Catching Up...Again

Good lord. I am so sick of being behind on blogging. It is officially time
to get caught up! And get caught up I shall. In an effort to make it so,
here's a post including several things I've been meaning to get to. Now,
if the stars align, I should be on real time before the middle of February.

Starting off with Thanksgiving Day...
Our friends the Moroney's had us over, which was especially nice
considering we were still living out of a hotel. (We closed on our house
two days later.) Kim and Nathan made an outstanding turkey
with honey and Tabasco. Have you ever heard of such a thing? We
hadn't, but it was sensational.

Everyone pitched in on the side dishes, which meant it wasn't too
much work for anyone. I found a sinfully delicious dressing combination
including rye and sour dough breads that I was really pleased with. I
think I finally, truly figured out how to make a good stuffing. (Proud
moment.) It was a nice turn of events after eight average tries in the
past eleven years. David totally assisted though; so, I can't be too proud
until I go solo and it tastes as good.

Our whole Thanksgiving Day was wonderful, from the food to the
company. We had fun introducing Kim and Nathan to Catch Phrase.
Which, by the way, if you are not familiar with this game, you should
stop whatever you're doing right this second and go to Target to purchase
it. So fun. Besides that, it was nice to reflect on all the things we have to
be thankful for. We've had kind of a crazy year, but it's been filled with
a lot of really good things. We're way too fortunate.

The following two pictures aren't much to look at, but I thought our
families might like to see our faces!


David and me -- two serious cooks in their kitchen.


And us at the table getting ready to eat.

On a side note, the Moroney's are putting this house up for sale in a
week or so if any of you have a desire to move to Arizona and be our
neighbors...Now might be the time!

Onto another memorable day...
I finally went to my first ASU game ever and it was so much fun.
Lindsay took me. (She is an ASU grad and big fan.) We tailgated,
scalped tickets, went to the game, met some really fun people.
And ASU won! We had such a good time, we decided to go again
the next week with David and some other friends of ours since
they had another home game. The Sun Devils ended up making it
to the bowl game in Hawaii... Yes, I know that now. : )

Anyway, back to Lindsay. She is so much fun to hang out with. She
makes me laugh out loud every time we're together, and I love it.
Can't wait 'til next season. Go Sun Devils!



Onto some happy family news...
Remember these guys?



Well, my brother, Aaron, and Pamela have gotten engaged! We are
so happy for the two of them or should I say the six of them. We're
very pleased to officially welcome Pam and her girls, Lauren and Meghan,
into our family ; (although, they have already been family for awhile now).
They couldn't be a sweeter bunch. So, cheers to them!

Aaron also had a big change in his job situation recently. His company
moved much of his operation from Indiana to Florida where they could do
what they were doing for less money. Since the job market in his field is
tapped in Indiana, he looked for and found something in Toledo. He has
officially moved there now and is working for a company called Johnson
Controls.

So, they've had a lot of big changes, but they are all doing great. In fact,
they just closed on a beautiful, new house in the Ottawa Hills, Toledo area.
I just wanted to update you on what was happening with them -- Thanks to
all of you who ask how they are doing from time to time. That means a
lot to me; as do they.

What else have we been up to? Let's see...

David's had a lot of really fun end-of-the-year things through work
around the time that we moved back to Arizona. He's golfed a few
times (surprise!) and he saw the Phoenix Suns play twice. One of his
favorite outings was when they went to a race track and drove what I
can only describe as glorified go carts. He said they went like 45 mph and
they got to ride much longer than you do at the ones at the putt-putt
places. In fact, they were going fast enough to leave him with a next-day
sore neck from his crashes! Anyway, he loved it -- good times.

And then, shortly after we got back to Phoenix, David joined the
FBI, as you can see here...



Alright, alright. You got me. He didn't really join he FBI. And this
is actually a picture of Mark, a guy he works with. But he did
go with a group of guys into the desert with high powered rifles
and guns to blow stuff up, which is almost as cool. It was an outing
they took some clients to. I don't really care for guns, but I think even
I would have even enjoyed this. Sounds like they had a great time.


This picture is a little fuzzy. In case you can't tell, it's of David.
He's planting pumpkins in the hills side which they later used
for target practice.


Here's most of the group that went that day.
I thought this picture was cool because it kind of shows off what it
looks like around here, for those of you who have never been. It's
not the clearest picture, but I was hoping you'd be able to see the
cactus in the background.

He brought some video clips home from the day that are pretty
cool, actually. I wanted to post them, but I haven't been able to
figure out how to upload them to the blog. If you want to see them,
email one of us and we'll forward them to you.

Anyway, I happened to be hanging out with the wife of one of the
guys that went on their shooting excursion when he got home. He was
bursting at the seams to tell us every single detail. So excited. Once I
got to our place, I found David in the same condition. Fired up! It was
cute to see him so excited.

On a more serious note, we got some sad news about the loss
of a friend this past December. Mike McGee was the branch manager
for PCI in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was in his early sixties and
died of a heart attack on a Sunday morning shortly before the Christmas
holidays.

David was a big fan of Mike. And Mike was a great friend to David. They
got to know each other while D was working there for the seven months
before we went to Ireland. Mike really took David under his wing and taught
him a lot. I had a chance to spend some time with Mike and his wonderful
wife, Jennifer, last December when I went up for a visit on my break from
school. They made a happy couple -- crazy in love with each other and
both a lot of fun. We were glad to be able to go and pay our respects to
both of them. Jennifer is in our thoughts all the time -- I just cannot even
imagine what she must be going through.

Life is short and unpredictable. It sometimes takes things like this to
remind us...Me, anyway. But this thing -- Mike's passing away so
unexpectedly, has got me thinking. I've been trying to take some time to
think about what's important to me and to re prioritize a few things.
It guess it's not something I can package up neatly and explain. It's
just been on my mind. So, I thought I'd share.

And finally, a couple random pictures of Killian and me taken by
David while I was pretending to watch Monday night football with the
guys. (I really just talk and sometimes watch the replays.)

p.s. I recently got bangs, and I love them.











Stay tuned! Coming soon...
Pictures of the house.
Photos from our trip to Napa with PCI.
And hopefully, some pictures of ASU and Arizona
so you can see where we are spending our days.

Keep in touch and let us know how you are!!