes, acontraction hit. It was harder than anything I had yet experienced, and I hadto stop everything I was doing until it passed. Once it was over, I figured Ihad about 5 minutes to put my clothes on before I had to worry about the nextone. However, as I was reaching for my clothes, another one hit, this onebringing me to the ground. It took me a minute to recover, and by the time Ihad pulled my pants on, I was having yet another. I realized that they were literallyonly about 2-3 minutes apart, meaning that I could be having a baby very, verysoon!

I had the urge to pee again, so I crawled into the bathroom,and then had another gush of the strange fluid again. Anthony was runningaround the house as well, making sure he had the car seat, our overnight bag,the diaper bag, etc. After finishing in the restroom, I made it back to my bed,still shirtless, and stayed there for a few minutes, trying to calm myself andjust breathe through everything. It was then that I heard my husband scream.

Really, there was a lot more than just a scream. There wasquite a bit of swearing and f-bombs as well. I pulled myself up and stumbledout into the kitchen, and he yelled at me to get back, yelled at the dogs toget out, and wouldn’t tell me what was going on. The only other time I’d everheard him scream like that though, was when he found a scorpion in the house,which is just what had happened. He was reaching for my shoes to bring them tome, and there was a scorpion in them! As I’m lying back in bed, my mind wasgoing crazy. I had to get to the hospital – now – but I couldn’t leave the dogshome alone if there were scorpions in the house, but I had to get to thehospital right away, but I couldn’t bring home a new baby if there werescorpions, but I had to get to the hospital!

What seemed like forever later, Anthony came in, sweatingand panting – he had gone around the entire perimeter of the house withdiatomaceous earth! It wasn’t a pretty sight, but at least we could be more atpeace leaving the house to go to the hospital. Everything was packed in the carnow, so I finally pulled my shirt on and we ran out.

When we got to the hospital around 4:30 and I hobbled in,having to stop briefly for a contraction, they took us into a little office andstarted asking us our personal information questions, like name, social,birthday, occupation, etc. I explained that I had pre-registered, but theywanted to take down my information again anyway! I kept having to stop themduring contractions, and after a couple minutes, they realized I was probablyserious when I said I was going to have a baby very soon, so they admitted meto triage around 4:45.

I had decided, even before I got pregnant, that I wanted tohave a natural childbirth. I’m not a big fan of drugs, and I’ve had some badreactions to heavy painkillers before, so I wanted to avoid them as much aspossible. Plus, I wanted to make sure I was completely alert during the wholething and that my baby would be alert as well. I knew that we both would needto work together to do this. In addition, I just really wanted to experiencechildbirth and know what it felt like, as crazy as that seems.

Waiting in triage

I had bought a book on hypnobirthing that a friend hadrecommended. The first half of the book was beautiful and inspiring, talkingabout how childbirth is completely natural and how 90% of the world does itwithout drugs every single day. I gave up during the second half of the bookthough, as it seemed to contradict the first half – childbirth is natural,people do it every day, you don’t need drugs, but you need to practice andmemorize these 15 different meditation techniques every day for all 9 monthsand take all these classes or you’ll never get through it!

To me, childbirth is a completely natural and beautifulprocess. I knew from experience working in a surgical center that you end upfeeling the pain that you expect to feel – if you expect something to bemind-bogglingly painful, it will be! But, if you expect it to be normal andnatural, it will be that too. You get what you expect. I fully intended tomeditate and visualize what I wanted my birthing experience to be, but I neverreally got around to spending time doing that. So I was a little nervous abouteverything, but just kept reminding myself that I knew, deep inside, thateverything would be completely OK.

I knew though, that going into it, I would have to reallycontrol my environment. I had a CD player and a special CD that I had borrowedfrom a friend with gorgeous piano arrangements of hymns. I didn’t want anyonein the room (other than hospital staff, of course, my husband, and Livi, sinceshe was the appointed photographer). But everyone knew to just let me be andnot talk to me at all – I think I only said about 50 words during the entirebirthing process. I had to just zone out and get through each contraction on myown.

Attempting to relax during a contraction

The nurse came a few minutes after I was admitted to triage.She strapped me up to several monitors and checked me to see how I wasprogressing. Sure enough, my water had definitely broken and I was somewherebetween a 6 and 7, 90% effaced! I was absolutely about to have this baby!

I then went into the labor and delivery room. It was rightaround 5:00. When they got me situated in there and the nurse left for amoment, I remember just thinking, “now what?!” Was I supposed to just wait?When did I actually start pushing? What did I do in the meantime? Family wascoming in and out to support me and see how I was doing. I felt really bad, butI ended up having to kick everyone out of the room. Even just having peoplesitting in there, completely silent or having their own conversations, I couldfeel their anticipation and nervous energy and it made it difficult toconcentrate through each contraction. I just had to be alone (with Anthony).

Couldn't have done it without him!

After a few minutes, the nurse came back, and I managed toask if she could help me figure out something to do, because the contractionswere really starting to hurt. She laughed and said that lying in bed wasprobably the worst thing I could do, and she suggested I try sitting on abirthing ball instead, and that she’d check my progress in a half hour. Ithought that sounded great.

The birthing ball was my savior. It felt so good to be ableto stretch out my lower back and hips during the contractions and move aroundjust enough. Anthony sat behind me and massaged my back, then when he had toleave for a couple minutes to eat some food (he would have been unbearable ifhe didn’t have food to keep him going through all of this), Livi took over themassage job. I don’t know if I would have made it through that half hourwithout them.

What a life saver!

A little after 5:30, the nurse came back in. Thecontractions were still pretty hard and strong, so it took some time for me togive up the birthing ball and crawl back into the bed to be checked again. Asshe was examining me, she kept saying, “wow, you’re doing really good, you’rereally progressing!” It honestly didn’t sound that promising though, so Ithought she was going to tell me I was between a 7 and 8. At least, that waswhat I was hoping for.

But no, it was not to be. Instead, I was at a 9.5!

Technically, you can’t enter in a 9.5, so they had to callit a 9, but she said there was just a little tiny lip left and I’d be ready togo! I just had to progress a tiny bit more! My doctor came in to verify about6:00 and said again that I was almost there, just a little bit left to go, butto call him when I felt like pushing.

So how in the world would I know when I wanted to startpushing? I mean, technically, I wantedto start pushing 3 weeks ago! It was a little after 6 though, and suddenly, Iknew I wanted to push. I let the nurse know and she started instructing me onhow to push. There was so much to remember! Hold your legs like this, crunch uplike this, hold your breath, relax your face, concentrate, and push in thisexact spot (which doesn’t feel like the right place to push) for 10 counts.Then, take a single deep breath and do it again. And then a third time. Andthen you can rest, but only for 2 minutes, because then it will start all overagain. You can only push during contractions, because it won’t do anythingotherwise. If you rest too long between pushes, the baby can slide back up andyou’ll lose everything you’ve just done.

The worst part was, I didn’t feel like I was doing anything.It felt like as if I were at the gym, trying to move an entire rack of weights.I could push and push and try to move them, but they would never budge, nomatter how much I tried. It was the same thing here – trying to push and pushand feeling like nothing was moving or making any progress. But I kept going,mainly because when I was pushing, I didn’t feel the contractions anymore.Pushing was hard, but at least it didn’t hurt.

The nurse let me know once she could see his head, eventhough I still had quite a long way to go. She excitedly told me all about allthe dark hair she could see on his head. I asked how far he was, and she toldme that he was still about two finger widths from crowning, but that I wasmoving him about a hair down each time. I mentally pictured my fingers and howmany hairs I could stack up to equal the width of two fingers, and it seemedlike forever away. But I kept telling myself, “Ok, I’ll have this baby out by6:30!” and then “Well, I’ll definitely have a baby before the shift change at7:00!” and then “There’s no way he won’t be out by 7:30!”

After about an hour and fifteen minutes of pushing, rightaround 7:30, the doctor came in to assess the situation. He let me know thatthe baby was sunny side up. It wasn’t a bad thing and it didn’t endanger myselfor the baby, but it made pushing a lot harder and progression a lot slower. Hesaid that he could try to turn him around. I thought that it would be somethinglike when the baby is breach and you have to do different stretches to try toturn him around, so I said I’d go for it. Instead, the doctor reached his handsright up inside and tried to manually turn him around. That was the mostpainful thing I think I had ever felt, but I tried to still stay calm andfocused throughout it all.

Once the baby was turned around, I could actually start tofeel him move down whenever I was pushing. It became a lot easier to feel whereI was supposed to push, and I felt like I was actually making progress foronce. At that point, Anthony and Livi could see his head as well, and theycould see him move when I was pushing correctly. It seemed like during every 3pushes, the first one didn’t do much, during the second one I remembered what Iwas supposed to be doing, but by the third I ran out of energy. Anthony andLivi were great support though, letting me know exactly what I was doing rightand cheering me on. They were also joined by two high-energy nurses, who hadreplaced my wonderful calm nurse that had gotten me through the first half.

I started to really dig in and feel the changes in my bodywith each contraction. It no longer felt like contractions, I would just feelthe baby start to move down on his own and I would know it was time for me topush. I had actually developed my own position for pushing at some point duringthe whole thing. I hated holding onto my thighs, and trying to go on one sideor the other didn’t work, nor did trying to squat in the bed. Instead, I heldonto my feet and put them together like a yoga pose, then pulled them up towardmy head. It spread my hips apart while still giving me the leverage I needed topush. All of the nurses told me they had never seen anyone push like that, butit worked for me. The only thing I didn’t like about it was having to generatethe energy to pick my legs up for each push, and then when I finished, I had toset them down slowly instead of just collapsing, otherwise it felt like my hipsmight actually pop out of socket.

Finally, I had the sensation that the baby was actuallystarting to come out. It gave me another burst of energy, and I didn’t want tostop pushing. I would try to give a 4^th push during eachcontraction, although I usually couldn’t hold it the full 10 counts. I justwanted to keep going, although I knew that if I didn’t take a break betweencontractions, I wouldn’t be able to make it through. At one point, the doctorsaid it was all still pretty tight, and I might need an episiotomy or I couldtear. I let him know that I really didn’t want to have to do that, so to onlycut if there was no other option. So he started rubbing mineral oils andmassaging the way to help the area open up more.

After a few minutes, he told me, “Give me a big push! Nowgive me another one! Now, just one more half of a push!” In my mind, I wasscreaming, “A half of a push?! What in the world is a half of a push?! And whywould I only need a half of a push?! I want to get this baby OUT!” But I gavehim my best attempt at a half of a push, and then he said, “Ok, I have thehead!”

I didn’t believe him.

So I looked down, for basically the first time in the entireprocess, and sure enough, there was an entire head there! My only thought wasthat it was very blue and very large. I don’t know exactly what I expected, butthe head seemed huge, sticking out from between my legs. I couldn’t believe it!

Then he told me to give another little push, and the rest ofthe baby just slipped right out. I barely had time to think, “wait, that wasit?!” and they were handing me my baby. He was slimy and wet and still veryblue, but I didn’t care one tiny bit. I took him and cradled him against mychest, and suddenly nothing else mattered in the world. He lay there for amoment, skin to skin, then lifted up his head and looked directly into my eyes.We stayed that way for several moments, making perfect eye contact. It was themost incredible experience of my life.

I finally had my baby. My sweet, beautiful, perfect baby Rio.

Our new little family of three!

Stats:

Andre Rio Mauro

Born August 27, 2011

8:04PM

7 lbs 10 oz

21.5 in

To be continued...

2011-10-13T20:37:00.000-07:00

Yes, I haven't made a post in over two years. I have most of it typed up elsewhere, and someday I'll add all the pictures and fill in the gaps (I still want to remember it all, anyway).

Adventures at the Dog Park!

2009-07-12T15:31:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has a dog (especially a dog who loves water) should take their dog to Cosmo Dog Park (on Ray between Greenfield and Higley). This was so much fun! Zilli had the best time ever!

I actually found out that the dog park was recognized in 2007 as the best dog park in America! Pretty cool! And it lives up to it!

The park is big and wide and open, plenty of room to run around, but it also has some areas that are fenced in for dogs that are more shy, or for specific training or classes. There is actually even a little obstacle course built in part of it. Plus there is a giant lake (with fish!) for the dogs to swim in with a beach entry as well as docks to jump off. Up the hill there's a playground for children of the human variety.

We honestly didn't even have to bring Zilli's ball. As soon as we got close to the water, she realized that someone had the audacity to leave a tennis ball floating in the lake, and she wasted no time to jump in and "rescue" it.

Then, after depositing it safely on land, she turned around to realize that another ball had floated by! This could not be! Before long, we had a bit of a collection of these "rescued" tennis balls.

Such a good little momma dog, making sure all the tennis balls are safe and sound on land, haha!

She was so pleased with herself though! She was so excited she didn't know what to do! We could tell she was starting to get tired from all the jumping and swimming, but she didn't want to stop! We even tried giving her some taco bell - her own taco and everything, what dog wouldn't love that - but she was too excited to eat it and actually spit it out! The only time I've ever seen her happier is when Anthony's mom is around. And even then its a pretty close match!

I think the best part of the experience, for us anyway, was the fact that she got a free bath at the end. There's all these little shower stalls around the park with hoses, and we brought some shampoo and lathered her up nicely.

Even I got pretty hot and sweaty from the experience (c'mon, it was only something like 110 degrees out that day!) But I did notice that I got a freaking flip-flop tan on my feet!

And here's Zilli after the experience was over. Still as happy as can be.

Unfortunately, when we got home, first of all, the cat was freaked out of his mind (he couldn't recognize her smell) and started hissing at her like crazy, and also our house smelled like wet dog the rest of the day. Yummy. I bet you are SO jealous!

Bitterness

2009-06-29T12:02:00.000-07:00

I was supposed to have some really cool things to blog about right about now.

We were supposed to be in Utah this week for my husband's family reunion doing all sorts of fun exciting things.

But his dumb work decided at the last minute to not let him have vacation time.

Who even does that?!?!?!?

Anyway, so we're just sitting in stupid stinky hot AZ for the week instead. By the way, when did it decide to get so ridiculously hot?! It was so nice up until a few days ago, and then the weather decided to change its mind last minute too. And now it is both unbearably hot and humid.

Yuck.

Well, I'm not THAT bitter.

Really, I'm not.

Maybe I still can have something cool to post about soon. Maybe...

Just tapping the potential...

2009-06-16T20:57:00.000-07:00

Ok, ok, I know my last post was about my new toy, but I just downloaded the drawing software that came with it (instead of just the standard paint that comes free on any computers) and I am so excited about what I can do!

It's like having my own art studio right here, but I can ERASE when I make a mistake! So COOL!

Here's the same picture I drew before, but done in the new program:

Scroll down to see the old version. Slight difference.

Yeah, I really want to learn how to draw now! So many possibilities!

New Toy

2009-06-12T13:23:00.000-07:00

So, the other part of my birthday gift came in the mail yesterday - a tablet to go with my new mini laptop! It is just like an electronic mousepad that comes with both a mouse and a pen and hooks into my USB drive.

The main reason for it was so that I could sign all of my real estate documents electronically and not have to go into the office to print out everything.

But, I can also use it for PHOTOSHOP!

Now, I don't have photoshop on this little computer, but I do have Paint...and check out the picture I drew with my tablet:

Yeah, I know it isn't any work of art or anything, but I thought it was pretty cool how I could do that! I'll have to practice on photoshop - I'll be able to make some really cool stuff now! Oh, and did you see that I got my signature on it too?! Pretty freaking awesome.

I'm excited.

Makeup Madness!

2009-06-11T21:43:00.000-07:00

So my darling husband, even though he hates it when I wear makeup, found this fantastic website with really cheap makeup!

There was an email that went around talking about how a Nordstrom makeup line was getting rid of all of their inventory to reinvent their line, and so all the makeup was only $1! Well, that turned out not to be true...its ALWAYS only $1!

I read several of the reviews (unfortunately, I didn't learn the truth until after I bought everything - I thought if I didn't buy it right away then the inventories would disappear) and they said all of the different products were kind of hit or miss, but hey, I got a ton of makeup for really cheap!

Now, I haven't bought new makeup, other than the occassional powder, foundation, or mascara and maybe a small neutral eye shadow for many, many years. I think some of the blush and eyeshadow in my makeup box has been around since high school. Kinda sad. I just never use much.

So my wonderful husband allowed me to spend $75 on new makeup. This should last me a lifetime! Plus, because it was so inexpensive, I was more willing to try daring colors.

So here's what I got for my $75:

My favorite part was that they had mineral makeup for only $3-$5 as well!

Oh, and I got a full set of makeup brushes too! I haven't ever had a good set of brushes. And again, each one was only $1!

And there were several incentives as well on the website, including free shipping (hence the $75 order) and I got a little makeup box with sample size makeup in all sorts of different colors FREE! Almost all the makeup I do have is sample size, and it lasts me forever, so I was beyond thrilled! And the colors are great too - not just bright red or neon pink like what comes in some free kits.

Yay for makeup!

If you want to check it out as well, go to www.eyeslipsface.com - its always $1!

Happy Birthday to ME!

2009-06-07T11:12:00.000-07:00

So I'm officially 25! I wasn't too excited about the whole thing - I kinda liked being able to say I was in my early twenties (now it has to be mid-twenties....). Plus you're supposed to have most of your life figured out by the time you're 25. That's old enough to know what you're doing. If you accomplish anything major, its just expected. Even at 24 though, you're something special. But 25 is just normal. But anyway my darling husband made everything just great for me.

He threw a great party for me with all of my friends and made some fantastic steak! That's one more thing that I just love about my husband - a BBQ is almost never just hamburgers! No, we had filet mingon steaks for everyone (thank you Costco!) with grilled squash and asparagus, mashed potatoes, salad, some amazing punch, and then our awesome friends Drew and Sara brought homemade cheesecake for dessert!

I love my friends so much! It was such a great time! I had all of my best friends there (at least the ones that live in this state) and even a couple new friends. There's this amazing couple that lives a few houses behind us - they actually bought the house that we fell in love with and made us decide we really want to be in this neighborhood. They're just too cute! It was really the first time we'd done anything together, and Lizzie brought me a little birthday present - a reusable shopping bag that zips up! She saw it was one of my goals on my big list of things I want to do. Isn't she the cutest thing ever! I'm so glad that they bought the house instead of us so we can have them as neighbors!

Here's me making my wish on my cake...can you guess what it is? I can't tell - or else it won't come true!

Look how excited Shelbie is! I love that little girl to death! She wanted so much to help me blow out the candles. She's so awesome - so much love and excitement for life.

And of course, my husband bought me just what I wanted! A new mini laptop!

I'm using it right now to type this! It's so crazy how small it is, but its perfect to take around with me and use out on the road. I have mobile broadband internet too, so I have full internet everywhere I go! I love it!

My husband is the best!

Thank you for a wonderful birthday!

Blessed are those who hunger after righteousness...

2009-06-04T09:29:00.000-07:00

The Savior says that we should hunger and thirst after righteousness and that if we do so we will be blessed.

However, I must say, my dog took that a little too literally.

Besides, what does she have to worry about? All dogs go to heaven anyway!

Especially mine.

New Project!

2009-05-31T22:10:00.000-07:00

If you know me at all, you know I love lists, I love checking things off lists, and I love making and achieving goals.

So when I saw this project idea, I just had to do it!

I ran across this on some random blog a couple months ago, and I've been waiting until my birthday to start it. I always like to have a specific starting time that feels right in my mind - it gives me a sense of organization. But I have 6 days left until my birthday, and a Monday on the 1st of the month works for a good starting point as well.

I am going to complete 101 goals in 1001 days!

So here it is!

Check out the blog here: tamaurosgoals.blogspot.com

The Husband Quiz

2009-05-18T22:29:00.000-07:00

Here's a chance to see how well you really know your husband. Cut, paste and fill in the answers.
The real challenge is to send it to your husband to see how right you really are!

1. He's sitting in front of the TV, what is on the screen? It could just be some random thing on TV to have background noise, but often lately its National Geographic Channel - he thinks it makes him smarter!

2. You're out to eat; what kind of dressing does he get on his salad? Ranch, but on the side

3. What's one food he doesn't like? Anything from the ocean, unless it is fress from Hawaii

4. You go out to eat and have a drink. What does he order? Generally water with lime, but sometimes a coke

5. Where did he go to high school? homeschool - he graduated at 16 yrs old!

6. What size shoe does he wear? 11, but I think his feet are still growing somehow

7. If he was to collect anything, what would it be? sports equipment, expensive toys (dirt bikes, monster trucks, cars, quads, boats, etc)

8. What kind of sandwich does he like? leftover turkey from thanksgiving dinner and mayo

9. What would he eat every day if he could? Pizza, but only if it is slightly undercooked with extra cheese and fresh tomatos on the side if possible

10. What is his favorite cereal? he's not a big cereal eater, but he goes through phases - captain crunch, cheerios, honey bunches of oats, honeycombs

11. What would he never wear? I honestly don't think there is anything he has never worn. He doesn't get embarrased. At all.

12. What is his favorite sports team? Phoenix Suns or Brazillian soccer

13. Who did he vote for? Palin

14. Who is his best friend? Jonathan, Drew, Quinn...oh, and ME of course!

15. What is something you do that he wishes you wouldn't do? sit on the computer while watching TV instead of cuddling him

16. What is his favorite color? baby blue

17. You bake him a cake for his birthday; what kind of cake? No cake. He'd much rather prefer his Dad's brownies. And I probably wouldn't be making them.

18. Did he play sports in high school? Um, yeah, everything. Mainly soccer, basketball, swimming, and at least a little of everything else.

19. What could he spend hours doing?playing basketball

20. What is one unique talent he has? he can break the zipper of every pair of jeans or shorts he owns. I don't know how he does it, but I literally have a stack of 4 pairs that need repairing right now.

Congrats, Grad!

2009-05-16T10:10:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to give a quick shout-out to the husband of my best friend since jr. high - Brett! He graduated from ASU yesterday, with a degree in mechanical engineering.

I saw his homework a few times...I didn't know math could have more letters than numbers!

Their family has been there for Anthony and I on many occassions, and we are so grateful to have them as friends. We love them so much, especially their little ones!

Here's me with Kinz. She's such a little cuddle bug!

Oh yeah, and I got glasses. I've been wearing my contacts a little too much. You can sleep in them, but I kind of took it to the extreme. But I haven't had any glasses to wear, and every time I tell myself to remember to take them out for bed, I forget. And I can't see without them, so I try to remember for the next night, or the next, or never. So when I went to the optomologist, he took one look at my eyes and said I needed to have glasses or I might have serious permanent injury.

So, now I have glasses!

Anyway, the graduation was great. Well, ok, honestly, it was just as boring as mine! LOL!

But we were so glad to share the night with the Glenn's!

Love you guys!!!!

This is your garden....this is your garden on drugs

2009-05-10T18:34:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so miracle grow really does work. My zucchini's have shot up like a rocket recently.

Check it out...

This picture we'll call DAY 1:

This picture was taken only 24 hours later:

And then just 10 days after that:

Oh, and look at these tomato plants! I took pictures of them only 3 weeks ago, and now this is where they are:

I'm so excited for the fresh vegetables I'll soon be having!!!

BBQ

2009-05-09T14:49:00.000-07:00

We've been procrastinating the final project in the yard - the BBQ. There's a built-in set-up that came with the house, but unfortunately, the empty spot that was left open when the house was looted was too small for our grill. Too small for any grill we could see in the stores, actually. So we had to make it bigger.

Another reason why I love my husband.

He can do things like this.

And how cute is this?

Well here's where we are. When the concrete dries, we can slide the BBQ in place!

He looked pretty dang hot out there swinging a sledge hammer, bending rebar with his bare hands.

Yeah, that's my husband!

Photo Shoot

2009-05-08T22:00:00.000-07:00

So now that I'm going to be a Realtor, I needed some good pictures to use on my business cards. So I called Elisha, the amazing photographer that took all the pictures at our wedding, and asked her to do some headshots for me.

Isn't she so talented?

Staring Death in the Face

2009-05-05T11:58:00.000-07:00

Yeah, this bird has some real cajones.

And Prinx is soooooooo mad!

Baby bugs

2009-04-24T15:31:00.000-07:00

I just found this little guy in my garden. I have no idea how I saw him - he's about as big as the tip of my pinky nail. Crazy, huh?

How does your garden grow?

2009-04-16T18:18:00.000-07:00

Mine apparently grows fast. I'm loving having a garden so much! I'm out there watering it every day. When we had a "garden" in queen creek, we had it on a drip system, and I would forget to go out there to weed it or pay attention to it at all, and it...um...died.

But now I go out there at least once a day and pull a few weeds and make sure each plant has enough water and is still looking good.

Yeah, a few have died - this is my first attempt at a garden - but look at all the success I've had!

Tribute to the love of my life!

2009-04-14T16:29:00.000-07:00

My sexy man turned 27 today! He's not to thrilled about it (and neither am I...because it means that in just a few short weeks I will be 25, and no longer able to say I'm in my "early twenties"...) but we had fun just the same.

Anthony got his major present last month, but I did manage to find a couple little things I knew he would just love:

Yep, Oakley's and an Anchorman t-shirt. Can life get any better? Well, for Anthony, it would be wearing the shirt and glasses while driving his truck. That's utopia right there.

And to celebrate, we went to BJ's Pizza so he could get his free Pazookie. And he ate about 90% of it all by himself. He was like a little kid! Well, until he got to the end, and then he was like a sick little kid...

But as a tribute to Anthony, here are 27 random reasons why I love him so much!

1. He can cook. I mean, what other men can do that, and love doing it, and do it so ridiculously well? I'm dang lucky, I tell you!

2. He lets me be me. I don't have to act cool around him (even though he's the jock and I'm the band geek...). We can just be goofy and crazy and do whatever and just have fun!

3. His hands are like a freaking gorilla. And this is a good thing for various reasons - he can massage or scratch my entire back without hardly moving, he can open anything, he could probably kill any intruder with a single hit, and he can take things out of the oven without oven mitts. It's amazing.

4. He is skilled at pretty much everything he does. He cooks (as mentioned above), he has an eye for design and color, he works out in the yard, can build just about anything, fixes cars...I mean, I think I've got him figured out, and then he says, "well I'm going to try this now" and by golly, he's already an expert at it!

5. I think it is hilarious to watch movies with him because he always gets so involved - telling people what they should or shouldn't do, etc - and then if its an action flick (ie. Jason Bourne, Taken, 24), it's pretty much a guarantee that he'll dream about being the star assassin that night. We're convinced he was an assassin in another life. It is the only logical explanation.

6. On the other hand, he loves chick flicks too. And he'll be the one to suggest a chick flick to watch. And he'll even cry during them. We just watched Marley & Me - yeah, we both were a mess.

7. He can make me laugh whenever, wherever, no matter what. Wait, was this the list of things I hate about him? That might go there too. This is a dreadful talent for him to have whenever I'm mad at him.

8. He is very stubborn. Sometimes this is a bad thing, but I know that once he makes up his mind to do the right thing, there's no persuading him otherwise. Besides, I like to debate, and if he only did the right thing all of the time, there would be no need to argue. Boring!

9. There have been several times that we have been together 24 hours a day for several days on end, and we never get sick of eachother. I just crave being around him even more!

10. How he just loves to cuddle before going to bed, and he sometimes tries to wake up just a few minutes earlier than he needs to so he can cuddle me for a few minutes before getting out of bed. How can you have a bad day after that?

11. He puts up with me. Enough said.

12. He's always the first person to apologize. Yeah, he's probably the first person to be upset too, but he certainly knows how to say "I'm sorry." And he does it sincerely.

13. Even going grocery shopping together can be an adventure. Whether he is ballroom dancing with me down the aisles or we make the whole experience into a competition to see who can get everything the fastest, we always have fun.

14. He never hides anything from me - we talk about everything all the time. He probably talks more than I do! I'm actually pretty sure of it!

15. Yeah, he's dang hot. I love his sexy body!

16. I put him through a lot during our first year of marriage when I was traveling for work all of the time, and we made it through. He's amazing just for that! I don't think I would have been able to be home alone all those nights.

17. He can fall asleep in about 10 seconds - and I think it is so cute how I can tell the exact moment he falls asleep, because his body will relax, but twitch ever so slightly, and then he'll start to snore just a little bit, and then he'll reach over to make sure I'm still there. (Or he'll have an assassin dream and he'll reach over to hit me in the head, and never remember a thing in the morning...).

18. He sees more potential in me than I think I ever could.

19. I love catching him describing me or something I did (photos, home renovations, etc) to his friends - he always makes it sound so much better than it really is, but I feel great inside just the same.

20. Sometimes he'll try to impress me by using a really big word and it just won't be quite the right word and it makes me smile. I always know what he means anyway!

21. He is very polite and always grateful for everything. He makes sure all of our friends know how much he appreciates everything they do for us and how much we love them. He is never afraid to share his emotions.

22. He can walk into any room with anyone in it at any time and by the time he walks out, he's made at least 3 new best friends. I don't know how he does it. It is incredible.

23. His rule is that nobody leaves until an argument is resolved, the problem is fixed, and everyone is all better. Sometimes I want to strangle him for this, because I just need my space, but in the end, I'm relieved to not be angry anymore.

24. Just feeling him next to me comforts me in so many ways. With his arms around me, I feel like nothing could ever hurt me. I know he'll protect me. (Sometimes he expresses this very violently - "If anyone ever hurt you I would....[very graphic details]....and then kill them!!!").

25. When he gets excited about something, he's just contagious. You can't help but be excited too!

26. He knows exactly how he can embarrass me, and from being around him, I've learned to really expand my comfort zone. I wouldn't have tried half the things I've done in the last few years if it weren't for him!

27. We're going to be together for eternity and I'm beyond thrilled to be able to spend my life with him!

So cute...they get their own post!

2009-04-13T17:29:00.000-07:00

Ok, now my main goal in life is to have kids as cute as these. I mean seriously, can there be cuter kids?!

Meet Easton and Nelyana.

They are the adorable little boy and girl of some of Anthony's friends in St. George. I just fell madly in love with both of them!

Nelyana is just to die for. She's this amazing little oreo cookie baby! I can't get over how entertaining she is - so happy, so excited about everything. We all sat and watched her play with bubbles and easter eggs for probably an hour before we left on Sunday. Ambre has her heart set on having a little brown baby now. If I could produce one, I'd probably try it too...but alas! There's only white in me. :(

And then Easton is a complete crack-up. He calls his dad by his first name, but really only when he's mad at him. It is downright hilarious. Levi will pick him up to throw him around and he'll be all, "Levi, no. Don't do it Levi!" I really hope my kids aren't that funny, or I'm going to have a very hard time punishing them...ever.

Fun in STG!

2009-04-13T17:14:00.000-07:00

Well, our trip to Utah wasn't all about love and marriage - we did have some fun in there too! LOL! We actually had a great time! It was a whirlwind trip, but we packed a lot into those few days.

We made sure to stop at the Hoover Dam...and see the dam water and dam tourists and some ridiculous dam traffic on the way back home (seriously, it took almost 2 hours to drive through the dam on the way back! I cannot wait until the new bridge is done...I think I read it was sometime in 2010?!)

Here's a picture from the way up. It was about 2:00 in the morning...I was tired.

Then after sleeping from about 4:00AM to 9:00AM, we met up with Grandpa for breakfast. He's actually Anthony's great-grandfather. The Mauros breed young and live long. Anth even knew his great-great grandparents. I hope our family will take after his side on that.

Look how absolutely adorable Grandpa is in this picture! He's thrilled! Anthony was kinda jealous that he didn't get that excited about him being in the picture. LOL!

And we also got a chance to meet up with some of Anthony's friends from growing up. We've been to St. George together 3 times now, but I hadn't had the opportunity to meet everyone just yet. So it was a blast! I loved them all! We're trying to convince everyone to move down to Gilbert...

Viewer Discretion is Advised

2009-04-13T16:55:00.000-07:00

The following post has been rated PC for pornographic candy.

Well, Quinn was none to happy with us, but everyone else seemed to absolutely love our pre-honeymoon work of art.

See, Quinn is a bit of an OCD neat freak, and from what I heard, he went straight to the car wash after he left the reception.

But I mean, hey, they were going to Vegas for the night...they would have fit right in!

Anyway, Lacy, Autumn, Ambre and I had a little bit of fun...perhaps too much fun...in decorating the newlywed's car:

Quinn made this big scene about not wanting to be seen driving around town with the twinkies on the car how they were, so he went around taking them all off and smashing them on the ground.

But he didn't notice the ones on the headlights....hehe!

Wuv...twoo wuv....

2009-04-13T16:38:00.000-07:00

So this last weekend we made the trek up to St. George, Utah to see the wedding of one of Anthony's best friends.

Up until this time I had only driven past the temple in St. George, so I was very excited to be able to walk around the temple grounds, and of course, go inside! I hadn't been to a sealing (other than my own) so it was a new experience, but it was absolutley beautiful!

I've always known Quinn was a great guy, so I'm so glad he found Candice. Although I wasn't able to spend long with her, and most of that time was setting up for the reception, she's awesome. Anthony and I are really hoping they move here, because they would be great friends to have nearby!

Here's Mr. and Mrs. Fowler!

See, I like Candice and know we would be perfect friends regardless of anything else, just because she can wear hot pink shoes.

Aren't they so cute together?!

Candice and the boys...

Quinn and the boys....um....yeah....that's hot....

Marriage is great. And I'm so glad that Quinn and Candice just joined the best club on Earth! Congratulations you two!!!

New Adventures!

2009-03-31T18:14:00.000-07:00

So, now that the house is mostly done, I've been feeling like I'm not overworking myself.

And so while we were in Chicago I thought to myself, "Self, you're not pushing yourself to the point that you're only getting 3 hours of sleep per night. This can't do! What can we do to fill up more of our time?"

That's when the thought came to me: real estate school!

Anthony and I know several people that are moving in and around Phoenix over the next few months, so I figured that I might as well get paid for helping them out! Plus, then I can be in control of everything, and as everyone knows, I'm a bit of a control freak.

So my new life schedule for the next month is like this:

5:00AM - Wake up
5:30AM - Boot Camp
7:00AM - Get ready for work
8:00AM - Work
5:00PM - Finish work
6:00PM - Real estate class
10:00PM - Finish class
11:00PM - Go to bed (hopefully...)

:)

The Windy City

2009-03-30T16:46:00.000-07:00

We had yet another fun trip this last weekend : to Chicago!

That's where my dad and both of his parents grew up, and my grandmother still lives out that way, so we wanted to go out and see her. She actually lives in Peoria, which is about 3 hours outside of Chicago, but since I hadn't been to the city since I was 10 years old, I wanted to spend a day there and be a nerdy tourist!

The day was crazy. We visited the Adler Planetarium, Shedd Aquarium, Field Museum, and Sears Tower all in one hectic day, then drove out to Peoria that night.

But man, it was fun!

#1: Adler Planetarium

2009-03-30T16:30:00.000-07:00

Probably the coolest part of the planetarium was going into this big domed theater and seeing a rendition of the actual night sky. We learned where to find all of the different constellations, the milky way, planets, etc. I've always loved astronomy, so this was a real treat for me! I learned a ton!

The whole place was actually a museum of anything sky-related and there were these huge models of the different planets hanging from the ceiling:

Anthony and I took a picture of ourselves standing in front of the sun - because we're just that hot! LOL!

Out on the balcony (if you can stand the frigid air coming off the lake) there is also a great view of the Chicago skyline. You don't see much of that in AZ!

#2: Shedd Aquarium

2009-03-30T16:20:00.000-07:00

Our second stop of the day was the Shedd Aquarium. This had a lot of really good displays, but for whatever reason, it was so crowded there. I think every elementary school in Chicago had a field trip there that day. It was insane. So I tried to take a bunch of cool pictures of everything I could, and then we got out. LOL.

Most of the fish pictures didn't turn out very well because they just refused to sit still and I couldn't use a flash in the displays. Some other pictures came out great though!

This crab was awesome. It was right at the top of the water so it looked like a big giant double-crab!

Then there was the crocodile:

And a giant snake! Here's just the skin...

The snake (an anaconda) was a little camera shy, but I caught a couple shots of it. Its body is about the thickness of my thigh!

This fishy kept looking like it was trying to kiss Anthony through the glass! It would follow his face whenever he moved. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a good shot of it. It was absolutley hilarious though!

There was a cool display with some tiny frogs too. This one's body was about the size of my thumb nail!

And finally, can you spot the chameleon?

There it is!

#3: Field Museum

2009-03-30T16:10:00.000-07:00

Although it wasn't as cool...or alive... as "Night at the Museum," I really enjoyed going to the Field Museum.

There was a ton to see here! Unfortunately, we didn't have time to see everything.

I kept picturing what it might be like if the dinosaur came to life...

And then took on these elephants, because they didn't look to happy to begin with.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the head on the t-rex isn't real. It's completely fake. The real head is upstairs because it weighs over 600 lbs and was too heavy to mount! Gosh, and I thought I worried about my weight!

I guess I am glad that the dinosaur didn't come to life, because I wouldn't want to see these teeth coming after me!

When we got there, we were kinda bummed out, because the pirates display was completely sold out. But our tickets gave us admission to one of the special non-permanent exhibits, so by default we got the "underground exhibit."

Now, this musuem must be getting some fantastic funding, because after we went down to the basement to the exhibit, they had this special machine set up that shrunk us down to about 3/4 of an inch tall so that we could explore in the dirt and see what it was really like to be a bug (and I don't like bugs...). It wasn't quite as spectacular a procedure as what Wayne Szalinski put together all those years ago, but it was completely painless, and I was glad that my taxpayer money is going toward something cool, rather than just new streets and fighting wars and all that.

Anyway, we enter into this underground exhibit, and the first thing I see is...

Yeah, a wolf spider, the size of my freaking couch. I don't like them when I'm human-sized, so it kinda freaked me out being only 3/4 of an inch tall. I'm actually surprised I remained calm enough to take this picture. Especially since it moved. Toward me.

Then Anthony and I had a chance to see what we would look like as little bugs. It was kind of a thing for kids, but I still fit. Anthony...well...he tried...

After some more playing in the dirt, we decided it was time to be our normal size again (although I swear the machine made me just a little taller...not that I have any complaints!)

The next stop was the Ancient Egypt exhibit - my favorite bit of history! On the way though, there was a stuffed gorilla, with a plaster mold of its palm print. Here's Anthony's hand in comparison:

I always knew he had gorilla hands.

Here's my hand:

Yeah, I have little baby hands.

Anyway, so we were off to Ancient Egypt!

What I wasn't quite prepared for was the real mummies in the glass cases. Once I got over the fact that they were actually 2000 year old dead bodies, they were somewhat fascinating.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of this statue, just to let Prinx know that if he had lived 2000 years ago, he'd be worshiped as a god. He already thinks he is anyway.

Here's a random picture of Anth and I walking down the hallway:

There were a lot of other interesting little exhibits in the musuem, and I took far too many pictures to upload, but here are some other highlights:

A lion:

Some butterflies:

Some mayan guy:

And a couple totem poles (reminded me of Alaska):

#4: The Sears Tower

2009-03-30T16:03:00.000-07:00

Our final adventure was going up to the top of the Sears Tower! The top floor was actually closed, so there wasn't a whole lot to do, but we still had an amazing view from the almost-top floor!

The Sears Tower is the tallest skyscraper in the US and the 4th tallest in the world! And we found out when we were there that it was bought out and will be renamed this summer as the Willis Tower (so we made sure to get some "sears tower" branded stuff).

Visiting the Powell Fam

2009-03-30T15:58:00.000-07:00

The remainder of the trip in Chicago was spent visiting with family. All of my dad's family lives out in Peoria, IL.

Isn't my grandma so gorgeous?

Oh, and check out this dog driving a car! Yeah, only in the midwest...

Before leaving, my dad took us by the homes where my great grandparents lived! It was incredible to see them.

And nearby was the church where my grandparents were married. I'd never been able to get that glimpse of family history before, and it was absolutely wonderful!

SNOW!!!

2009-03-30T15:49:00.000-07:00

Now, being from Arizona, the actual highlight of the trip was waking up to see this:

It had been about 3 years since I had seen a real snowfall, so it was very exciting for me. Anthony wasn't quite so thrilled (he lived in Utah for several years) but I was just like a little kid!

Look at how awesome my dad is - we're visiting at his brother's house, and he wakes up early to shovel the driveway for them! I love my daddy!

I jumped right out of bed when I saw the snow and quickly got dressed and ran outside to play! My dad and I even built a snowman together - my first snowman in at least 10 years!

Then Anthony finally got his lazy butt outside, and we were prepared with an ambush! He and my dad had a snowball fight! My dad was a serious machine - he was like the thing at the batting cages that shoots the balls out - it was just snowball after snowball after snowball!

I love snow! I don't ever want to live in it, but I love to visit it!

Luke Days

2009-03-22T13:24:00.000-07:00

This weekend was so much fun!

Not only were Ambre and my fantabulous Mother-In-Law in town, but we had the Phoenix Air Show at Luke Airforce Base!

My parents were both in the Air Force, so I grew up around planes, in the hangars, on base, etc. However, I hadn't been to an air show since we moved from Alaska about 14 years ago!

Bekah and I stumbled across the info on the show just a few weeks ago and were thrilled to see that not only was the show only a few weeks out, but that it was free too! Can life get any better? I submit that it cannot!

It was absolutely amazing (other than the fact that I could barely walk from bootcamp on Friday).

Here's pictures of us just hanging out at the show:

Somehow my dad and Jonathan managed to avoid being in the pictures....

The highlight of the show was definitely the Thunderbirds. They're really just a recruiting tool for the Air Force, but man, can they fly! I was actually surprised at the pictures my camera was able to take - it was really sunny, so I could hardly see anything on the screen, and they were going by so fast that it was almost impossible at times to follow them with just the camera. But I got some good shots:

Afterward, Anthony told me that he wanted to join the Air Force so he could fly like that.

I said no.

But I certainly wouldn't mind flying in one of those planes!

Oh, and you can check out some more pics that my dad took here: http://www.powell-az.us/luke%20afb%202009/

Must...kill....Jamie........

2009-03-20T17:11:00.000-07:00

And I would if I could muster up the energy to do so...but I can't.

Yeah, bootcamp kicks your butt.

We just finished day 1.

Ambre threw up 3 times. (Now, this isn't entirely abnormal for her, but it means we worked out hard.)

Oh yeah, and I can't exactly walk right now. And that was just this morning.

I can't wait to see how I feel tomorrow.

Or maybe I can.

But I can't wait to see how I look after a month of this!

It's booty time!

2009-03-19T18:05:00.000-07:00

As in, it's not booty time...

As in, let's get rid of my booty time...

My good friend Jamie is this awesome personal trainer and he has a boot camp that he holds three times per week. I hear it is grueling and that I want to kill him afterwards.

Well, Ambre and I are going to try it.

We just took our before pictures (these will not be displayed until there are some far better after pictures. Sorry, folks!)

We start tomorrow - I'll let you know how it goes!

Here Comes Ambre!

2009-03-18T14:11:00.000-07:00

Now that the room is painted, we needed to have a place for Ambre to sleep. We always knew that her room would be a guest room, but we haven't had any guests in the last 3 months, so we never needed to do anything with it. So it was a collect-random-things-that-don't-have-any-other-logical-place-to-go-just-yet room. This included a very large stack of mattresses (when we bought the house there were some fake mattresses left over from the model home days and we weren't sure if we should throw them away or not).

So the first problem was the bed. We didn't have a ton of money to spend on a bed, and we knew that she wasn't going to be staying forever, so we needed to come up with an economical option that still allowed the room to feel like home.

After several different ideas, I thought, "hey, why don't I just make one!"

Now, in the past, I've always had this idea with everything I've ever come across. But typically it didn't work out. My imagination far supercedes any talent that I have in creating things.

But now I have Anthony.

I'm typically the brains, and he is the brawn.

Actually, I'm the dreamer, and he just makes it all work out. He can tell me "yes, that will work" or "no, we'll probably have to do it like this."

So as I'm sitting in sacrament meeting, I drew up the plans to build a headboard for Ambre's new bed. And I didn't want it to be too easy, of course, so I made sure to have decorative gaps and some bamboo panels - since Ambre lived in Hawaii, I wanted to do an island theme in the room.

All of the materials cost about $50. We bought all the wood from Home Depot: a single finished 4x4 cut in half, a finished 4x1, a finished 2x1, some MDF backing, nails, and dark walnut stain. The bamboo panels were actually a table runner from Target cut into 3 pieces.

Then, all my Ikea furniture building experiences came into good use. Here's the finished product:

And a close-up:

Once we had the headboard in place, we put the finishing touches on the room, adding some new pictures and accessories, as well as my new favorite love - houseplants!

Welcome to Arizona, Ambre!

Another Painting Project

2009-03-15T16:00:00.000-07:00

I love to paint!

Did I stress that enough yet?

So, I am very excited also for my darling sis-in-law Ambre to move to AZ! She'll be staying with us for the next few months at least while she gets a job, looks for a husband, etc! LOL! (Anyone know any really hot single guys?!)

And as excited as I am for her to come down, I was also thrilled at the prospect of painting another room in my house! Since it was a model home, all of the rooms were painted in some way. Most of them we were quite happy with, but not the guest room.

Here is the before picture:

Yeah, teal and brick red. I mean, who comes up with a color combination like that?! And this was after we had taken down the, um, dragonfly valence over the window and added the bamboo shade and red panels.

Well, I had another option to flex my design muscles and create this into a beautiful living space. I loved the striping, just not the colors, so I decided to only paint over the blue. I taped off right over the red lines and then used a sealant to make sure the tape didn't come off or have any bleed through.

Then we picked out two nice neutral shades of brown, just slightly apart in darkness. First, I painted the lighter color solid over the blue. Then I added a glaze to the darker color and sponged it over the entire thing. Unfortunately, the glaze lightened the darker color just enough that it was hardly noticeable over the other paint - although it did darken slightly when it dried. So, I got creative and sporadically sponged the darker color without the glaze on a few places.

Now the room looks much better:

My garden

2009-03-14T15:55:00.000-07:00

My latest passion, even though I know nothing about it, is gardening. I just love the idea of being able to watch something grow. I'm just so excited about the idea.

So Anthony bought me a ton of plants! Both edible and ones that were just pretty.

It's a good thing we had the truck now, because even with it, this is what we had:

This morning I set up all the plants where I want them to go. I'll have more time to plant them all tomorrow. I'm really excited though!

The Green Giant

2009-03-10T17:14:00.000-07:00

I just have to take a quick moment here and let you know that I am a pretty dang awesome wife.

Why, do you ask?

Well, if you didn't already know, then this is why:

Yes, I let my husband buy that thing.

Oh, and that thing is a 1971 Toyota Land Cruiser FJ40, or, as I like to call it, the monster. The thing is huge! And practically older than both of us combined.

But it is the new love of my husband's life. And so I consented to let him buy it and work on it. It's actually in pretty decent shape for how old it is. Besides, it will definitely come in handy for going camping, off-roading, hauling things, etc. The civic and lexus can't do that!

Plus, I have a very happy husband.

The Yard

2009-03-07T17:41:00.000-08:00

With most of the work finished inside the house, and with hot weather approaching, its time to get our yard fixed up. We don't have a big one, but it's perfect for what we need.

I love before and after pictures, and unfortunately, I wasn't able to take any "before" pictures before the cleaning crew came in (we've had a lot of spider issues, and I wasn't about to start to pull out weeds knowing what could be hiding in there...$150 was well worth it!!!)

I only have one picture from the original listing of the house:

And when it was done, it looked like this:

Next step: gardening! I'm so excited!!!

More House Updates

2009-02-10T18:01:00.000-08:00

And now, for your enjoyment, here are a few more updated pics of the house!

House Update!

2009-02-01T11:52:00.000-08:00

We're almost done! It's been so much work, but definitely all worth it! I am completely and totally in LOVE with our house!

A friend of mine recommended a great little place (unfortunately, it was only a temporary gig) that was selling off model home inventory - furniture and accessories - for really cheap. We found some fantastic deals there for artwork and little decor pieces. We didn't spend a whole lot, but were able to get some cool pieces of decor that I wouldn't normally have spent money on - like some fake books and candlesticks and a decorative bird cage. They look great in the house - very unique!

Here's our dining room now:

And the kitchen:

Although our bedroom isn't completely finished, I did find a great addition at Target, no less - the vinyl lettering! I absolutely love vinyl lettering and they happened to have the exact phrase that I had been wanting to put over our bed! I think it looks wonderful!

And finally, long before we even found "the" house, I found a picture of some curtains that I absolutley loved and wanted to re-create once we were in a new place:

Obviously we weren't going to be having a house quite that upscale, but I loved the look of the curtains. When we found our house, I realized that I just might be able to use that look in the living room! Unfortunately, when I was pricing out the curtains at Bed Bath and Beyond, I realized that the floor length panels (not even long enough to bunch up at the bottom like in the picture) were about $120 each and I needed eight of them! Not to mention the hardware, tassels, etc.

I was devastated.

But then, I got a fantastic idea - I got a sewing machine last year! I could make them! After pricing the fabric out at JoAnn's, I realized that I could not only use far better quality fabric and make them black-out curtains, but also the whole project would only cost about $250 and a few hours at my sewing machine. Sold!

Here's how it turned out:

Not too shabby, if I do say so myself!

House Project 5: Backsplash

2009-01-18T17:24:00.000-08:00

The big finishing touch for the major remodeling part of the kitchen was the backsplash. See, in in installing the new cabinets and granite, they didn't quite line up to where the original ones were. Our cabinets are actually about a quarter inch deeper than the old ones, and we didn't want to risk ruining the travertine tiles when we cut a quarter inch deeper into them to fit in the cabinets (because we didn't have anything to replace them with unless we redid the whole house), so instead of just putting the cabinets on the ground, we actually floated them over the ground and attached them to the wall, just like the upper cabinets. However, this meant that they were now a quarter inch taller than the other cabinets.

Then, on top of that, Anthony wanted really big thick granite on top, and a big lip over the edge, so we needed to elevate the counters even more to make sure that we'd still be able to open our drawers after installing the countertops.

So our counters ended up about an inch or so higher than the originals. This meant that the tile backsplash still attached to the wall wouldn't work anymore - we'd be cutting into the pattern, and it wouldn't look right.

It took a lot of creativity, but we were able to find a pattern that worked and allowed us to keep some of the existing tile still in place.

This was a very very very long project. We started Saturday morning and didn't get to finish until about 3AM on Sunday. And that was just the first part of it.

Here's how the main part came out:

Now, our kitchen counters extend through the dining room, giving us a great buffet/serving area. Unfortunately, the cabinets that had originally been there were not a standard size. They were far shallower than standard lower cabinets and didn't have drawers. The original plan was to take off the backsplash in the buffet area and move it up a few inches, so that it meshed with the rest of the backsplash in the kitchen, while still showing a clear distinction. But we forgot that we were also adding depth, and we were about 6 inches short on tile.

The pattern that we used in the kitchen was far too expensive to take all the way down the room, plus it would look too busy.

So after sleeping and recovering from our endless hours of work on Saturday, I had a brilliant idea.

Unfortunately, my idea was very complicated.

I took the leftover tiles from the border (the long white-ish pieces) and then picked out some leftover scraps from the pattern (the black and tan ivory squares) where we had cut out room for wall sockets, and hand-pieced together a 6 inch border for the remaining buffet area.

Then, since it didn't seem finished off, we took a piece of flat crown molding and I painted it gold, then made a black glaze and applied it for an antiquing technique, and then painted the edges solid black, to distinguish it from the brown walls.

Here's how it looked:

It took soooo long to do, but I absolutely LOVE how it turned out!

The First Meal

2009-01-11T21:41:00.000-08:00

We just had our countertops installed. Finally, after almost two weeks of living in our new, beautiful house, we can use our kitchen!

So what do we do?

We cook a fantastic gourmet meal, of course! What else do Mauro's do?

House Project 4: Plumbing

2009-01-08T10:18:00.000-08:00

I absolutely love my husband. He is the most talented guy I think I have ever met. When you meet him, you'd think he was kind of a pretty boy, a jock that thinks he's joe cool, but he just knows so much! Throughout the entire house process, he never ceased to amaze me.

Here's just one example: he installed the plumbing for our kitchen sink all by himself, and it worked perfectly on the first try. He just went to home depot, bought everything he needed (he didn't even really have to ask anyone what to get) and put it together. Voila! A fully functioning kitchen sink!

If you join the Mauro Clan...

2009-01-06T19:49:00.000-08:00

...You develop very odd tendencies.

And this applies to animals as well.

Take my cat for instance. He is a very strange little monster. He has all of these really weird fetish phases that he goes through. For a while it was twistie ties. Then it was Anthony's brown sweater. Not just any sweater, this one brown one. We would come home from work and find that he had dug it out of a pile of laundry and drug it into the other room for whatever reason (but he never put it away. I need to work on his cleaning skills).

Well, right now it is q-tips.

Yes, q-tips.

He loves it when we throw them away and accidentally miss the trash can, because then he'll run in and bat them around the floor for hours on end!

And then he discovered that we kept the glorious q-tips in the cabinet under the sink and would whine and scratch at the cabinet to try to get at the q-tips!

And then today, when I came home, this is what I found:

My dear Prinxie had hit the jackpot.

House Project 3: Installing Cabinets

2009-01-02T12:30:00.000-08:00

Well, the next step in putting the house together was to get some cabinets in there! Kind of an important feature in a kitchen...

We found this great mail-order site for cabinets, and the pictures looked really nice, so in the interest of saving money, we thought we'd take a gamble and try them out. It tured out to be a good thing, since they not only looked great, but were about 1/3 of the price of the cheapest "discount wholesale dealer" in town.

So within a week of ordering them, we got a call from the shipping company saying that they had about 17,000 lbs of cabinets waiting for us to come pick them up! (We got free shipping if we had them delivered to a certain place in Phoenix). Just the boxes alone took up the entire front room! It was insane!

By the way, we have some fantastic friends that came out and made the experience far more enjoyable and helped us get it done very quickly!

House Project 2: Painting

2008-12-30T20:56:00.000-08:00

So the first project we had once we made it inside the house (apart from cleaning the place up - it was ridiculously dirty, including dead bugs everywhere and tons of construction-related dirt) was to tear down the totally awesome pineapple print wallpaper and apply a beautiful new coat of paint!

Here's what the kitchen looked like after taking the wallpaper down. This took quite some time, since it took us about 3 hours to figure out the actual technique and were hacking away at taking down little square inches of paper for about a third of the wall space. Then we discovered how it was really supposed to be done, and finished in about another 45 minutes. Yeah, that was exciting.

I absolutely love to faux paint, so we decided to try a new technique - venitian plaster. This requires a flat wall without texture, and since we had kinda torn up the drywall anyway in taking down the wallpaper, we needed to replaster everything.

This was sooo messy! Especially the sanding part. You can't really tell in this picture, but my hair was almost completely white!

Anthony picked out the color, and I was a little worried at first. I thought it was too dark.

This was also a very tedious process. You have to apply everything by hand with a small trowel. With the color and thickness of the paint, I felt like I was wiping brownie batter on my walls. It didn't taste nearly as good though.

My dad helped a ton in the painting process. He had never done any faux painting before, but he's a perfectionist like me, so I trusted his abilities :). I really wouldn't have been able to finish it all without him.

After the first coat, we were still a little worried about how it would look after we were done. It was so uneven and splotchy! I didn't want to say anything, but after it was all done, we both admitted we were quite worried throughout the entire second coat.

Here's a detailed shot of the walls after the first coat. You can really see the texture, but you can tell that its just not super pretty!

After it was done, I LOVED it! My walls look like someone smoothed some creamy milk chocolate on them! I can still just look at them and stare for hours and hours! I'm so happy with how it turned out. I could tell my dad really liked it too.

I love faux painting!!!

A Very Merry Maurffin Christmas

2008-12-26T19:51:00.000-08:00

Since our new house wasn't ready yet for decorating for Christmas and our old house was in the process of being packed up, our very good friends Jonathan and Bekah were kind enough to let us celebrate Christmas with them. We spent Christmas Eve at their house and all of us opened presents together on Christmas morning. (FYI: Mauro + Griffin = Maurffin...or it could be Griffo...)

This is Bekah's beautiful Christmas tree. My camera battery was packed somewhere, so I only had my cell phone to take pictures with, hence the fact that I'm missing half of the tree (the zoom feature isn't all that fantastic). Bekah even let me help decorate the tree since I was so sad I didn't have one to decorate.

Zilli got in on some Christmas action...isn't she so pretty? This shot took like 15 tries because she wasn't too pleased with a bow being stuck on her head, and it just didn't stick all that well anyway, LOL!

Here is Bekah and Jonathan!

And they wanted to make sure we had something under the tree, so they bought us some new weapons to use against eachother when we argue - Nerf guns!

Jonathan was getting very tired from unwrapping gifts. All the paper around him is from ONE present from his sister-in-law!

Zilli really wanted to participate, so after unwrapping everything, we decided to wrap her up. So pretty! She puts up with so much crap from us - I love this dog!

House Project 1: Shopping

2008-12-23T06:42:00.000-08:00

So of course, after finding out that our offer was accepted on the house, we instantly had to go to work buying everything that we needed to fix it up. We set our budget, and I itemized every single thing we would need for the house - things like the appliances, countertops, cabinets, sink, garbage disposal, ceiling fan, dining room light, entry light, blinds, curtains, paint, tools, etc. I had never really thought about how much goes into a kitchen before this (since everywhere else I've gone has already had a kitchen in place), so this was a big learning experience for me.

It was fun, too, of course! I think my favorite part was picking out the granite. When we bought our other house, the event of picking the granite consisted of the salesman giving us a card with about 10 different 2-inch squares of granite on it as samples that we could choose from. Custom granite is much different. We went into the warehouse and, after putting on our hard hats, were greeted with a selection about like this:

I didn't even know where to start! They were all so beautiful! Granite absolutely amazes me. Seeing all of the slabs, there are so many different variations! Plus, granite by itself is so ugly! If you look at the backs of the pieces, they are dull and boring. It is only after the polishing that you get those beautiful colors. And, in case you were wondering, granite varies enormously in cost, depending on where it comes from, the colors that are in it, and other factors. Some pieces are only $4 a square foot, whereas others can be over $30 a square foot. (Our first choice, of course, ended up being about $26 a square foot, so we had to pick another...)

Our granite looks a little bit like this:

We are so excited to get our new kitchen started!

The Best Christmas Present EVER

2008-12-22T21:38:00.000-08:00

Finally, after several months (and multiple offers placed) we found our house! We actually weren't completely sure on the house, because of the amount of work that it needed, but it was priced accordingly and still way under market value and was in the exact neighborhood that we wanted to live in. Plus, despite the work that we would have to put into the house, it had plenty of other upgrades that we love, like 9 ft ceilings and 8 ft doors, full built-in surround sound throughout the entire house, an amazing floor plan, giant laundry room, travertine floors, crown molding in some rooms, beautiful carpet, etc.

Most of the work had to be done in the kitchen. What we found out was that the house was a former model home, but the builder had walked on the property and foreclosed on everything. That's all we know for sure, but we've speculated that since the subcontractors weren't being paid, they decided to come in and take their work back. So everything that could go...went! This means they took the appliances, cabinets, countertops, shutters, etc. The only thing left were the place settings from the table (with the plates still all glued together from the set-up). Then they broke a window to make it look like someone tried to break in - the only problem is that they broke the window out instead of in. So much for smart criminals.

Anyway, fortunately for us, they didn't do as much damage as some of the foreclosed homes we've seen where people take the light fixtures, door hardware, doors themselves, carpet, etc. They managed to leave several curtains up, all of the ceiling fans with the exception of one, and left all of the speakers and cables in place.

Well, here are the pictures of the kitchen from when we first purchased the home:

And this is our original concept design of how we wanted the kitchen to eventually look:

Stay tuned for updates as we progress through the remodel! Merry Christmas to US!

A Year in Review

2008-12-21T16:09:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately, I haven't been very good about keeping up with this blog. Life has just been so busy! So, to catch everyone up, I'll review the entire year, month by month! Enjoy!

JANUARY

2008-12-21T12:20:00.000-08:00

We started the year out visiting the Mauro Clan up in Portland! We had a fantastic time visiting everyone and playing with fireworks (not illegal there like in AZ!).

We also were able to visit our favorite restaurant:

Here they have the most AMAZING (and ridiculously ginormous) pancakes:

The Mauro family has been coming here for generations! Whenever we come here, we practically take up the whole place. Here is everyone that came this time:

The whole trip was a lot of fun, and spent time playing with Andre's new Wii (we brought our DDR mat with us! We're such dorks!) and also just taking some random pictures!

After coming home, it was right to work! Working for Conn-Selmer, I had the biggest event of the year - the Namm Show - one of the largest trade shows in the entire world!

Since the show was held in Anaheim, which was my territory, I had the pleasure of organizing a good portion of the show. I spent 12 hours per day making sure everything went well in the booth, while meeting with dozens of customers, and then each evening was filled with dinners and performances. After the 5 day long event, I was exhausted!

Anthony also came for the weekend, and gave me a great deal of support.

FEBRUARY

2008-12-21T12:15:00.000-08:00

Apparently, this was a very boring month, because I have no pictures and can't remember a single thing that we did other than work. :)

MARCH

2008-12-21T12:05:00.000-08:00

In March, life picked up again. First of all, it marked the milestone of our greatest obsession yet: Twilight. Anthony actually read the books first, and I resisted, but then after hearing how much he liked them (and he doesn't even like to read!) and hearing from just about everyone else I knew how great the books were, I decided to give them a shot - and then finished them all in a matter of days!

Anthony had some time off, so he came out to California again with me, and we decided to have some fun together. We thought about going to Midieval Times (it had been several years since either of us had been there) but while researching the times and prices, I came across this other dinner show about Pirates! It was so much fun!

Here is us with our Pirate, Jack!

Here's a picture from the show:

Anthony even got a chance to participate - he was brought up on state as a captive and got a chance to show off his amazing acting skills.

Check out this sexy Pirate!

We also decided to venture down to the Santa Monica Pier for lunch in between a few of my dealer visits. I had never been before, and we weren't exactly dressed for the beach, but we had a great time.

I'm always amazed at how much bigger his feet are than mine! I mean, my big toe is about the size of his pinky toe!

APRIL

2008-12-21T12:00:00.000-08:00

In April, Anthony turned 26! Unfortunately, I was gone practically the entire month, traveling for work. For two full weeks, I travelled throughout Southern California with a group called Synergy Brass. These guys are CRAZY, but a lot of fun. They perform more than any other group in the world, often having multiple performances every single day while they are on tour (which is 11 months out of the year). They travel from high school to high school performing in assemblies and helping kids get excited about music and appreciate the classics.

Anthony left his job at Verizon in order to search out a new career path, so he was able to join me once again in California. We stayed with his Aunt and Uncle in Palm Springs, and while there, I delivered this special surprise package:

Anthony had no idea what was inside, and the box was very heavy. When he opened it up.....

His little brother and sister had secretly flown down from Portland to visit him! Together with Ian, their cousin, we all went to Six Flags for a day! Unfortunately, we decided to go on a Saturday, so there were terribly long lines, but we amused ourselves plenty well as we waited.

By the way, we are a dang hot couple!

After a long day of fun, we came back to Linda's for some birthday ice cream!

Everyone could only stay for the weekend, but before I made it back home, I was able to spend a little time down in La Jolla, one of my favorite places on earth!

MAY

2008-12-21T11:55:00.000-08:00

Our hectic life continued into May as well. At this point, knowing that we had our big trip coming up in only a month, we were desperately attempting to lose that glorious "freshman 15" from our bellies, hips, and thighs (well, his belly, my hips and thighs....and belly, and arms, and back, and every other freaking place that fat decided to deposit itself....). Anyway, we started a vigorous workout regimen that included hiking Camelback Mountain several times. On one occasion, we took decided to bring our friends, the Glenn family along for the ride!

(Kinzie was really the one that got to ride though...)

Camelback is actually pretty tough (especially for those as out of shape as we all were), but the view on top is unbeatable - 360 degrees of city views - you can see for miles and miles! This shot is of part of downtown Phoenix.

And here is everyone that actually made it to the top - yes, a 5 year old did it (and yes, she complained even less than I did!)

Later in the month, Anthony joined me (once again) for a trip to California, but this time it was up the northern coast. With all the travel I was doing, I qualified in April for a companion pass through Southwest, which lets him fly free with me an unlimited number of times, whether we pay for my flight or not. I just have to be on the flight with him. I don't know what I would do without Southwest. They are the best airline ever.

We started our trek in San Francisco, and played the tourist card visiting Chinatown, where we actually went to the factory where they make all the fortune cookies! (Ok, maybe not all of them, but something like 2000 per day!)

Anthony made sure everyone in Chinatown was aware of his favorite pasttime...

And then, while driving up in the middle of nowhere, we came across evidence that there are others who share a love for his other favorite pasttime....(but seriously, this was the most random thing I think I have ever seen in my entire life!)

I had one account to visit in a little town called Fortuna, CA - about 4 hours north of San Francisco and 4 hours south of the Oregon border (so basically, 4 hours away from anything at all). Fortuna is in Humboldt county, which is the Marijuana capital of the world. But, despite everyone being perpetually high there, we got a chance to see some amazing scenery. I took about 100 pictures/day, so I'm only posting the best ones.

My favorite thing was the redwood forests. These trees were HUGE!

We even got a chance to climb on top of one, and I even did it in stilettos. Yes, I am that talented.

After that, we travelled just a bit further up the coast to a black sand beach.

We wanted to go back down to the beach that evening, but it was pretty foggy, so we decided against it. The thing with redwood trees is that their bark is actually poisonous, so there are no bugs. And no bugs = no animals to eat the bugs. So there is nothing but trees. Now picture the following:

Swirling fog so thick you can only see a few feet in front of you, it is getting increasingly darker, and the only noise for what seems like miles is a few trees creaking in the breeze. Yeah, it was pretty, but it was also kind of creepy. So we waited until morning, and then went down to look for cool rocks.

Then we drove in from the coast to Redding, and found some more amazing scenic spots.

And....then I got bored with driving so much that I made Anthony take over so I could take some super cool shots of myself with my glamour sunglasses.

Just after we got back to Phoenix, another couple we're friends with invited us to go out hiking and 4 wheeling in southern AZ.

Jonathan almost died, but Bekah saved him. He has such a good wife.

We did some pretty intense climbing.

It was a really pretty canyon that we were in. It was just too hot. And the beauty of this picture is that you can't see all the hundreds of thousands of flies that would cling to your body anytime you stopped moving for more than a milisecond. Sometimes you had to do this funny little dance while you walked and slapped the flies off your neck, arms, and legs all at the same time. They were everywhere. If you didn't move for a full minute, they would cover every square inch of your skin. But isn't this view pretty?

On our way back to the car, I had to save Bekah. Doesn't she look terrified? Good thing I had been working out.

We even made a new friend on the trip, but Anthony wouldn't let me bring him home.

And we topped the day off with some serious 4 wheeling. And no, we didn't get stuck for an hour 3 separate times and nearly run out of water to the point that by the time we made it to the first gas station outside the canyon that we all just about passed out on the floor from dehydration. No, that didn't happen at all.

JUNE

2008-12-21T11:30:00.000-08:00

(I'm going to have to apologize up front for how long this post will be, but there's a lot of pictures I want to show. So enjoy!)

June was the height of the year for us and our whirlwind lives. It was my very favorite month, and not just because it was my birthday!

And yet, it was my birthday...I turned 24 this year, and my husband planned the most amazing weekend for me.

We started out the morning of my birthday by going to the temple. It was the most amazing experience ever, and I'm so glad that my husband was there to share it with me.

Making it even better, my mom and my two best girlfriends were able to be there as well! Bekah and Tashia both took time off work to spend the day with me! I am so lucky to have them as friends!

Then, my husband actually did the unthinkable and actually arranged a surprise party for me! He has never been able to pull off any sort of surprise for me, not because I snoop around, but because he always gets too excited and gives it away. But this time he did! And I was definitely surprised!

Even Zilli got in on the fun and got all dolled up for the occasion!

There were actually a lot of people that showed up. I don't have any pictures of Shelbie there, because she was our photographer extraordinaire!

Here's a great picture Shelbie took of me and my most favorite person ever!

And a picture of me and my most favorite 2 year old ever!

Later in the month came the trip that I had been waiting over a year for! HAWAII! The trip actually almost didn't come at all - with all of my frequent flier miles, I had been saving up with Southwest to get a couple free flights to Hawaii via ATA Airlines. Unfortunately, about six weeks before we were scheduled to leave, ATA decided to go out of business, meaning we now had no free tickets to Hawaii. And since two other airlines that flew to Hawaii also decided they didn't want to fly anymore either, the price of flights skyrocketed to around $1200 each. It was a very stressful time, but fortunately, we were able to figure out a way to get some more frequent flier miles with United and get our tickets mostly paid for that way.

But even then, just getting to Hawaii was a nightmare. Flights were being cancelled left and right, and we didn't notice until all of the flights with the other airlines were completely booked. When we finally were able to make it onto a flight to San Diego and fly out the following evening, United offered to upgrade us to first class (which was fantastic, but spoiled us miserably!) I hoped that the same thing might happen on the way home (it would be much better to be stranded in Hawaii than at the San Diego Airport) but to no such luck.

Anyway, the experience in Hawaii was just paradise. I can't wait to go back as soon as I possibly can!

We spent as much time in the water as we could. The beaches were indescribable - perfect warm blue water.

I also learned how to snorkel, and I officially decided that snorkeling is just about my favorite thing to do in the whole world. I had to be dragged out of the water every day!

Anytime that we weren't in the water, we were goofing off on the beach.

...Or eating...

...Or practicing yoga in a giant tree...(the only reasonable thing to do in a giant tree)

We spent a full day at the Polynesian Cultural Center, which I absolutley loved.

We were also able to go to Pearl Harbor

And the beautiful Laie temple

It really was the best vacation ever. I don't know how we'll ever top it!

JULY

2008-12-21T11:25:00.000-08:00

Everything finally calmed down in July. The highlight was our 1 year anniversary! See pictures in the post back in that month that tells the whole story!

AUGUST

2008-12-21T11:15:00.000-08:00

Auguts brought more travels (are you sensing a theme here?)

Anthony came on a trip with me once again (thank you again Southwest for the wonderful free tickets!) and this time we went to Utah. I had a few businesses to visit there, but we were able to schedule the trip over a weekend so that we could spend time with family.

As we were flying, I took this great shot of the Grand Canyon:

Yay for us on the airplane!

But you know, I must admit that while in Utah, I fell for a really cute younger blonde. He was a bit of a show-off, wanting to show me all of his toys, and had an odd obsession with my shoes (or Anthony's shoes, or any shoes but his own), but man, he was some catch!

Payton will certainly be a heartbreaker someday! And he even has a new baby sister as of Septermber 4th. We haven't been able to meet little Emma yet, but we hope to do so soon!

After leaving Utah, I went solo to Northern California again and took some fun pictures. One of these days I'd love to get a really nice camera. Mine is great for snapshots, but I just love taking pictures of all kinds of things. The only problem is that I don't really like to spend money unnecessarily and I can't find a legitimate reason to spend $1000 on a camera. But spending less would be pointless, because I already have a pretty good camera. Ah, the dilemmas I go through.

SEPTEMBER

2008-12-21T11:10:00.000-08:00

September brought our lives to a crashing halt.

The day after Labor Day, I got a call from the President of Conn-Selmer, and was thrilled, thinking I was finally getting the promotion I had been waiting months for. But no. Instead, my "services were no longer needed" and my "position was being eliminated." I was out of a job.

Fortunately, Anthony had recently started working with an oil company based out of Scottsdale, so we need not worry right?

Wrong.

That afternoon, Anthony was called in to talk to his boss, who informed him that he didn't want to take the time necessary to train him anymore, so he was out.

And now we had no income.

So I did what any sensible girl would do in this circumstance. I cut off all of my hair.

It was a rough month, but we managed to still have fun. It rained a bunch, which brought some fun critters to our yard.

And I just wanted to include this picture because I think it is so dang cute - my two favorite boys!

OCTOBER

2008-12-21T11:00:00.000-08:00

In October, we both started out jobless....but that quickly changed! I was offered a position as a District Manager and Small Business Specialist with:

I sell payroll, HR services, worker's compensation, benefit packages, and other similar services to small businesses throughout the Gilbert/Queen Creek/Casa Grande/Maricopa area. The products aren't very exciting, but any business under 50 employees is a potential candidate, so some days I'm working with doctors offices and plumbers, the next I'm working with retail stores and restaurants - each day is different! So far, the job has been great!

A few weeks after that, Anthony landed an Account Executive position with:

He already has so much experience with the telecommunications industry, and now he's selling a cutting edge product to small and larger businesses consisting of VoIP technology! The company is quickly growing, and he is definitely enjoying this new adventure, although there is a lot to learn!

Although the month consisted of a lot of hard work (new jobs are always like that), we did find some time to break away with our friends and steal a few of our favorite kids to go to Schnepf Farms. I had never been there, but I'd heard about it several times. I don't know how much fun it would have been if we didn't have little kids with us, but we did have a great time.

By the end of the night we were so tired! And yet, I had my camera, so we started just taking a few random pictures, since the kids weren't ready to leave yet...

Yeah, we're that hot!

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

2008-12-21T10:55:00.000-08:00

November and December were both filled with a lot of long working hours, plus the project of our NEW HOUSE!

Pictures of the house will come soon!

Random Act of Kindness

2008-07-28T23:51:00.001-07:00

Tonight I was the victim of a random act of kindness. It really was completely random - no point at all to it, just someone being very nice!

I was on my way driving to San Diego for work, and decided to stop for dinner in Yuma. I was craving breadsticks and alfredo sauce, and since there really aren't many nice places to eat in Yuma, Olive Garden it was!

When I finished the delightful meal, my waitress brought me my Andes mints (the best part!) and said that I didn't need to pay, someone had already picked up my check! I asked her about it, and whoever it was had already left. It wasn't some guy trying to pick up on me, and she wouldn't say anything about who it really was. Someone had just seen that I was eating dinner all by myself and decided to pay for my meal for me. And that was that. I was completely blown away! They didn't want anything in return, they didn't try to talk to me or do anything. And I was dressed in business apparel, so I didn't look like a homeless girl trying to bum a meal. They just wanted to do something nice. It felt really great for me, so I hope they feel good as well.

And since I didn't have the opportunity to thank them for that wonderful bit of generosity, I'm going to try to find a way to pass it on to someone else this week. I don't know what I'll do exactly, but it feels right to give the gift to someone else now. Someone proved to me today that there still are great people out there who don't need a reason to help others. And I want to do that for someone else.

There are many reasons I love my husband...

2008-07-27T13:35:00.001-07:00

One of them is the fact that he can be a total "manly man" most of the time (sports, cars, body noises), but he's not afraid to do girly stuff with me, like watching chick flicks or getting a pedicure (don't tell him I said that online!) Yesterday he even helped me color my hair! He told me he had done this plenty of times and that he was practically a professional, although afterwards he changed his story a bit ("No, I said my mom made me help her with it, and I've never done long hair before!") Anyway, here are some pictures from our little adventure!

Here's my sexy stylist prepping my hair!

The artist is very meticulous with his work

Putting on the finishing touches!

And now the waiting game...I got a little messy...not my fault, I promise!

This is my "I'm really frustrated because I think I just dyed my hair way to dark" look

But in the end, it looks just fine!

Happy Anniversary!

2008-07-08T09:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was our 1 year anniversary! I can't believe it! It definitely doesn't seem like it has been a year already, but it really was a good year. There were ups and downs, for sure, but overall, I wouldnt' be anywhere else.

Even though we're a little low on cash right now (like every other newlywed couple...wait, can I still say newlywed?!?!?), Anthony saved up to take me to my absolute favorite restaurant: Mortons!

They were absolutely wonderful with everything for our special occasion. They prepared special menus just for our anniversary! We ordered the special: I had a petite filet and shrimp alexander (sooooo good!) and Anthony had a full filet and crab cakes and then we shared the steamed asparagus and mashed potatos. And if we weren't full with that, they gave us TWO hot chocolate cakes (my favorite thing in the whole world!) for desert!

And they took a picture and gave it to us in a special little frame!

Every single waitress or waiter or anybody working in the restaurant knew that it was our anniversary, so everyone kept coming by to congratulate us. It was just amazing, and proved to me how much I really love this place!

Loss of a friend

2008-06-18T22:54:00.000-07:00

I know I haven't updated this blog in a very long time and that a lot has gone on in the lives of the Mauros, but there is something outside of us that I want to write about.

Last week I learned that a good friend of mine, Travis Alexander, passed away. He was found murdered in his home.

I'm still in shock over this. First off, that he's gone, and second, that something so brutal could happen to someone I know. I haven't been as close to him recently, mostly because I'm married now, but it is still very difficult for me.

Travis was an amazing friend, an incredibly influential person. A couple years ago, I was introduced to him through some mutual friends who were roomates of his. For nearly an entire year, I was at his house several times a week. Not long after I met him, I fell on some very difficult times. I was in college and money was tight, and I was lacking the confidence to find a job to pull myself out of the situation. Travis offered to pay me to clean his house, run errands, and walk the dog. I spent a few months doing that for him. I helped paint his house, I washed his laundry, and in return, he not only paid me with money, but with knowledge. He got me addicted to personal development and audio books. As a matter of fact, I found some CDs a few weeks ago that belonged to him, and I was meaning to take them back to his house...

Much of who I am now is because of Travis. He inspired me to learn and grow every day. Every week he would have a "mastermind" group over at his house and would offer some kind of lesson or training. I loved listening to him speak. He could command the attention of everyone in the audience without even really trying. I wanted to be able to do that. I still want to be able to do that. I would study for hours and practice speaking in front of the mirror so that I could participate in the trainings. The best part about his training was that even though many of the people who came were of different religions, he would always figure out a way to work something in about gospel principles. It amazed me how casually, and yet how eloquently, he would teach about the gospel without anyone even knowing he was doing it.

And now he's gone. And I've seen far too many CSI epsiodes, so I keep picturing what I think it would have been like in my mind. I spent countless hours in his bedroom where he was found, I helped paint that room, so I know every last detail! I even slept in his bed while I was house-sitting for him back in the day. He was a strong guy - he was the one that started me on Body For Life, and even now when I think about healthy foods, there's always a little thought in the back of my mind, "would Travis have eaten this if it weren't cheat day?" So how could this have happened? My friend? Murdered?

The memorial service on Monday was beautiful. The spirit was strong, and I knew that Travis would continue to inspire and influence everyone in that room. The legacy that he left behind would live on.

And now I wonder that if I were to die tomorrow, what would be said about me at my funeral? I've been to funerals before where I haven't really known the person, and I've wondered if they were talking the person up. I've watched the news where family and friends talk about how shocked they are that so-and-so was killed because they were such a good person, and I've asked myself if they could really have been all that great if they got themselves into a situation where they were killed. But I knew that everything that was said about Travis was true.

Would people have that many wonderful things to say about me? What have I done to touch the lives of others? What have I done to change the world?

And so, I have decided that I will keep the memory of Travis alive by doing all that I can do be like him, to help others, to motivate and inspire and better the lives of everyone that I come in contact with.

If I can have even half of the comments left in his memory when I leave this earth, then I will consider my life a success.

To read more about Travis and to learn from his great wisdom, visit his blog at www.TravisAlexander.net

Money!

2008-02-26T09:29:00.000-08:00

So you know your life is way too intense when the most exciting thing you've done recently is your taxes. Woohoo. But hey, with how rich we are now, perhaps I can finish putting together my office at home. Or maybe I can get an ice cream cone. One of the two. Probably the latter.

I really want to put the office together though. I planned on cleaning it up today. I have instruments everywhere (I think right now its 3 saxophones, 5 violins, 4 drum kits, a french horn and an oboe), plus all of my promotional materials, price books, and the mail for the last 3 months (since somebody doesn't sort through it when I'm away on business and I never have time when I'm at home).

I suppose I should go start cleaning now. Today is my last day home for the next couple weeks. I'm going to SLC tomorrow, and then LA this weekend, and next week I'll be back in town on Wednesday but I'll be out in Phoenix all day every day after that. So much travel!

First Edition

2008-02-18T07:42:00.000-08:00

So I decided to finally join the world of blogging. Not like I need anything else to occupy my time, but I wanted something to keep in touch with family and friends and let them know what's going on in my life.

I'll start by way of an introduction to my little family.

This is me and my sexy husband Anthony:

And here are our "kids":

Zilli:

She is our gorgeous 5 year old golden retriever who will probably never really be older than a puppy! She's the best dog ever though - exceptionally well trained, a great cuddler, and the best foot warmer you'll ever meet.

And Prinx:

I rescued Prinx from a tire outside my old apartment in Gilbert. He was about the size of the palm of my hand at the time. He's about a year and a half old now, and it was just last summer that we finally realized that he's actually a boy. However, I am still convinced that he's a vampire.

Here's how our family began:

Anthony and I started dating May 12, 2006 after meeting at a roller skating rink. It was a big YSA Family Home Evening activity that neither of us was really invited to - I heard about it on myspace, and Anthony was tagging along with a couple of his friends. About halfway through the evening, he snuck up behind me and challenged me to a race. He completely caught me off guard, and as I was trying to find something to say to him, he thought I was blowing him off, so he just left. Later, my charming prince rescued his little damsel in distress as I attempted (very unsuccessfully, I might add) to skate backwards. He then asked me to race again, saying that if I won, he would take me to dinner, but if he won, I would have to buy him dessert. Of course I won (and he definitely did NOT let me win! LOL!), and so our first date was the following Friday night. We've been inseparable ever since (with the exception of a few little bumps along the way).

After dating for quite a while, we were married on July 7, 2007. It has been about 7 1/2 months since the wedding, and time definitely flies! At the present time, we are living in Queen Creek, AZ, in our beautiful little house (really, it is adorable, and if anyone wants to buy it, we are accepting offers!). Anthony currently works for Verizon as a business rep, and I'm a territory manager for Conn-Selmer, a musical instrument manufacturer. My territory covers Arizona, Nevada, California, and Hawaii, but about 85% of my time is spent in California. We're hoping to move there as soon as Anthony can find a job.

And that's us! Not much more to say than that at this point, so I'll just get to work today, and update this as we go about our exciting lives!