New Desk!

Holy moly productively busy weekend for Rob and me! Yesterday, Rob worked 6 hours at Quantum and today he has his regular 8 at Cutter that allows him access to the company plane. It has given me a ridiculous amount of time to get caught up on work, which was probably a good thing. I spent the better part of yesterday working on my online classwork. I am trying to finish the work that is due next Tuesday so I can relax and enjoy the Thanksgiving weekend. Right now I am just over half done. Hopefully, I will have some time at school tomorrow and Tuesday to finish up the remaining half. When Rob came home from work we headed over to our friends, Jason and Shannon's house for dinner. We all watched the U of A/Oregon game and then headed over to Jason's aunt's house to pick up a desk. We were super lucky because his aunt just wanted the desk gone and didn't want any money for it, and Jason and Shannon thought of us/our need for furniture in our potential new house! We smooshed the desk into our apartment, and while it's a fairly bootleg setup, it is really nice to have a second desk!

Here is a picture of the desk...

...And another of the eat-in dining area all switched about to fit the new desk.

We woke up early this morning to work at the new desk! I made homemade biscuits, eggs and bacon for breakfast, and Rob and I sat down to finish our mortgage application. Talk about a project. The first ridiculous task was figuring out all the bank/mortgage language. The second was determining all of our assets and liabilities, and then organizing all the paperwork. It seems like all we have left to do now is make copies tomorrow and we are set. I spoke with Ed this evening and he said that the bank is 75% through the short sale process. He was very excited about the progress that is being made. I am too, but I really just want to be 100% through and have our offer accepted. I'm definitely learning patience I suppose.

I've been grading and searching for Pepperidge Farm bread to make Grandma Edna's stuffing recipe all afternoon. I have quite a to do list to accomplish over the next few days, but am definitely looking forward to a lil break from school and spending time with Rob's parents for Thanksgiving!

Wishing everyone a happy (early) Thanksgiving...because it will likely be after Thanksgiving when I update next with pictures and stories of Rob's parents' visit! Love, Sarah and Rob

Birthday Snow!

We headed up to Flagstaff on Saturday morning to get out of Phoenix for a bit and celebrate Rob's birthday. I'd heard rumors of fall and leaves changing colors later in Flagstaff than the midwest and was ridiculously excited for it. (I even held off on a peppermint mocha at Starbucks, which I get right when the Christmas cups come out, telling Rob that I wanted "fall and not Christmas in a cup." :) We thought enough in advance to make reservations at a hotel that had run a special in the Sunday paper a few weeks back, but packed rather hurriedly due to last minute Friday night plans. (Read: listening to my principal's band play at a middle aged Mexican bar with a group of teachers. Awkward.) We never looked at a recent forecast (although I'd checked earlier in the week and it said low 50's) or read up on Flagstaff's seasons. Oops. We made it into town (it was just over a two hour drive...much shorter than I'd expected) and stopped at Target (because I'm quite particular about public restrooms). When we left Target it was flurrying! Holy moly, winter! Things escalated quite quickly from there. We had planned on hiking for the better part of the day at an even higher elevation than Target/town. More elevation=more snow. Rob was ridiculously pleased with it, and I'm going to be honest, I was fairly alright with it as well. I even did a lil snow dance (see below).

We headed out on our hike as planned. About a half mile in, Rob gave me the most amazing thing ever: some kind of hand warmer invention. It's these lil bags with chemically pellets inside that react with the oxygen to heat up, so when you hold them your hands stay warm! They also warm up your tush if you put them in the back pockets of your jeans, your whole body really, if you place them on your thighs while blasting heat in a vehicle (such as our gem, Esmerelda) and serve as seat warmers in a pinch. Serious weekend saver. There are a few action shots of the warm goodness to the left :)

Unfortunately, despite their amazingness, our hike was cut very short due to my frozen toes, which could not be reached by the heaters. We still managed to get a few really pretty pictures of the snow and forest.

Rob signing us into the forest.

(Above) A picture of one of the San Francisco peaks on our way back down into town. (Below) Mac and cheese cooking on Rob's lil portable stove he uses on backpacking trips. (Originally we had planned to make this in the woods, in the middle of our hike, but we ended up cooking it in the parking lot!)

Rather than hiking all day in the snow and cold, we headed back into the business/town portion of Flagstaff and drove around exploring. One of the three (yes, only three) universities in Arizona, Northern Arizona University/NAU, is in Flagstaff. It was a beautiful campus. We had dinner and watched football at BW3 until some crazy UFC fight came on, at which point I was fine heading back to the hotel room to watch the Georgia game and make s'mores on the bootleg stove! (We had planned on a campfire dinner originally, but it was too cold.) I was a tad nervous that it would set off the smoke detector, but we were lucky and it did not!

We left Sunday morning so Rob could still make it to work at Cutter. We did have breakfast at Denny's (free for Rob because it was his birthday!) before we left. I spent the remainder of the day grading junior persuasive essays and baking Rob a surprise coconut pound cake for his birthday! We both have a pretty busy week at work this week, but next week is Thanksgiving and Rob's parents are coming to visit! I think we are all looking forward to the time off and spending time together :) Also, Rob wants me to thank everyone for the birthday calls, cards and wishes and let you all know that he will catch up with returning phone calls and such asap. His week consists of 10-12 hour days! Good for the paycheck, not so good for staying in touch. We both hope all is well with everyone. Love, Sarah and Rob

PS, I maintain that I am so okay with snow because it is a controlled environment. When we were done with the snow and cold, we headed back home to Phoenix and I went for a run outside in shorts and a t-shirt. Winter is never ending and uncontrolled in Cleveland. This is all. Except for the fact that Arizona is a wacky weather state and I'm fairly alright with it.

Oh and in case you were wondering, Thomas '09 has been procured and is freezing up in our lil freezer in preparation for the holiday. So good!

Happy Veterans Day :)

...Another day off school :) Though, I must admit, I use the word "off" very loosely. While I didn't have to wake up early and drive into work, I still spent a good portion of the day getting caught up on grading and working on the online class I needed to take this year in order to transfer my teaching license to Arizona. (Thankfully, I have just under a month of the class left. I'm not a huge fan of online classes.) Luckily, there was some fun involved in my day off. Last night, Rob and I ordered pizza and watched Transformers 2. We watched the first movie (and ate homemade pizza!) last Friday and I liked both a lot more than I expected. Rob maintains that there is hope for me yet. (He doesn't quite approve of the length of the list of his favorite movies that I still haven't seen.) I also baked a loaf of homemade bread this afternoon and may have accidentally talked myself into buying a pair of shoes on sale at Target. They are blue and gray plaid and will look wonderful when I wear school colors each Friday :)

Rob and I are headed up to Flagstaff to celebrate his birthday and enjoy a little bit of fall this weekend. Everyone in Phoenix claims that fall in Flagstaff comes in mid-November and I'm ridiculously excited for colored leaves. I am seriously hoping that everyone is right though because weather.com says it is going to get down to 15 degrees on Saturday night! That's artic cold for sure! Initially, we had planned on making the weekend a camping trip, but when we officially decided to go to Flagstaff, changed our minds, figuring a day hike and hotel would be best...for me at least, and in turn, Rob's happiness :) I will hopefully have some beautiful pictures from the weekend to post next week!

Okay, I am off to deal with my bread that is about done baking and also Rob will be home from work in a few minutes. Hope all is well by you all...look forward to Flagstaff pictures early next week! Love, Sarah and Rob

Happy Halloween!

And happy one year anniversary of our life's belongings arriving in the pod! It is hard to believe how much change just one year has brought. Last year, Rob and I ordered pizza and ate it on our balcony because the apartment was full of boxes! This year we went to a Halloween party at our friend Davina's house. The whole crew of instructors was there. Rob and I dressed up as Kanye West and Taylor Swift. (Costume idea courtesy of my cousin, Brian.) Despite a few setbacks in our costume designing/acquiring we won second place in the party's costume contest. The prize: Costa Rican coffee. Good morning deliciousness...especially when paired with my chocolate chip cookie dough syrup!

On Friday after school/work, Rob and I set out to the dollar store and Good Will to purchase Halloween costumes. (Nothing like waiting until the last minute and hitting the classiest stores :) We were on a hunt for a silver evening gown dress similar to the one Taylor wore at the VMAs. We managed to find a silver dress, but I was, admittedly, being prissy and refused to wear a sparkly dress circa seventh grade. After going round and round about new potential costume ideas, we ended the night nowhere closer to where we started. On Saturday morning I decided to bring back the costume idea, wear a dress I already had even though it didn't really resemble Taylor's and stick with purchasing accessories. In the end, I wore what Rob likes to call my "garbage bag" dress (obviously, it's one of his favorites!) and Rob looked much more like Kanye West. He painted his face and bought aviators, which pretty much sealed the look.

My attempt at a shocked face when Rob/Kanye grabbed the mike.

Awkward smiles and it looks like a fist bump, not a microphone transfer, but you can still see our costumes :)

The quality in this picture is not as great because it is from my cell phone. Also, I have a weird expression, but I think Rob is funny here!

In addition to our costume hunt/design process, we made the dirt dessert recipe (check out my food blog for pictures there) and went for a long run (Our half marathon training officially started last week! So far we aren't doing great at following the plan, but it is early, and I kind of feel like half marathons are capable of completing without toooo much training.)

Rob has had a crazy long day at work today. He had his night checkout flight (to instruct at night) at about 8:00 and went in at 7:00 this morning. I am expecting the beginning of my week to be fairly easy, then lots of essays and tests to come pouring in at the middle/end of the week to be graded. Hopefully this week we will get our mortgage application completed and all the paper work that accompanies it together. (Still no word on the house, but we want to be prepared just in case. Our realtor still seems to feel positive and believes that we will hear something from the bank any day now. I hope so. This has been quite the process.) We are also going to make plans for Rob's birthday weekend. He has the Saturday before his birthday off and so we are thinking about either going camping or up to Flagstaff for a weekend in the fall weather.

It was very cold last week...highs in the low 60's and lows in the low 40's at night. It was definitely chilly in my classroom in the morning...they didn't turn the heat on because it warmed up as the day continued! I was kind of liking the cold weather. It is back to the 90's now. Not sure how long that will last, but it seems very warm.

Okay, I am heading over to the food blog to update that :) Hope all is well with everyone! Miss and love you, Sarah and Rob