Chillin' in AZ

Right now the kiddos are sleeping, Cheri is tudoring, Ryan is golfing and I am sitting in the casita, legs propped on a super comfy recliner, just relaxing and checking/responding to emails. Seemed like a great time to blog a bit about my vacay so far, so here goes!

I flew in on Saturday just in time to watch the Hawkeyes kick some MN bootay! Ryan picked me up from the airport and we met up with Nathan, ScottyB, Dan, and Tom at an Iowa bar across the street from Nathan's house. How weird is that?! An Iowa bar in Arizona! I'm not even kidding though - every person in there was wearing their Iowa gear! I personally never go to bars, but I had a great time. AZ has a no-smoking law, so it was a really clean atmosphere - big screen tvs everywhere - of course all of them with the Iowa game playing! :) We ordered some food, watched the game until the 3rd quarter (where Iowa was leading 40-0), and then went over to Nathan's place to watch the rest and play some cornhole (my team won 1 lost 1). I also got to meet Nathan's new puppy, Buddy. So stinkin' cute!!! Ryan and I took off not too long after that and then Ryan, Cheri & I just stayed up chatting for quite a while. We always have such good conversations!

Sunday Lauren was a sad, sick little girl, so Cheri stayed home and I took Will & Emily to church. The cutest part was when we were ALMOST to church and I wasn't sure if I was supposed to go straight or turn left. I looked at Will (who is 4) in the rearview mirror and said, "Do you remember if I turn here?" He said, "Um, turn around and look at me." I turned around and he pointed to the left and said, "You go that way." He was right! Such a smart little guy! He was SO good in church too. We dropped Emily off at the nursery, but Will sat with me through all of worship until they dismissed the kids for children's church. I was holding him at one point (I can't for very long - 4 year olds are heavy!) and he said, "You look really pretty Aunt Trish. I like your necklace." Aww...melt your heart! How is it that a compliment coming from a 4-year old counts for so much more than coming from an adult? I'm not sure, but it just does. We had to hang around for a while after church waiting for Ryan to finish some meetings, so I got to say hi to a few people I know and then we took off for home.

Nathan came over for lunch and afterwards I watched the AZ game in the casita with the Ryan, Nathan and ScottyB (and little Buddy!)...all of us fading in and out of sleep. Such a perfect Sunday afternoon. I missed the Titans game, but they lost their first this season - making their record 10-1. Sad, but hopefully it will be their only loss. Keeping my fingers crossed! After the game, Ryan, Will & I took the GEM to Costco to pick up a few groceries. I'm trying to remember what we did the rest of the evening, but I'm totally blanking right now. Whatever it was, it just involved us hanging out, which is always fun :).

Monday began cooking day! I made an upside down caramel apple pie and oatmeal pecan pie. Lauren was feeling 100% better, but Emily started to get what Lauren had. We're hoping this virus doesn't pass on to the rest of us throughout the week! Ryan, Cheri & I watched How I Met Your Mother & Chuck after the kids had gone to bed...and sometime around midnight called it a night.

Today I cooked some more - a double layer pumpkin pie, green bean casserole (not the traditional recipe but one that I've found that I like even more!) and peanut butter blossoms (since the kids love cookies and all the Thanksgiving baking was teasing them too much). I made the "order of baking" list so we know what to put in the oven first, etc., etc., and checked off what has already been made and what still needs to be cooked. Tomorrow I'll be making the sweet potato casserole and strawberry pretzel salad, leaving just the corn casserole, mashed potatoes (which I do in the crock-pot) and turkey for Thursday! I love doing it a little bit at a time - just makes Thanksgiving day seem like a piece of cake. I found out earlier that one of my friends was in the ER with kidney stones this morning, which is so sad and i can only imagine how INCREDIBLY painful! Talk about a rough intro to Thanksgiving! Hopefully it will be gone before then...

Anyhow, that's it for now. Tomorrow night we all head to the Coldplay concert (we have some amazing seats, so I'm pretty stoked!) and then Thursday my parents fly in for Thanksgiving! The week is flying by much too fast, but that's usually how it goes it seems. Alright, kiddos just got up from nap, so I'm going to hang out with them. Hope you're enjoying your holiday week!! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!