Xmas prep-Thomas Arron

Hi everyone. Well I must say blogging for me never changes. I think of ideas and never have time meanwhile quietly reassuring myself that it hasn't been that long....until I look and its been a month. Still 12 a year isn't bad compared to none. I've just included a few pictures of our house with xmas decorations up. We put things up a little early this year so between holiday trips we actually get to enjoy our tree etc. Also we were a little excited as many of our Christmas items were wedding gifts that had yet to be used. I particularly like the Christmas village shot here in which Wal-Mart in all its perfect timing showed a comercial right as I was trying to get my photo. All in all a pretty representative picture of our house, nicely decorated but like everyone else we watch too much TV.

Here is our Christmas tree, lots of new ornaments from the wedding as well as some donated tinsel. If you're feeling extremely curious you can look in the very back of the picture and see my new kitchen curtains, helpfully hung by Jon.

Last but not least is likely the 1 Christmas craft of the year, putting a new bow on one of our two wreaths. I picked the ribbon and made the bow all by myself....not too shabby! And if my mom is out there saying 'gosh that wreath looks familiar' its because it used to be yours, hope you don't mind me sprucing it up!

In closing my ever present (but often seemingly empty) promise to blog more soon, hopefully pictures of Thanksgiving in Wellton AZ!

Wedding pictures!

As many of you know Jon and I had the pleasure of going to UT for the weekend to see Jon and Christina's Wedding. We really had a great time despite it being such a quick trip. Here are some photos from 'the big day'! One of my favs here at the top of Joe and Maureen,
The beautiful bride herself, after being Mrs. Christina Umbriaco for about ....10min.!
This is the reception center where we had dinner, dancing and general celebration afterwards. Everything was beautiful. The reception center told us we were their largest event ever, (obviously! It's THE wedding of the year!) they did a good job and I think everyone enjoyed themselves.
Just a little sneeky picture here, hopefully Aunt Dorothy will forgive me for taking this view of her but I had to catch Christina signing the license! Its official everyone!

SO thats all the big news around here, we had a great trip and are now at home and back at work!

Catch up!

Here is a photo of our tent from when we went camping on Mt Lemmon. A pretty good time as 1)its 7000 ft so much cooler than Tucson 2)the campground had potties 3)real trees 4) didn't get attacked by any boogie men.
This is zuchinni bread made by yours truly. Pretty tasty too, its called Chocolate Zuchinni and is from my Mother in Law Susan W.'s family cookbook. Although it only takes 2c. of zuchinni so with the size of the zuchinni I had I still have a huge ziploc of frozen zuchinni in the freezer. Oh well will make more bread later!
These are some of the smaller Monster cookies I made for a work potluck for Labor Day. The recipe from Tracy Hiester of Aldersgade UMC in Brigham City UT. They taste great, have everything (m&ms, oatmeal, peanut butter...) The original instructions said to use a 1/4c measuring cup to drop the cookies-they were huge! Monster...obviously. But since that meant only cooking about 3 at a time then I had to scale down to 'large pampered chef scoop', which made these you see here.
This is a view of my new hanging plant picked by Jon! It has large waxy leaves and is sort of cactus like but pretty flowers. It's replacing the geranium I used to have there. The geranium was great, lasted from Nov. of last year until around April when it finally threw in the towel...really not too bad. We'll se how this one lasts, its called Euphoria or something like that. Meanwhile my small flower bed behind it plugs on. I have some Zinca (?) that have held up quite well as well as some petunias. I had some taller flowers but they bit the dust around 105 deg F (who can blame them). I also have a mint plant which I got from a friend at church giving me a cutting. It had a hard time in the beginning but is now sprouting up and beginning its takeover as mint always does. This is good though since who knows how many months petunias hold out in Tucson, and also plenty of foder for mojitos next summer.

OK well I think that is a quick sum up of 'life in pics' for now. I hope to take some pics of our adventures tonight but maybe not too many, it might spook our dinner guests if I roam about the table saying things like "work it!". If all else fails theres bound to be some pics of Jonathan and Christina's wedding coming up here soon.

The bite that bugs me

Or....the bug that bit me? Hi everyone, as you can see lately something is attempting to eat me alive. Some of you may remember this happened last year....I had one or two bites from what I thought was some random 'Arizona Bug'. I then later found a spider in my office which I smashed...and killed. I felt victorious and my battle with AZ vermin had been completed. Or so I thought. As of Thursday the 12th of June I had zero bites and was oblivious to any office companions. By the time I got home Friday (note Fri. the 13th, how did I not expect something?) I had 8 bites. The general consensus is that they are from another spider. Jon remains bite free, although this year one of my coworkers also has bites. SO either last years smashing not quite as successful as I thought and lone spider has been lying in wait or he had some friends who wanted revenge. So I now have a series of itching, growing, hard, red bites. I also am armed with a large can of spider killer which will be used in my office ASAP.

On a lighter note no bugs in our new garden and despite it being 108 deg. the plants are doing fairly well. This is great news along with the news that monsoon should start early this year. The 'rules' for official monsoon season are that the dew point must be 55 or more. Several days ago it was again over 100 deg and the dewpoint was 29...life seemed hopeless. HOWEVER, today the dewpoint is 45! This means our plants have a good chance because the warmest part of the year is almost over. It also hopefully means that spiders everywhere will go back outside.

SO all in all some good news from our neck of the woods today. Although if you know something better than benadryl and calamine...let me know.

Brian Photos (because no one else is!)

Hey everyone,

Just a quick post (as usual) to attempt more frequent postings (as usual, I know). I was going to write a nice little blog about my new flower garden. It's not a great achievement but having time for something like flowers is a big deal when you're me. BUT Jon posted a picture already so I decided to put some up of Brian. I know everyone is thinking, 'thats not your kid' and 'I wanted to do that' but lets face it Paul is ~5 months behind on this and the kid is growing like a weed. In fact I am sure if P or C sees this they will remark that Brian doesn't even look like that anymore. They will probably say things like 'he outgrew that outfit 3 wks ago'. Nevertheless I decided that those of you in blog land deserve an update on this. After all the other day I asked Paul if Brian can eat cherrios and he told me Brian eats everything. Yes, that's right folks he eats all real food and thinks cherrios are boring. (you are amazed I know, I told you he was growing).

SO finally here are the latest pictures in my possesion. Love to all from Brian's favorite Auntie.

Thomas Arron

Hello blog world.

I'm attempting (as ever) to get on some sort of blog schedule. So I thought I would post some pictures of our new place. For those of you who don't know Jon and I have moved to Marana, AZ a burb of Tucson. This is a great acheivement for us to have left our apartment for 1)more space 2)less noise and 3) did we mention more space? Our apt. was approximately 600sq ft the new house is 1404 sq ft. We are renting a Meritage home which as far as Jon and I can tell is the Arizona equivalent of an Ivory Home so hope that sheds some light on where we are at to all our fellow Utahns. So far we love it. The commute is a bit farther however we now have a yard, real neighbors, and a great parks and rec system. There are plenty of paths that lead through the subdivision that can be used for walking, biking etc. and several parks near us with wait for it wait for it...grass. Jon and I both went out on one of the paths near us this morning, roller skates for me, bike for Jon. Which we are now undoing any benefits by eating pancakes. This is just another acheivement of our new larger kitchen as we are getting to use a griddle that we received as a wedding gift and are finally, finally, using for the first time. Basically we have been waiting because to attempt using same griddle in our apt would have caused some sort of fire.

So that's all the news that is the news around here; pancakes, more room and hearing our own washer and drying whirring away just down the hall. It may not be heaven to some but for us along with the holiday weekend it's nothing to sneeze at.

NEW POST YAY!!

SO... finally a new post. Just putting up a few posts of pictures to fill people in on whats going on here in AZ. First off I have officially graduated from Utah State with my Au.D. This last weekend Jon and I went to UT for graduation. Here are a few pics of Jon and I, my parents, Jon's parents and a group shot with classmates/profs.
We had all 6 in my class come walk thru the ceremony (the largest graduating Au.D. class since USU's program began). All in all we had a great trip even if it was just a quick one! I don't know why the text on my blog is being so strange...But seeing as I have a doctorate I'll figure it out; and now that school is truly over hopefully I'll post more often.

No news AZ

Hi everyone,
Just a quick hello while I'm sitting here at the computer. Not too much excitement to report. I've been spending a lot of time at work since my supervisor had to have a tooth removed and isn't feeling well. Jon is enjoying his last week of freedom before starting work at the U of A. Our raid of the Pima county library continues, we left this week I think with 4 books, a magazine, and three CDs. Other than that all is quiet, will try to get some new pictures up soon (63 deg F here) to compare to the snowy ones on dad's blog.

Her need parkle

Just a few quick shots for all you readers. I know I saw most of you over the holidays so there really isn't too much to report. However, since I have checked everyones'blogs for Christmas photos, I thought I would put some up for you. The first one is Jon and I enjoying some year old wedding cake. Since it was stored in my mom's freezer we didn't get to eat it on our anniversary, so we ate it over Christmas. Below that is a picture of some of the best kids around. These are some of my nieces/nephews who were helping us polish off the cake. They are also responsible for my fabulous make-up in a lot of Christmas pictures. More fun and cheaper than any star's assistant. :)