Arizona is Awesome!

Here's another post with pictures, you lucky readers! We arrived in Tucson, Arizona on November 30th so Brett could start work on December 1st. On the way down, we stopped to see the lights at the Mesa Temple. I am pretty sure they rival the Salt Lake Temple's lights.

After hitting a random sacrament meeting in Mesa the next morning we had a lunchables (yeah, you're jealous!) picnic lunch outside the temple grounds, since we had to check out of our hotel before lunch time. Adie enjoyed checking out the flowers. How awesome it is to have flowers in full bloom in December.

We stayed in temporary housing for the first couple of week and it was a pretty sweet place, a three bedroom apartment that was bigger and much more upgraded than the one we left. This was a view Adie and I had about a 2-minute walk from the place we were staying. I think the desert can be really beautiful. I love saguaro cactus. (I don't know why this text is blue and underlined, but I can't get it to go away, so deal with it. I guess I should have learned some HTML programming while at Novell)

Since the Hoover Dam is in Arizona, although no where close to where we live, we might as well put in a picture of us there while driving to Vegas. This is another day when Adie decided what to wear. Who wouldn't want to wear pj's on a road trip. Good thinkin', Adie!

You can almost always see the moon down here very clearly all day long. It's really beautiful.

Another huge positive for Arizona is official home-ownership. Here is Brett at the front door of our home with our new keys. I promise he's really not bigger than the door, so don't worry ;) I am sure Brett could explain to you how to accomplish this kind of perspective with the camera but I don't know how I did it.

Once we dig ourselves out of the unpacking mess we'll show you how it looks all done up. It's so exciting to have a real home of our own though. The housing market is really affordable down here, which is what made it possible for us to jump right in and we're really grateful.

We're also grateful to be in what appears to be a great neighborhood and ward. We were invited to dinner twice on our first Sunday here, we've already received Christmas treats and one of Brett's co-workers, who lives a few streets over, came over tonight, gave us a computer desk they no longer needed and shot the breeze with us for about an hour. We have felt so welcome here so far.

How is Adie These Days?

I know the burning question on everyone's mind (or at least her grandparents' minds) is how is Adie? Well, let me tell you with some pictures because it's certainly been a long time since we've put a picture on here.

She absolutely loves the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. She is not really interested in watching TV, which is fine with me (unless I need her distracted so I can get something done), that is, unless it's the MoTab. I am not kidding you. She is obsessed. In the picture above we are at the Nauvoo Temple Visitors' Center. They have a place there where you can pretend to conduct the MoTab and if you stop waving the baton, the music stops playing. Adie loved it and didn't want to look at anything else there. She just kept going back to it. If I need her to sit still for a moment while I am unpacking or making dinner, etc., I just look up some MoTab YouTube videos and she sits there and conducts and sings along. She'd do it all day if I let her.

Another thing she'd do all day is play with stickers and draw. In the picture above, I am attempting to feed her breakfast and the only way I could compromise with her on that particular morning was if she had her stickers with her while eating. As you can see, there wasn't much eating going on.

She is also into not wearing clothes. This picture captures her clothing boycott day a few days back. Anything I attempted to put her in was not acceptable. I even tried to let her pick her clothes (which I have to do often because she has strong opinions about the clothes she wears) and nothing would do. She just wanted to play with them in her crib instead. No, I promise, she really asked to be in her crib when it wasn't nap time or bed time. She also recently discovered how to take her diaper off herself which means we will be concentrating heavily on potty training after we get back from our Christmas travels. I don't want to find errant dirty diapers strewn throughout the house.

Last, but certainly not least, Adie loves dirt and rocks. What toddler doesn't? Our backyard, pictured here, is a wonderland for her. My dear landscape architecting friends, and you know who you are, we may come looking your way to get a plan for beautifying our backyard.

Lame

Why do I have a blog if I never feel like blogging? Wow, I have a bazillion things to blog about and 6 months worth of pictures I do want to share. I actually do have ideas for about 10 posts, but no bloggage will go on tonight besides this. You just get this lame post instead. However, I hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas season - very honestly the very best time of the year.

Travelogue

We are back in the land of the blogging. Sorry, it's been a while. Most of you know we just moved to Tucson. Yay! We're finally here and so far, we're really enjoying it, but more on that later. We just got back from an impromptu trip to Vegas. We were talking about how many miles Adie has logged in the last 4 months, and it's been a lot. This is part of the reason the blogging has slowed down quite a bit.

The first 18 months of Adie's life all our vacations were to Idaho (Brett's home town and family cabin are there) and St. George (we have family and friends there). We went to both of those places a number of times and camping in the Uintas once, but that was it. However, since August, check out where she's been:

-Beginning of August: Yellowstone / cabin / Grandma Millar's house for family time and Diana's (Brett's sister) wedding

-Labor Day weekend: San Fransisco / Monterey / Carmel, CA for Hans' (Brett's cousin) wedding

-2nd weekend of Oct: St. George to see the B's (friends) new home

-4th week of Oct: Houston to babysit for Carla (Brett's sister) and spend some time with my friend, Kim

-1st weekend of Nov: Idaho to celebrate Brett's mom's birthday

-2nd weekend of Nov: Adie stayed here and was passed around to family and friends (THANK YOU!) while Brett and I took a 5 day trip to Tucson to buy a house, and for those of you who haven't have heard, we bought one!

-3rd week of Nov: St. Louis / Nauvoo / Dayton for Jason's (Brett's brother) wedding

-4th weekend of Nov: Moving to Tucson which consisted of stopping in St. George, passing through Nevada and California and stopping in Mesa, AZ to see the temple lights there (gorgeous and highly recommended!)

-1st weekend of Dec: Las Vegas to watch Brian and Emilie (friends) run their first marathons. Way to go, guys! We also saw the Hoover Dam and the fountain show at the Bellagio. Adie loved them both because she loves water. The highlight was the "Hallelujah Chorus" fountain show. Amazing!

Interspersed in our traveling was also throwing my mom her 50th birthday party, which was so much fun, helping plan and execute a Primary program, which turned out so cute (I love those kids and miss them), saying goodbye to our friends (we miss you too) and Thanksgiving with my dad, Grandparents Savage and Trent and Amelia (my brother and sister-in-law)

We've been a little busy, but we've loved it. Adie has become an awesome traveler. She's spent the last 3 Saturdays in the car for 8 hours and has barely complained. She is great in the airplane because, well, we drug her and the Benadryl keeps her asleep almost the whole time.

We are now in temporary housing until we get the keys to our house on the 11th, so we still kind of feel like we're on vacation. That, and we're coming home for Christmas in a little while anyway, so I don't think it will feel like we've really moved until after Christmas. I think we'll really like it down here though. So far, Brett thinks he'll like his job, so that's good news as well. I'll write a separate post about our first week in Arizona, so stay tuned!