Turkey Travels

Things have been so consistently busy here that we don't seem to be able to blog as often as we'd like so you probably won't even notice our hiatus but we're setting off to get to know the road between here and California a little better.

We are setting out to camp on the beaches of California, experience a biking wine tour, and indulge in turkey dinner campfire style. I'll miss the turkey comatose, family and friends, and football but we are excited to celebrate Thanksgiving and travels together.

We are wishing everyone a happy thanksgiving and safe travels; we hope to get in touch with you all soon!

We love and miss you

Welcome Heinrich Paul Ward

We have a new nephew that we cannot wait to meet some day!

happy healthy henry

with a package of love on the way

Midwest Treats

Is it really the middle of September already? I'm sure I'm not the only one feeling this way...

Gabe posted on our adventurous august and September has proven to be just as fun. Labor Day weekend we were able to spend time in ND with family and friends (we always love being able to do that). Gabe was in Brent and Angie's wedding as a groomsman and I was able to sit back, relax and take in the great weather and company. (I was able to go running one morning as well and let's just say the first thing out of my mouth about ND landscape isn't going to be that it's flat any longer).

We got a behind the scenes tour of the Dakota Zoo from Grandpa Jim Gorgeous Snow Leopard -- Jerry I think?

Gabe was put to work -- lets just say it's a good thing we don't milk cows for a living

I tried to get a smooch-eroo from this beauty but it didn't happen

Thankfully I was successful with this handsome one :)

This is Simon, Jim and Kathy's new kitten, he is so stinkin' cute!

And another cutie niece of ours, getting her birthday present a little late -- oops!

And of course it wouldn't be a trip to ND without shooting something, pretend or not. Gotta love the target practice Scheel's provides, we had to try our hand at it. Again probably good we don't depend on these skills for our survival. I definitely would be the gatherer!

North Dakota in its beauty

MinnesOOta

I love my 'home state'.

Over the next few days I'll try and share a picture from my week long vacation in the beautiful state. It was a fun and relaxing time, here are some of my highlights:

• Went water skiing - i can still slalom in case you were wondering like I was
• Fished and caught walleye
• kayaked
• Spent time with many of my favorite people in the world
• Ate fresh raspberries daily
• Met my nephew, Wyatt
• Ate yummy chocolate ox ice cream

Today I'll highlight our nieces and nephew that are in MN

Can you tell who had the camera at this point?

Good ol' Alaska

In June I flew up to AK to help Eric and Becca. Eric's appendix exploded and had emergency surgery - becca was 6 months pregnant at that time - they needed some extra hands. This meant that I got to spend sweet time with 3 of my sweet nieces. I didn't get many pictures, life is crazy busy when you are taking care of 3 fun kiddos.

Mari in her birthday present I made her - bakers hat and apron

Enjoying a cup full of ice cream!

Surprise!

gabe and i flew up to North Dakota last weekend to surprise Jim for his young numbered birthday. He is now getting attention from a certain four letter organization beginning with A and ending with P.

He had no idea and we arrived at his birthday breakfast with grandma and grandpa. We had a fun few days up there. We watched the ever so intense super bowl and were a little disappointed with the outcome. We ate many great meals and went ice fishing. This is what I shared with people when they asked me how our trip was. More often then I even ever thought would be the reaction was: "Wow! You did that? I've only seen that on TV. Were you in one of those little hut things?" It cracks me up. I got that response verbatim more than once. :) It makes sense in arizona i guess. My big catch and gabes big catch! :)

71 degrees inside and -7 outside; heat is niceThis is for all you arizonans -- these are the fishing houses

So yes it was fun, cold, and quick and we did spend some time in one of those little hut things.

Ward Adventures

My mom and dad came down on Christmas Day and stayed with us for a week of solid activity. We all had a wonderful time and had good belly laughs daily. We were so lucky this year to have family here for two Holidays within one month. We played a lot of games, went to the hot tub, and went on walks daily with my parents. They also golfed a lot (and now gabe is hooked!), went to an ASU basketball game, went to the Insight Bowl and some other unique fun adventures (one of which i think i must do a separate blog on).

The weather was nice and got mom thinking about retirement a bit more serious I think. I know it is brutally cold up there now and well we're having a warm front or whatever its called and it got to 78 yesterday!

On top of south mountain looking at the city

YES - dad was doing the dishes! :)

I took mom to the Garden to see Chihuly

At the Gopher game. Unfortunately KU won - still had a blast though!

At the block party after the game - new year's eve

Stretching it out before the big golf games

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.

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