Year: 2016

At the beginning of December is when Grams left. She was able to stay a little longer and spent some great time with Arabella. The photo below is when she was getting ready to enter the airport for her trip home. You can see that Ara was sad to see her go.

We were not feeling very happy after everyone left. I know, I get it. In most of America, people hate to spend time with their family – of any kind. Not us though. To cheer ourselves up, or at least try to get our mind off of things we took a trip down to Chandler to see the lit-up Tumbleweed tree (pictured below). Around this time we also went to yet another Coyotes game. You can see the black/grey shirt that I’m wearing is actually a Coyotes jersey. So fun times, but we were getting tickets left and right to go to games. Why? Multiple reasons, one was work – I had won some crazy good tickets to see a game and then we started looking to see what we could find. Tickets were cheap and it was a time to be around a wonderfully airconditioned building. We were able to take photos with the mascot and everything – so we ended up going all in and getting warmup jerseys.

Anyway, to finish off the year, we took a trip (another one, yes) to Oregon. We went to visit the entire family (as we had only spent time with Gramps and Ellie/Nonnie). We wanted our kids to see their cousins. If we could why not try to fit in a trip to Tillamook, a Blazers game and some good memories along the way?

As you can see, we fit in the Blazers game. The picture of the donut was actually something they were only doing for a few months and being the big fans that we are, we had to get one. The snowy picture was not in the Portland area as snow is rarer than common but rather taken along the way up after entering the state on the southern border. The Blazers game was exciting for Ara as it was a rare occasion to visit the “home arena” vs always cheering opposite when watching the Blazers and Suns play in Phoenix.

Finally, we have photos of the kiddos since we spent some time visiting with the fam. It was a fun ride back – in fact, the whole ride was fun. We rented a Mustang and got a convertible. The crazy people we are – we dropped the top while it was snowing for a minute or two, then again near the ocean, and also when coming back via California. Ara LOVED it. The last photo was the last day of the year on our way back. This was a great memory I have of her, smiling, giggling, and (at her request) holding my hand while enjoying the wind. What a way to wrap up 2016.

just Pray

note: this post was published on 07/25/22 but moved the publish date back to the end of December 2016 to keep chronological order.

Hey,

To start off November we would have to talk about a team-building event that I attended for work. Basically, we took half the day off and worked with others outside of our teams. It wasn’t hard for me as everyone was based in Florida or India at this point in my group. I was the only one remaining from Corporate Capabilities in AZ. Vince had taken another role, and Wayne (who I took over all of his projects) had retired. It was a fun event, it really pushed people to connect with other people. I can’t say that I have stayed in contact with these people, but from the company standpoint, it was good to have as it made you feel like you were part of something much bigger than yourself.

Around this time Arabella got into some lipstick. She decided to go painting in the house, on our doors and walls. It was a MESS! She really liked to paint with it (I’m sure she thought that since my parents just painted most of the house, so maybe I’ll do some as well!). It wasn’t so fun to clean up. There was another time she got into nail polish and was coloring our carpet in our closet. Needless to say, that did not come out.

Next is a picture of some art called “Release the Fear” hence the person statue with their arms up. It was made up of guns and other metal weapons. They allowed the base of the art to keep its original form. Such a cool thing. I also love the mission statement they have “To counter the effects of violence in our communities by turning fear, anger, and hate, into acceptance, hope, and self-empowerment by bridging endless possibilities through the creative process”

Then the unthinkable. Everyone (as far as I knew) was prepared and ready for Hilary Clinton to become America’s first Woman President. I suppose there was a feeling of ‘coasting to victory’ and most everywhere that I knew was flabbergasted when Trump started winning. He became president. Are you kidding me? I couldn’t believe it and I was honestly devastated over this. I also had been watching Madam Secretary (a show on CBS) and it was based in part on Hilary Clinton and her time as Secretary of State. I had really grown to like her the more that I learned about her. Anyway, she lost. Terrible but true. I had a sick feeling that if Trump won, this would change the way that presidents behaved in the future.

Later that month we had planned to have EVERYONE out to see the new house- and to take family photos. Gramps had a fun time the year before going from place to place and we thought it would be nice to have Grams out, along with Grammy and Grampy. A trip with everyone! My parents would be visiting from California and so we would use our car and the extra space in their car to have everyone get around.

This is the trip where we visited: Tortilla Flat, a chocolate factory, Tombstone, Dobbins lookout, San Xavier del Bac mission, dairy farms, cotton fields, and the snow globe known as Prescott for a rare November snowstorm. We had Thanksgiving dinner outside and under our back porch with a firepit keeping everyone warm as the night grew cool and the conversations drew long.

Fun story on the Tombstone wine photo. We were used to free wine tasting as a thing to do. After we had tried this wine in Tombstone we noticed a sign that stated wine tasting was at some fixed cost. However, the person running the shop didn’t care and didn’t end up charging us. It was some of the best wine I have ever had and had zero taste that was bad. If it wouldn’t have been so expensive we would have gotten a bottle. Apparently growing grapes to make wine in the desert southwest is not an easy task so there were a lot of steps this person had to do to cultivate and allow for wine. The wines are made from grapes grown locally in Cochise County. If you ever get a chance visit Silvery Strike Winery.

This visit was super fun. We were able to get photos that we didn’t think we would ever have. The whole family together – having fun and without outside influence. The above photos are some of the group pictures that we took. The left was taken in Tombstone – the middle at Central and the right was taken in our living room after we decorated the tree and had the grandparents create custom ornaments.

December is next.

just Pray

note: this post was published on 07/22/22 but moved the publish date back to the end of November 2016 to keep chronological order.

Now that we had the house and were more than a month in we started renovating. The house itself was brown on the inside. A nice dark brown throughout and lovely 80s fixtures. It really looked like nothing had been touched or upgraded in ages. We updated lighting throughout and even got a Nest thermostat (one of the best purchases we made for that house). We love smart devices but really didn’t know it at the time.

We started on the bathroom (photo below of the redone space). We added a new vanity with a granite top, new lighting, and even added a shower enclosure. We also got our house painted (photo below) due to being part of an HOA they were having everyone pick new colors and update the neighborhood. We picked a light brown (vs the much darker color you can see on the neighboring house).

It was nearing Halloween and Central was doing a thing. This year it was giving away pumpkins to everyone in the church, just to go and give to other people. No, not a “hey come to Jesus and you get a pumpkin” just more of “be kind to others, give these away and maybe learn your neighbor’s name along the way” kind of deal. I LOVED the idea. Ara was all about loading up our trunk with the pumpkins. Most were almost her size (as seen in the photo). As we went to the neighbors in our community, most thought that we were selling the pumpkins and almost closed the door as quickly as they opened it. Once we were able to get them to hear us out – they were happy to take the pumpkin (with no strings attached). I wish that more places did things like this. I saw a smile brought to a lot of people’s faces.

We re-discovered our like for this little diner near us (5 & Diner) and would try to go here every few weeks. Ara really liked it and we were getting to a point where people knew us and were looking for us.

On October 5 2016 my dad went in for surgery for a knee replacement. It was injured during work, so it was something the company was having to pay for. It was a big undertaking, a major event. We weren’t able to be there for it but my mom had sent us pictures and we talked to him on facetime while he was drugged up.

Fast forward to October 27 and you can see Arabella at my work. I can’t believe how small the monitors look but remember at the time they were a nice setup. She got all dressed up and came through for a trick or treating at work that one evening.

Towards the end of the month, we made our annual trip to go see some fall colors. A quick 2+ hour trip up 17 to Northern Arizona and all of the sudden you were in cooler weather where the leaves would change. What is this thing you call a season?! It was a normal trip for us to take and after having been doing so for the last couple of years we were able to get to the areas with the most obvious foliage for some photos and short hikes.

Finally, in the middle, you will see a photo of Ara asleep on me. One nice thing about my role as a Project Analyst and Product Owner was that I could occasionally work from home, sometimes the whole day, other times in just the mornings or afternoons. This started to become normal for Ara and she would regularly come to sit by me. If I were on a call she would have one earbud in her ear, making it like she could understand everything that was going on. Eventually, the ‘adult talk’ would wear her out to the point of putting her to sleep. I tried to capture as many of those times as I could.

just Pray

note: this post was published on 07/22/22 but moved the publish date back to the end of October 2016 to keep chronological order.

Hey!

August. what a month. Things quieted down on traveling. We had all but given up on getting the house in Mesa – or anywhere for that matter. Then on one of the websites, we were tracking homes on (we used realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia, and Redfin) we noticed that the house in Mesa appeared again as a new listing. hmm, what happened there? We contacted our realtor to see what he could find out (yes the same one as before because we had already seen that house with him it would be very difficult to go with someone else and to avoid any legal ramifications we just had him follow up on it). Turns out the previous offer had fallen through. We pushed to see why and it turns out that the roof was once repaired and the people making the cash offer was wanting to have the roof replaced (or something to that effect). We let our realtor know that we were still interested in buying the house. We let him know to inform the seller that our offer was still standing and that we were interested. The first image was taken from the MLS listing for the house.

Outside of the house drama, we got some VERY cool photography nights with big storms and lots of lightning strikes… you can see it below. One photo is just a beautiful evening with lots of rainy roads and storms still rolling in. Makes everything pop. The next photo to that is the big bright and purple one. You can see cacti in the shot and everything. Yes, I know you can probably see some pixelation on it. Mind you this was a still photo taken from an iPhone 6 back in 2016 so overall I am still impressed with the quality.

The last photo on the block below is a picture of the fireworks that we saw during the “Faith and Family” night that the Diamondbacks hosted. They had a guest performer – Matthew West. The same person who retweeted/Instagram’d Ara after her birth and garnered some 10k likes. Anyway, we tried to message him to see if he would meet up and take a photo with the now much bigger girl we had, but he couldn’t be reached. I have to admit we were disappointed by that – but still enjoyed the night.

Later on, in the next month, we went to Tempe Town Lake for Labor day. I’m not sure if they still do, but at the time we went, they would decorate the area with tons of Flags for those who died in the line of duty. There was a candid shot I captured when this woman from the Army was going to each one and saluting. It was a nice gesture. You can see that image below.

During this same time, we were also looking for a new mattress. We decided to hit up the local mattress shops and any big regional retailer as well. I kid you not, we walked into the Mattress Firm and saw this:

He was the only one in the shop. So we walked around the store and tried to be a little loud to wake the guy up but he simply wouldn’t. Eventually, we just walked over to him and woke him up and it was funny, he was drooling on the pillow and the mattress, so here’s this kid waking up, and wiping his drool off of everything while trying to talk to us. What a sight to be seen – we did NOT end up buying that mattress or any here- but I have to guess it was pretty comfortable!??! I mean, it had to be right?

News on the house!? They ACCEPTED OUR OFFER! We were so through the roof with excitement. We worked with Wells Fargo (as Amex had some kickback with them so that we would get a better interest rate). Side note: Wells Fargo and American Express share the same origin story. You can look it up if you’d like, but essentially split sometime later and became two different companies. At the time of working at Amex, I felt this made WF a sister company, more-less, and just made sense to go with them. Below you will find some photos of the paper signing of our first house, as well as the sold sign. (We had them put the “Sold” on the sign specifically so we could take these photos, they were going to just take down the sign but we wanted to capture the moment). Look at Ara our little big girl. Fun fact: those same Jordan shorts I still have (and am wearing today (in July 2022) as a matter of fact). I rarely get new clothing and they apparently last me a long time.

Is that it?! No! As you can see from the photos below we got another surprise. Think of this: we didn’t expect to get a house, so we bought a new car, upgraded our phones a few months before, AND then we found out that our prayer had been answered. We were pregnant!

We really did not expect that last part. Pregnant? New House? New car? New Phones? All within a couple of months of each other? You have got to be kidding me, I wouldn’t believe it if it didn’t happen to me. Also, it was a little funny to be honest, because we had thought that in the 3 bedroom house the one extra would be an office or a guest room. We had wanted to have a place to let family or friends come and visit – well those plans were mainly on the back burner as we had to change our plans due to the news we didn’t think we would get. This house was also an awesome location because not only was it on the east side (the only side we ever really wanted to live on) but it was also walking distance to Central Christian Church (0.5 miles away).

What a year 2016 turned out to be. wait wait wait, it’s only September?! What else could possibly happen?

just Pray

note: this post was published on 07/22/22 but moved the publish date back to the end of September 2016 to keep chronological order.

Hey!

My posts are going to probably continue the same pattern that I’ve had for the past few, at least until I’m caught up. A lot of this is just a mental export for myself over the last few years. Ready for July?! Almost. I forgot one last thing that happened at the VERY end of June.

We had been wanting to get into a hybrid-type car for some time. Why? Well with all of the travelings back and forth to California, occasionally Oregon, etc. we figured it would be a good idea to get a hybrid. We looked around and after pretty much giving up on finding a house in Arizona we made the decision to purchase a Prius. Something to know is that any time we get a car, we want all of the bells and whistles it has to offer. It was hard to find a loaded Prius- and we came across this one by accident. We liked the car but were not sure of the color – there was this car they just got and they showed it to us before even cleaning it up. At the time they mentioned that if we traded in our car we could have it for a certain amount (I don’t remember how much, over 10k though). We left and after seeing that the model we looked at had pretty much every available option we returned and said we were interested.

When we returned to the dealership they had marked up the car some 7k higher than what they told us the price would have been. We said we would ONLY be interested if they honored the price they initially quoted us. They ran it up the ladder and they agreed that since they offered it to us at a lower price, they would honor it. Sign sealed – delivered. We checked out on one of the last days of June but didn’t actually take possession of the car until after our 4th of July trip (since we were going to California). Anyway here are some pictures we took when we first got her:

So July was a pretty laid-back month. We were able to travel to California for the 4th. Before the 4th we went to the science museum to go see the Space Shuttle Endeavour (saw it once while it was traveling through Downtown LA but not since it got to the museum). We also took a trip over to Parkfield, CA which is the self-titled “Earthquake Capitol of the World” and even crossed the marked area of the San Andreas fault. On the way back from that we went to the James Dean memorial too. For the 4th we traveled over to a beach in Santa Barbara to watch the fireworks.

After the fireworks, we headed back to Mesa but not without some pit stops. We visited the Saltan Sea during summer (hot and very stinky) on our way to Salvation Mountain. Don’t know what that is? Click here for some reading on it. The place needs to be maintained a little better but the person who made it really did a great job. It is larger than you think and seems to go on forever. The main downfall is that this place is located in the middle of nowhere. You pull up and there are people who live all around the Mountain. Not religious, more like vagabonds. It was interesting, but if you go to visit my advice would be to go when it’s cooler outside so that you can enjoy being outside.

Towards the middle/end of the month, we went back to California to go to Calimigos Ranch with my parents (my dad had gotten tickets each year and we would go), as part of it they had a petting zoo (picture of a cute girl below), free food, and free rides. It was fun – we would also load up with tons of food (pictured below). We also took time to enjoy the sights of the city as you can see as well. Los Angeles is a beautiful city, like most places you really don’t have to look that hard to see it.

While in LA we also decided to go see the new Star Trek Beyond movie at the drive-in. Never a good idea – why? Well, it was around the time Star Trek: Into Darkness was released that we found out we were pregnant. But that was a one-time deal, it surely wouldn’t happen again so we had nothing to worry about. Truth be told, we were trying for another child but for whatever reason, it wasn’t happening. It was at this point that we had pretty much given up on the idea of having a second. Back to talking about the movie: It was fun until the power went out and we had to get a “come next time on us” pass. It is ironic as a movie called “Lights Out” was also showing at a different screen, but our night was literally Star Trek, lights out!

This was all going on while there were raging wildfires near my parent’s house. In the picture below it’s not more than a couple of miles from where they lived. INSANE. In some ways, it felt like I was watching a movie being made.

Finally, we made our way back to Phoenix and ended the month with more storm chasing.

One noteworthy thing I can recall with these photos: If you look at the photo of the city that I took in LA – it was at this time that we were making an offer on a house in Mesa. It was notable because it was one of very few that we found in our price range. He called to tell us we didn’t get the house and that they accepted someone’s offer for the full price in cash. Our realtor was not wanting anything further to do with us and it was here (at Griffith Park) where we ended our dealings with each other. We weren’t happy that he wasn’t working for us and he just wanted a quick paycheck. Thankfully we ended the month with some super shots so we were able to take our minds off of those things for a bit.

August is next!

just Pray

note: this post was published on 07/14/22 but moved the publish date back to the end of July 2016 to keep chronological order.