Phoenix Pre-Christmas Celebration

Hello from chilly Cleveland! It's kind of weird to be blogging from home, about Phoenix, while Rob is still in Phoenix, but I am trying to not get so behind on updates. Last weekend, after my ridiculous amount of portfolio grading, I was able to relax a bit and start truly getting in the Christmas spirit. My mom had sent us a fantastic pre-Christmas care package, with an evergreen scented candle and a gingerbread house kit, among other delightful surprises. Rob got a bit frustrated with me when we were building the house because I was too impatient and didn't want to wait for the frosting to harden to keep the house together before I started decorating. Despite my lil kid impatience, our house turned out quite well. Here are a few pictures.

Intense concentration from us both.

Let's compare. Above is my messing job of frosting the windows and below is Rob's. Impatience/terrible artistic skills on my half. I'm a lil embarrassed.

The finished product!

Our Christmas present to each other this year was a night flight to look at Christmas lights. Rob had done a night flight two years ago during his training, and thought I would really like to see the lights from a helicopter. Unfortunately, there weren't quite as many houses with lights up this year. I still had a great time in the helicopter and loved seeing the lights that were there. We were even able to find our apartment by using the car dealership across the street and the lights around our door as landmarks. I tried to take a few pictures, but it was hard in the dark to get them to turn out. Nevertheless, here they are.

 

The diagonal strand of lights in the picture above is the highway...I'm pretty sure. And in the picture below, I thought it was cool how the blue LED lights stood out.

Our last piece of Christmas celebration before I headed home was Zoo Lights! The electric company that puts on Zoo Lights sent out bogo admission coups for Wednesdays, so we headed to the Phoenix Zoo (with the rest of Phoenix it seemed like!). After waiting in a long line, we were finally able to see the lights. I had never been to Zoo Lights before (in Phoenix or Cleveland) and was a little disappointed that they had roped off part of the zoo rather than covering the entire thing with lights. Still, it was really cool to see them all...I was quite impressed.

flamingos! Rob's Aunt Sue's favorite :)

giraffes are my favorite animal :)

pretty lit up trees :)

cactus! lit up desert landscape :)

and penguins :)

Rob and I went out to dinner at Oregano's, one of our favorite Phoenix restaurants. We sat out on the back patio, under the heaters (Rob was sweating!) and had Chicago style pizza and pizzookie for dessert (my absolute favorite!). Then, I took a red-eye flight home. It left Phoenix at 12:30 am and landed in Cleveland at 6:15. Not the greatest night of sleep ever, but it was great to be done with school for the semester and home. The entire family picked me up and we had breakfast at Einstein's. I napped a bit, visited with Grandma, Grandpa, Cindy and John, went to church with Mom, Adam's basketball game and the Morini's annual Christmas party. Busy, busy! We were up early again today to celebrate Christmas in Lancaster. It had been quite some time since I had seen everyone in Lancaster, and it was great to catch up with them all. It will be a busy week, but I am looking forward to seeing everyone and Rob coming into town on Thursday morning :) See many of you soon! Love, Sarah (and Rob too!)

A Ridiculously Late Happy Thanksgiving

The fact that it was quite a few weeks ago now aside, Rob and I had a wonderful Thanksgiving and visit with his parents. It feels really weird to talk about Thanksgiving when we are in the middle of Christmas shopping and celebrating craziness, but it took me a lil while to get copies of the pictures Rob's dad took while he was here and to find time to sit down and post. I was, regretfully, an epic failure at taking pictures, probably because I was enamored with the high megapixel camera in the Droid phone Don had. And I've spent the majority of this weekend grading writing portfolios that do not include amazing higher level vocabulary like the words in my last sentence :) Wrapping up the end of this semester has been hectic, to say the least, but I have one class of portfolios left to grade, three days of review games and two days of finals and I am D-O-N-E. I can't wait.

Back to turkey day. Rob's parents arrived on Wednesday. Rob had to work until later in the afternoon, so I picked them up from the airport and we went to Paradise (my favorite) for lunch. (It is a Panera-esque restaurant with the world's greatest cookies.) We spent the majority of the day catching up and getting a head start on Thanksgiving baking. The head start left us with just the turkey, stuffing and potatoes to cook on Thanksgiving. We spent most of Thanksgiving day working on the giant crossword that comes in the newspaper here, eating and relaxing. That is, until Thanksgiving evening. Rob's parents headed back to their hotel and Rob and I went on (another) day after Christmas shopping excursion. An outlet mall that was (only) 45 minutes away opened at 10:00 Thanksgiving night. No need for early wake-ups! We hit traffic about a mile from the exit on the highway and I thought Rob was going to kill me. I did manage to get some amazing deals at JCrew and was quite pleased with the adventure. (A side note to Kaiser/McCandlish ladies: Rob maintains that two years in a row of Black Friday shopping is his limit. He also isn't the best shopper. Please come next year to shop with me!) Back to Thanksgiving. Our food was delicious and the company was great :) There are a few pictures below of the cooking process...Rob and I preparing the turkey, Rob putting it in the oven and Don chopping onions for stuffing.

We went on a tour of Arizona the day after Thanksgiving. First, we headed to Sedona to show Rob's parents the park where we got engaged. Then, we continued on to the Grand Canyon. We arrived just before sunset, which limited our time there, but because we weren't planning on doing much hiking, it wasn't that big of a deal. Rob had been to the Grand Canyon with his dad when they made the trip out here when he first moved to Arizona, but they both really wanted his mom to see it too. We detoured through Flagstaff on our way home, showing his parents where we hung out on Rob's birthday weekend and stopping at Starbucks :)

the four of us at the Grand Canyon

On Saturday, we spent time exploring Phoenix/Phoenix suburbs. We showed Rob's parents our hopeful house and my school out in Queen Creek. The current owners of the home were in the process of moving out when we walked through. It was the first time we were really able to get an accurate idea of the size of the house/rooms because they had a lot of clutter that was somewhat distracting. I think it made all of us love the house even more, which makes me even more frustrated with Bank of America continuing to do nothing. I am thinking that all my finals stress will make for a fantastic frustration letter addressed to them. Honestly, I have nothing good at all to say about Bank of America...in the mortgage or short sale department. I want to do everything in my power to stop everyone I know from banking there. Please support me in this effort. Back to Saturday...after spending time in Queen Creek, we showed Rob's parents his flight school, his old apartment and our favorite park in Gilbert. A few sight-seeing pictures are below. (The picture of Rob and I is taken on the back patio of the house Bank of America is keeping us from celebrating the holidays in. Bad words.)

On Sunday, Rob took his parents flying. (I stayed home to finish my online class and get ready to head back to school. It would have been too much weight in the plane for the three of us to go together.) The plane's home base was moved to Phoenix/Sky Harbor airport, which meant Rob was able to fly out of busier airspace for the first time. I think all three of them really liked doing that. Rob is at work now and I wasn't flying, so my knowledge of the flight is hit or miss. I do remember Rob saying that they flew over Queen Creek and through the mountains a bit. They also flew over the canyon lakes that we flew over with my mom when we took so many pictures. A few pictures from the airport are below...

Rob worked at Cutter on Sunday afternoon, but was able to get out a little early, and we all went to Olive Garden for dinner. Rob's parents headed back early Monday morning after a great visit. It was the first time they had the chance to make it out here together, and so we crammed a lot in, but I think everyone had a great couple of days.

Now that my craziness is about to end and Rob has a lighter schedule at work, we are gearing up for Christmas. We shopped a lot yesterday morning, made a gingerbread house last night and are planning on going for a night flight in the helicopter to look at Christmas lights tomorrow night. I am heading home on the red eye Friday night, and am hoping to post sometime early next week/from home about all of our Christmas festivities here in Phoenix. Rob is following on a red-eye Wednesday the 23rd, so he will be home early Christmas Eve morning. We are both crazy excited to be home and see everyone! Not much time left :) Love, Sarah and Rob

Quick lil note...

1. Yes, we are still alive.
2. The end of the semester in a high school with an abnormally high number of failing kids is chaos.
3. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and visit with Rob's parents. Details and pictures are (clearly) overdue.

Expect a better update soon! I promise it's on my to-do list!

PS- Birthday shout-out to Bubs and a belated shout out to Nancy/Rob's mom :)