Happy 7th Birthday Precious!

It's hard to believe how fast time flies by.  I can't believe my little baby girl turned 7 this month.  She is such a great dog and I can't imagine life without her.  Aaron surprised me with Precious for our first Christmas.  She was the best present I could ever receive and she truly lives up to her name being the sweetest dog ever!  Happy Birthday baby girl!

Precious loves relaxing after a hard day of playing.  I love catching shots of her like this.  The best is when she jumps in bed and wants to lay with you first thing in the morning.  It is also great to snuggle with this little girl while watching a movie.
Precious loves to play and it is sometime difficult to get her to stay still long enough to catch a picture.  She loves being outdoors chasing birds, rabbits, butterflies or light.  She has so much love for life and I really enjoy watching her play!
My cute little girl after coming in from the snow.
Here is our little baby on our first Christmas!  She used to be so little.  Aaron was great to let me name her anything I wanted.  She was so precious that I had to call her Precious.  That's all I could think of.  She is the best little girl ever!
With the move and everything going on lately we really haven't had much family time together to celebrate Precious's birthday so last night we decided to finally celebrate it.  Precious got her very own steak and was so excited.  Through her licking the steak she actually blew out the candle on her own this year.
She loved her birthday steak!  Aaron had a hard time cutting it with Precious all over it.
We make sure the dogs each have a special treat on their birthdays and holidays.  Here they are eagerly waiting for their steak dinners. (Notice Armstrong's head at the back of the table)
Precious and her birthday meal
Armstrong ate his steak before the camera could recycle for us to take his picture.  He literally inhales his food.
Here are the dogs double checking to make sure now steak was left behind.
Presents!  Precious loves stuffed animals so she got a few this year.
She immediately took them out in the yard to play with them.
More presents!
Precious and some of her toys and her empty dinner plate.  Look at how happy she is!
Precious sure enjoyed her birthday.  Thanks for being such a sweet and wonderful little girl Precious!  We love you very much and are so lucky to have you as our dog!  Happy Birthday!!!

The rabbits enjoyed the party too.  Here is Mopsy in the newly built cage Aaron made for the rabbits.

Flopsy, Nala and Bugys in the enclosed part of the cage.
Armstrong loves to hang out by the rabbit cage.  He now has a hi pitched yelp like Precious.  He loves watching the rabbits.  
Precious enjoying another birthday treat.  I lover her pose!
Armstrong snuck into our room to enjoy his treat in private.  Thanks for the wonderful birthday Precious!  You are such a joy to have in our lives!  We LOVE you very much!!!!

5 little chickens, 4 happy dogs, 3 people sanding, 2 tired people and a move

Well the title of this post just covers our Saturday morning.  We had a very busy weekend.  On Friday after work Aaron and I went up to Show Low for the weekend.  We had to help my sister move, help Ricardo sand the deck in Heber, do some virtual tours, pack a few things we left in Show Low, check on real estate listings and bring the trailer down to Tucson.  It was quite the busy time, but we had a great time.

First thing Saturday morning we went to Heber for a tasty breakfast at Rim Cafe with Aaron's dad.  Then the 3 of us sanded the deck to get it ready to stain before the snow comes this winter.  Ricardo rented a floor sander and it went very quickly.  Ricardo then stained the deck by himself by lunchtime.  I wish we would have taken pictures of us working on the deck.  We will have to take a picture of the deck next time we are up there to show the finished product.

Then we went over to my sisters to help her move.  She and Ryan moved to Queen Creek this weekend.  Her dogs were so excited to go for the car ride.  They are such big loveable sweethearts.  We had a good time helping Janae and Ryan clean and we got a great deal on their lawn furniture that they didn't want to move.  Aaron and I don't focus on buying furniture or decorations for our home, so we were joking that our new yard furniture is probably nicer than our indoor furniture.
When we moved to Tucson I got rid of all of my chickens, well almost all of them.  At the last minute I decided to keep 5 of the youngest ones at the farm.  I was amazed at how much they had grown in 3 weeks and I was even more excited when my dad told me that they had been laying eggs.  He gets 4 eggs a day!  These were my youngest ones and weren't laying when I left.  It was so fun gathering their eggs.  They had white and brown eggs.  I'm glad I decided to hang onto a few of them.
They love to hang out on this perch in their hen house.
Our dogs enjoyed being at the farm.  They had a great time running in the field, but it was funny they were more excited to come home to Tucson than arrive in Show Low.  Here's Armstrong enjoying a tasty Saturday night treat.
My beautiful baby girl Precious enjoying her Saturday night treat
My chickens up first thing in the morning.
More chicken pics
Armstrong was fascinated by the chickens.  He kept trying to figure out how to get closer to them.
He was by there cage the whole time he was outside.
My two great travelers.  I thought this was cute.  It was on our way home to Tucson and it almost looks like they are holding hands.

We had a busy weekend and were very tired after everything was done, but it was a great feeling to have such a productive weekend.

Annie's Apples - Willcox

So the first weekend we moved to Tucson we decided to go to Willcox with some of Aaron's family.  We had a great time.  We were excited to pick apples, but unfortunately a frost destroyed most of the crop.  We did manage to pick a few though.

Aaron sampling a fresh apple from the tree.
My favorite part was picking out our Halloween pumpkin.  Their pumpkin patch was huge!  This is only a section of it.  We spent a lot of time looking for the perfect pumpkin.  Here is Aaron over our pick.
Here we are with our prized Halloween pumpkin!
I love the holidays and I love pumpkins!  I had to have my picture taken surrounded by pumpkins.
Look how happy I am with my treasured pumpkin!  It was very heavy!

Our Life in Tucson

Well, we have been busy transitioning to our new life in Tucson. It has been so crazy the last couple of weeks that I haven't had a chance to blog or even take pictures of what has been going on. We moved to Tucson on October 5th, the day after Aaron's big race. We had the mover's come that Friday and pack the house, Saturday was Aaron's race and I stayed at the house while they loaded the moving truck and Sunday we woke up at 3am to drive to Tucson to have our stuff delivered on Sunday morning. The movers were amazing and packed up everything and unpacked a lot of things for us. I don't know what I would have done without them. I tell ya that is the only way to move! My sweet husband and my mom, step dad and brothers came over Sunday to help unpack us and we got our room situated and the kitchen unpacked. I have the world's best husband because he was willing to help get things put in order after a grueling 9 hour 20 minute mountain bike race in the rain and cold and then waking up at 3 am to drive 4 hours to Tucson. He is so wonderful. He just wanted to make sure I had things in order so I could be ready for work the next day. I started my new job on Monday the 6th of October and I have been really enjoying it. I am in training right now and learning so much about Raytheon. I love this company and feel so lucky to have my new job. I love meeting with the different managers and one manager I met with today said that he tried to get me in his group, but I was in such high demand from other groups that they wouldn't let him. I sure feel valued and appreciated by Raytheon and I love all of my new coworkers. They are all very helpful and informative. I have been given a lot of information over the last week, but it is now starting to come together and make more sense. I am just so excited about my job!

Aaron has been wonderful getting the house put together while I am at work. He got the garage finished yesterday and it looks great! We just have a little bit left to organize and we have been working on it in the evenings. I just can't wait to get the boxes out of the house. The dogs love their new house. They love the back yard because it has a water fall they like to play on. Aaron also built the rabbits a new house and they love it. They are always playing in their new cage and seem very happy with their new home. I love our location. We are close to this great park with an outdoor pool, dog park and racquetball courts, a mall is 4 miles away, Joann's and Michael's are 2 miles away and there is a pet store down the street. I am in heaven! It is nice to have some more stores to shop at besides the Kmart and Walmart in Show Low. I do miss the trees, but I am really enjoying Tucson so far!

Here are some pictures of the first day in our new home.Me heading out for my first day of work at 6am. I am excited, but a little tired.

Here is our little stow-away from the mountains. He was hiding in Aaron's toolbox and driving Armstrong crazy. Armstrong sniffed him out and we couldn't figure out why he was so fascinated with the toolbox. We opened the drawers and didn't see anything, then Aaron checked later in the day since Armstrong was still sitting by the toolbox and out jumped this little guy. He now lives in the waterfall/pond in the backyard. If anyone is ever in Tucson drop us a line. We would love to see you!

Tour of the White Mountains AKA Tour of Hell

Many of you may know that I used to be an avid cyclist, racing for Arizona State and various grass roots teams, I was especially talented at endurance events and have several 24 hour races under my belt, well here I am at it again although I pedal a little slower these days...Well a little about the event a "tour" of the white mountains right...well above is a very small and crude map of the course which was 67.1 miles and included just under 6000 feet of vertical climbing up to an altitude of over 9000 feet.



OK so the race starts at 8 am here is the starting/finishing line and yes there is a reason why there are no pictures of the finish and not because I didn't finish yes I did finish more explanation belowAll smiles here little do I know what I am in for...

Ohh this isn't so bad...my butt doesn't even hurt here....but here is the rest of the story. What the pics don't show you is that the wind is blowing at about 20-25 miles per hour and that a major storm is moving in, temp is about 55 degrees...so I do just fine I get to the "top" of the climb or the furthest point at about mile 30 in about 3:30 hours and I am feeling good I am on track to make it back in my goal time of about 7 hours, so any way I am cold and tired but press on, at about 7 hours in I am about 62 miles into the race, my butt hurts, my skin hurts and I am soo cold you wouldn't believe and this is when the fun starts...yes you guessed it the rain starts, not bad right it is always fun to ride in the rain and hey what is an other challenge after 62 miles of mountain biking...wrong...if anyone knows the dirt of the white mountains it is almost all clay and we know that more than any one...the clay stuck to my tires so bad it was like building a snowman, layer after layer until...yep you guessed it, you couldn't pedal any more and the bike was as heavy as wet concrete...5 miles from the finish and out of reach of the aid station we had to leave the bike and walk in the rain (temp about 45 degrees now) completely soaked and mud packed cycling shoes...2:20 hours later I cross the finish line with a total time of 9 hours and 20 minutes...Andrea was so worried she forgot to take pictures...in fact the phx news stations were there because the city had to send out search and rescue to find some of the younger riders...it was fun hearing helicopters looking for you over head, notice I was wearing all black...anyway several riders had hypothermia and other ailments, luckily I was able to recover my bike a couple of days later once the mud dried up and no riders were seriously injured...below are some stats...

Total Distance 67.1 - 62 riding and 5.1 walking in peanut butter
Time started: 8:00 am
Time Ended: 5:20 pm
Time elapsed: 9 hours 20 minutes
Vertical elevation climbed ~5,800
Max Heart Rate 189
Total Calories burned 9,102
Energy consumed: 6 energy gel shots, 80 oz of sports drink, 120 oz water, 1/2 banana
Total Rain with the storm: 2 in
Value of Experience: Priceless

Chevelon Canyon Hike

This past Saturday we had a great hike with Aaron's parents. We went to Chevelon Canyon just outside of Heber and had so much fun. It was a little warm, but the scenery was beautiful! Our hiking group. Precious, Aaron, Linda, Armstrong & Ricardo
We hiked along a river and Armstrong loved it! He jumped in to swim a few times. He loves the water!
Look at that boy go! I actually got in the water to watch him. It was cold, but not too bad and then all of a sudden my toe got pinched. I looked down and this big crawdad was pinching me and then out of nowhere a bunch of crawdads showed up so I jumped right out of the water. I don't like things in the water pinching or biting me. They didn't bother Armstrong though so he continued to swim for a little while.
Our family photo right after one of Armstrong's swims.
Me and my water boy!

Me with Precious & Armstrong. Precious loves to be in the outdoors too. She prefers to stay out of the water so instead she digs in the sand and chases butterflies. Our dogs love to go on hikes and camping.
Armstrong really enjoyed walking next to Ricardo. I thought it was so cute how he was right in line with his Poppy.
Armstrong at another point in the hike decided to check out the waters.
Ricardo actually found some wild things growing like wild grapes and the wild hops Aaron is showing here.
Aaron and his baby girl. We sure enjoyed our hike on Saturday and we were very glad that Ricardo and Linda suggested it. Thanks for the good time!