All Things Spiny

We went on a wonderful hike this past weekend in South Mountain Park, near our house. I don't even want to talk about the last time we were out on a hike, it was so good to finally be out again. I was inspired on our way back down the mountain by all the wonderful spines we were passing on the different cacti. I'm always intrigued by how different they all are but have never taken pictures of them. So this was my attempt. They are gorgeous. There IS color in the desert, just much more subtle than many places. Take a lookskie for yourself.Looking up at the wonderful saguaro

I didn't capture this as good as it was that day - the tips of these spines are golden yellow are were glowing in the sun.
OUCH! These guys are huge!

I couldn't get over just how red these spines were so I had to isolate the red and make everything else black and white. Below you'll see it with the green cactus, it was the perfect Christmas cactus.

Holiday Cheer

I love this time of year. I love listening to Christmas songs, decorating the house and tree, and baking sweets for loved ones. I also really like traditions. Gabe and I have both carried our own family traditions into each others lives and will continue to practice them. I also like the idea of starting new family traditions that we can do as our own family. Here are some that we've started:

• Bake sugar cookies and custom design one of your own
• Buy a new ornament for our tree picked out together - maybe this will be changed to make our own family christmas ornament
• Name our christmas tree - last year it was fred the douglas fir, this year we have scarlet
• Added this year -- tour our neighborhood holiday lights on our bikes - super fun!
• have a gingerbread house build off

That's all I can think of so far. What are your family traditions, new or old?
because i teach preschool we have these AWESOME neon food colors, however also because i teach preschool, our "normal" colors are at school...Our stockings from both sides of the family -- wheeler side are the large ones, wards side are the smaller ones in the middle. Gabe's grandma has the Wheeler ones made, my aunt made my little one and I made gabe's little one. so fun!Scarlet

Wheeler Adventures

gabe and i are very fortunate. We are able to be with family on both holidays this year - Thanksgiving AND Christmas! This is the first time ever since we've been living in Arizona. Kathy and Jim flew down for Thanksgiving this year and we had quite the adventures!

They flew in on Thanksgiving day and we just hung around and cooked some good food. Gabe was learning how to carve the turkey and Kathy made our gravy for us, as I'm not the best gravy maker yet.

On black friday we slept in (awww so good) and then decided that we could try going to a couple of stores for some good deals. Our first destination: Kohls. We lasted approximately 3 minutes inside that store upon seeing the line that we couldn't find the end of after walking for that amount of time. Thankfully we were all on the same page and turned around quickly.

We had a lot of good food while they were here: My Big Fat Greek Restaurant, Pei Wei, Ra Sushi, Oregano's, Gardunos, and I still think I'm missing some. Gabe was able to take a good amount of time off but I had kids all week so was unable to take much time off during their stay.

On Saturday we went to the Grand Canyon in one day and looking back wished we would have stayed over night for a few reasons. Nonetheless, we had an amazing visit to this beautiful land. Gabe and I had never been there during the day so it was a new adventure for us as well. It is expansive and captivating. I could have watched that landscape for days - given there weren't hundreds of people around. It was definitely chilly there and we were hoping to stay for sunset. We did stay for a good amount of dusk but decided to head back before the sun was completely down. Plus you couldn't really stand and just enjoy it all because if you were there long enough (10 seconds) without taking a picture of your friends/family or being in a picture, you were soon a photographer for someone else. It was a fun day in Northern Arizona.

It was amazing to see the colors of the canyon change with the setting sun.

We went to Los noches de Luminarias at the Garden which was quite spectacular this year. We have a grand installation by Chihuly there right now through May of next year. Chihuly is a glass blower and is known around the world for his glass sculptures. I hadn't seen the pieces during the night prior to this I was pleasantly surprised and delighted. It looked amazing at night. I love to walk the trails and listen to music, so Lumi is the best of this because you do both. You can see more pictures of the sculptures that are at the garden by visiting the the Garden's website. It was fun to take family to Lumi too, I've always wanted to but never been able. Jim, Kathy, and Gabe came and met me for lunch one day as well so they were able to see where I work which was fun.

The Coyotes hockey game was another highlight. They played the Kings and won in an exciting last period. The whole week was fun and enjoyable. It was wonderful to spend time with Jim and Kathy, we had a great visit.

Officially Chilly

Yup its a fact, its officially a bit chilly here in AZ. Today we had to turn our heat on for the first time this season. I hope you all are doing well in your "chilly" areas. I could actually go for a little snow now...

Happy Thanksgiving

How was your turkey day? We had a wonderful turkey day and our first one with family since we've been in Arizona. Gabe's parents are down for a week and arrived yesterday. It is fun having them here and they were a GREAT help in cooking the meal. It was very tasty and gabe and i both got some needed tutorials. We have a fun week planned and hope to be going to the grand canyon tomorrow as none of us have seen it before. Gabe and I have drove through the Grand Canyon twice, both in the middle of the night, so we are excited to see it in the day. I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving!

free is always fun

On Tuesday some friends had a clothes/book swap. You brought whatever clothes you didn't want, need, fit, or just tired of; along with books. There was a huge pile of clothes and many many books to choose from. It was such a fun girls night, I loved it. Plus getting new clothes and books for free! Recycling is great, set one of these up for you and your friends. We decided to do something like this monthly now.

Then gabe and i went to Trader Joe's on Wednesday evening to try one last spot for pie pumpkins that nobody has anymore. While they too didn't have pie pumpkins, they were giving out a free pie for every customer. We got a cranberry walnut tart, which is delicious, because we made a pumpkin pie for dinner.

Too stressed to know how to relax?

Sometimes it stinks having someone know you so well because they know all of your little quirks and faults too. Last night gabe showed me how much of a blessing it really is to have someone know you better than yourself.

I've been really stressed out at work lately with some new projects on my plate and the only other position in children's programs being vacant for a few months now, both causing long days at work. At dinner last night I must have had a glazed over look on my face because gabe kept asking me what I was thinking about or what was wrong. Nothing was wrong I said, but I recognize that I'm pretty stressed out and I wasn't sure what to do to relax.

Gabe gave me a back rub and prepared a bubble bath for me. My muscles relaxed and I entered that mental state of mind where you are aware of everything going on around you and you hear all the sounds but its like you are asleep. It was wonderful, he knew exaclty what I needed when I didn't even have then energy to try and think about it myself. I really love being married to gabe...

simply sensational truffles

I volunteered to bake for our chruch's craft fair this weekend. We just got our Food and Family holiday magazine so flipped through there to decide what to make. I found the prettiest truffles and the receipe was so easy! So I decided to try making truffles for the first time. The making the truffle part was really easy, just two steps really. The decorating is what was a little more meticulous than I expected, but they were worth it. They were SO good! And they looked nice too, I thought.

The different kinds I made

Packaged for the craft fair bake sale

starter, battery, new car?

Lesson learned: when your car doesn't start, check your battery FIRST. We had been using one car for awhile now because gabe's car doesn't pass emissions to be registered in AZ so we decided that we would not put money into fixing it at this point anymore. When you're down to one car and it stops working, life changes fast for a little bit. Public transportation isn't well, the best in the Phoenix metro area and a car is needed.

So its determined that the starter went out in our car. Gabe confers with his dad that its true this is what is wrong and his father says that gabe can pretty easily fix it himself. Great! This would save us towing it to our mechanic who is clear across town about 20 miles. So the process begins. Here are our steps we took when we went into problem solving mode:

1. Rent a car - we needed one to go get all the parts we needed and to get to work in the morning, on my first day of classes.


2. Go to the library to look in the all knowing car manual book (whats it called?) and copy the page that describes in about 5 steps how to change the starter in our car.
3. Buy a coffee so you can get change to copy that page.


4. Go back home and start translating that foreign language of mechanic stuff.


5. turn on your foul language switch and eventually get the starter out after a long while.


6. I book it out of the house to go get the new starter before the store closes in 10 min. and of course come to a train which RARELY happens down here


7. Get there after it closed BUT the door was still open (YESSS!)


8. Buy it and book it home with the new shiny heavy starter.


9. Gabe smiles at me and I exclaim how lucky we are i got in there barely in time. He tells me its not the started; i need a new battery.


10. HUH
11. laugh as i'm sitting there being the assistant, handing tools his way and see the picture below of the message on the flap of the box of the new starter.

Chalk it up to experience! This all heightened our new car search and we ended up buying a new car 5 days later. It was the most expensive battery change I've ever had. humorous in many ways.

It is incredible the kind of car knowledge that Jim carries around in his mind. He was the true mechanic in this whole thing. So we have a new battery and a "new" car, of which we really are enjoying. I've wanted a forester for mmm maybe 7 years now so its exciting. We still haven't taken pictures of her yet though...

Blurry but still funny

Dirty work is almost done...

oh and how i love this one

precious fall family time

We were able to spend some time with our family in Jamestown, ND and Brainerd, MN. We loved being able to be back to experience some more fall weather in the north. We had a blast. We went to a corn maze and pumpkin patch, watched hannah try her hand in pumpkin exploring, helped make kneophla soup, ate some really great food, shared stories and had the BEST night sleep on our entire trip all while we were in ND.

gabe and hannah
Jade, Josh, and Hannah in the corn maze
Kathy, Jim, and Gabe in the corn maze
(before we got lost and had gabe cheat so we could figure it out)
Hannah digging in, with some help from dad
Getting ready to walk!

In MN we went to the park, walked through fallen leaves, played many board games, had a wonderful family dinner, stayed up late talking, and celebrating Ryan and Jackie's marriage. It is always fun to be around family and play with all the girls.

The five girls loving the merry-go-round

Mari who would get the biggest smile going down this slide
I LOVE this fall picture!

Ryan and Jackie had a beautiful wedding. It was a sun shiny day with a little breeze, which made for some gorgeous pictures. We got to see a lot of people we haven't seen in awhile and of course danced the night away. (We were both in the wedding so weren't able to get many pictures).

The happy couple
Jackie and the girls
Ryan and Jewel

Our 1st year of marriage

...has been blissful. Gabe never disappoints that is for sure! He surprised me for our anniversary with a stay at the beautiful Brown Palace in downtown Denver. I was in awe just standing in the lobby. You looked straight up and to see a magnificent stained glass ceiling. The place was ornate and felt like we were on the Titanic minus the being on a boat. That night we went out to Osteria Marco, an Italian restaurant. It was the BEST cheese and food I've had. Seriously. Amazing in house cheeses that we dream about. We got back to the hotel and there was a rose petal turn down and woke up to an amazing room service breakfast. It was a euphoric day for us and are so happy to be married to one another.

the brown palace

The room dividers were wine racks, very fun!

Wedventure Two

Chris and Lauren's wedding was in Denver and absolutely beautiful! We had a great time in Colorado and at all the wedding events. Gabe was a groomsmen in this wedding and I was a personal attendant. Everything went smoothly,(according to me) and it was a gorgeous day. We had a blast at the reception, dancing our feet off. They gave gabe and i one of the most special memories at their reception. Our anniversary was the Sunday after their wedding so they played our first dance song for us to dance to again! So thoughtful, we still smile about it.

Bestest Friend in the whole darn world

I got a sweet surprise in the mail today. It was perfect after me dreaming about fall in the northern states. Andrea and Jeremy (the cutest newlyweds) went on a fall hike last weekend and she collected these beautiful fall leaves and sent them to me in the mail! I got them today with a sweet note from her. They even have the scent of fall! I think i'm going to press them a little longer and then frame them in one of those glass frames where pictures look like they float. That way I'll have a little Duluth fall all year round. It's one of the hardest things, being away from those you love dearly. Thank you andrea, you are the dearest friend! Love and miss you muchos...

urban kayaking

we made it out to kayak yesterday on possibly one of two days that its ever both cloudy and windy down here, but it was beautiful out! It started out that this pretty stinky young guy showed us to our boats and we got in and were on our way, which i was thankful for because man he was stinky. So we start paddling and about 3-5 minutes of paddling we reach our first bridge to go under. On our paddle over we talked about how stinky this dude was. Then i was like but the smell is NOT going away is it? Gabe said that it wasn't so bad and then i realized that my life jacket STUNK so bad like him, or b.o. that i was immediately disgusted. I started unbuckling my life jacket and twisting the arm parts to get it as far as possible off my body as legal (he told us they had to be on our shoulders). So i definitely left it on my shoulders but i was sporting it much more like an 80s fashion statement when we wore our shirts half hanging off of our shoulders.

Trying to get over this and have a good time (especially because this was part of gabe's bday presents from me) and keep paddling towards our next bridge to go under. Gabe looks at me like i'm crazy with the life jacket and insists upon switching with me. So i allow it because he really wanted me to have a different one. This was MUCH better for me. (Later I thought about most likely all the people that don't wear shirts in the summer and sweat so bad while wearing those life jackets and then I was really grossed out).

Anyways beyond all of that we had so much fun!! We were playing in the waves and watched many many aeroplanes come in over our heads, surrounded by buttes, highways, condos, and office buildings - it was the most urban kayak experience that you can get i think which I enjoyed. Our shoulders were quite soar by the end of our time because the wind was relentless on our way back to the dock and gabe woke up with a soar back (he is 26) but it was all worth it. This is definitely something we want to do with more guests that visit us.

Possible Hiatus...

well there you have it - my cost- co size update. I hope this suffices for the absence of posts over the last few weeks. This coming week we get to go onto our wedventures 2 and 3 and are soo excited for them! This may mean that i'm not on here again for sometime. We hope to be able to see many of you during the next few weeks!

surrounding ourselves with experience

We have decided to join a class this year that studies the Bible through the text, Interdisciplinary Atlas of the Bible. It touches upon the history, geography, archeology, and theology of the bible. We had our first class this past Thursday and as gabe predicted, we were definitely the youngest ones there by about 25ish years. (There were maybe one or two others that were only slightly older than us). So yes, once a week for the next 7 months we will be surrounded by lovely elders that have so much experience at life and all that it delivers. I'm always intrigued by their stories they share and really enjoy learning from them. So I'm looking forward to our Thursday evenings learning about many different aspects of the bible and learning from our elders, which i think has been lost a bit in our society.

Pumpkin Muffins

Since I keep mentioning this lovely food item I'm giving you the recipe because one of the reasons they are so fabulous is because they are SO easy! I don't have a recipe card for them because you can easily keep it in your mind:

Pumpkin Muffins
1 can of pumpkin filling
1 can of water
1 box of spice cake mix
1/2 package of chocolate chips (optional - i make both with and without)

Mix all ingredients together and fill muffin tins with mix. Bake at 375* F for about 25-30 minutes or until you can remove a toothpick without any mix on it.

Enjoy!

fab fall

Although az seems to be getting the memo slowly about what season it is - fall, i'm missing it badly. Thankfully through wedventures I'll get to experience "northern" falls more than i usually do. But in attempt to live in fall right now i'm making a list (in no order) of all my old time favorite things about fall, my favorite season:

• pumpkin spice lattes
  
• pumpkin muffins
  
• well anything pumpkin - carving them, the scent of them, decorating with them
• the leaves changing and falling
• the crisp cool, fresh air
• light jackets
• enjoying hot coffee
• picking apples, making apple sauce
• the colors of the season
• heavier blankets on your bed
• warm apple cider
• crunching on leaves as you walk
• jumping in leaves
  
• Watching leaves decompose
• making and eating soup
  
• and newly added: gabe and my anniversary :)

What are your favorite things?

26 is a good age -- for my husband

I love my dear husband so much, i of course wanted to make his birthday super special. I had many surprises planned for him but quickly learned how skillful you have to become when you're married to plan surprises for your spouse. Its hard to surprise him when our finances are shared, you're on similar work schedules therefore you carpool to work and well you get the picture - its hard to hide things.

Gabe now works the early shift (6-2) so we don't car pool quite as often because I don't function that well that early. But I wanted to make him a birthday breakfast since that's been sort of a tradition for us. This meant that I was up baking around 4:30 am. I made him his favorite - pumpkin and chocolate chip muffins. The little part about me not functioning well at that early morning rang ever so true as I baked and burned the tips of my fingers and got blisters. But all was okay because he got his muffins and i went to back to bed once he left, holding a frozen bag of corn on my fingers. It was a fun birthday and now my old husband is 26, owning a "real mans" drill.

My sweet man with his goodies

These are his triathlon shorts. I knew he wanted a specific kind, of which I didn't know (00ps) so I made him some mini ones until we order his real ones. They are pretty cool - even had butt pads and all.

Another of my umm, creative gifts. It's a little magnetic dude that has a kayak and paddle. I gave him a little morning kayak trip and this is how i presented it to him. We are suppose to go on this this morning - but gabe is still in bed this morning as that his is absolute FAVORITE now that he gets up SOOO early during the week, so he sleeps as late as he wants.So excited that he has a real drill (not a wimpy one any more) so he can build stuff.

Chis and gabe - good friends came out for some drinks that night.

Wedventure numero uno

Wedventure will bring you three lovely weddings in the next month. This is our first one which was my best friends wedding. It was a lovely fall day, September 20th, in minnesota. It was wonderful - the trees were turning, sun shining, just right temperature, a beautiful bride and handsome groom.

A fun thing about weddings for me is seeing how the couple's personalities shine through in the details. Andrea is one of the most creative people I know and she did an amazing job at creating much of her wedding paraphernalia. She even did glass etching! It was a fun night and we danced the night away with the happy couple.

Getting all ready and prettied up

Relaxing before the big ceremony
Tres amigas from moorhead