Monday, October 24, 2011

Two Years!

Today we celebrated our 2 year anniversary. It was a perfect day.

We slept in and I made eggs and these yummy pumpkin muffins. I got the recipe off of Pinterest :)


I was trying to think of what we could do to celebrate it. I wanted to do something a little special, but also take it easy. I couldn't think of anything so I looked up online to see what the traditional gifts are for each year. To my delight it said that cotton was the traditional gift to give. Cotton equals clothes right? :) ha ha. Yep I liked that idea. So we went to the mall and I got a jacket and a shirt that I have been eying, ya know the traditional gift of cotton ;). Conrad also got a few shirts. Then we went to the puppy store...

Conrad has been begging me to get a dog ever since we got married, I like dogs but I just didn't want the responsibility of taking care of one, so I kept telling him maybe later in a few years ha ha. Well he has been buttering me up this past week telling we should look at puppies on our anniversary. I told him we could go look at them and THINK about getting one... well we went to two places and guess what... we got a puppy! She is ADORABLE!


After we brought our new puppy home, Conrad took me to a gourmet pizza place and it was really good!







We never order dessert when we go out to eat but it was our anniversary so we HAD to get dessert. We got sweet potato cheese cake. It was SO yummy, it tasted like pumpkin and it had pistachio nuts crumbled over the top. yum yum



Meet Chloe :) isn't she a sweetie! When we got home from dinner we cuddled up on the couch with her and watched a movie together. It was a great anniversary :)


Conrad is like a giddy little school boy right now. He is so excited!


Happy anniversary Conrad I love you!

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Fun Weekend with the Parents

My parents came to visit us this past weekend. We had fun showing them around Phoenix, I think we succeeded in showing them a good time :) here is what we did...

Day 1: The arrival 6:20 in the A.M.

Obviously the first thing we did when they arrived was take them to the famous breakfast place, Over Easy...


My mom ordered breakfast nachos. You are probably thinking, nachos for breakfast? gross. Actually, no not gross. Very good!


MMMM breakfast nachos, I think I will order this next time we go.


Here we are, full bellies and all.

Funny story: The waitress at Over Easy was a little drunk, or at least hung over and hadn't showered yet. I couldn't smell her but Conrad said she stunk like alcohol. She was funny though. She kept saying the A and sh word. Then she told my dad to try a special sauce on his hash browns, she mixed it up for him and then SPOON FED it to him! Ha I was shocked it was pretty funny. Welcome to Phoenix dad, you are not in Utah anymore.


After breakfast, Conrad had to go to class, so my parents and I hit the Fashion Square mall to go shopping! My dad was a good sport. We stopped and had some Godiva Carmel Milkshakes. Oh my goodness! BEST milkshake ever! so good!


Yes, we were in milkshake heaven. That little cup we are drinking from, 6 bucks! it was totally worth it though.



Day 2: Shopping, food and games!

There is this store in Phoeinx called Nordstrom's Last Chance. Apparently people fly here just to shop at this store. It is like Nordstrom Rack but Last Chance has new and used stuff.

It is like black friday every day at that store, it is crazy! Every morning there is a line of people waiting for the store to open. I also heard there is an "E bay mob" that go in big groups and snatch up all the good stuff and turn around and sell it on e bay. You have to be aggressive and willing to hunt for that good deal but it is totally worth it when you find it :)

We attempted to shop at Last Chance and we found some good stuff! We got lucky though, we didn't really have to hunt, there was this random lady that just walked up to my mom and handed her a pair of TOMS. She said, "Here, I thought you might like these"... ???? we were confused, but gladly accepted because they were new and only 12 bucks AND my size! ha. 10 minutes later she hands my mom ANOTHER pair of TOMS. My mom and I looked at each
other and started laughing so hard. We named her the shopping fairy. We kept our eye on her the rest of the time to see if she would bring us more stuff. Nope that was it.

Here we are in the long line at Last Chance, we actually went there twice, my mom was excited about the stuff she got the previous day so she had to go again.

Notice how she already has a bag in her hand? well that is because after she got done buying one thing she found other things she liked and had to get back in line ha. Oh and the shoes I am wearing are the TOMS we got from the shopping fairy the previous day :)


This is what my poor dad did while we shopped...


He is probably wishing he was at school with Conrad haha.


After shopping we picked up Conrad and went to the local bar "the WineBurger" best burger in town... seriously it really is.





Ha, my dad burned his lip eating a fried zucchini. It was really bad, he had a blister on his lip.


Beer battered fries. mmmmmm best fries I ever had. Don't worry the alcohol was cooked out :)


The original wine burger. tastiest burger, and I have had a lot of burgers.


My dad really enjoyed the burger.


After WineBurger we went to Old Town Scottsdale and walked around the art festival that was going on. My dad made a friend.


There were some pretty cool paintings there.


After walking around in the heat we needed to cool off, so we went and got ice cream at a cool vintage parlor called Churn. Here I am eating a pretzel cone. It was a little too salty for me, but I had to try it because I had never heard of a pretzel cone before.


When we walked around to the back of the ice Cream Parlor we found this wall of cassette tapes, so of course we had to get a picture in front of it.








After ice cream, we went to the club house at our apartment and played some games. My mom was really concentrating, ha ha I love this picture.

Ja ja ja Jenga!




My dad cheated at air hockey... Isn't it a rule that you can't stop the puck, line it up and then take your shot? I thought the puck always had to be moving?



My mom and I attempting to play pool ha ha.


The game went pretty fast because my mom hit the eight ball in right away.

After hanging out in the Club house we went to another restaurant that Guy from Diners, dives and Driv-ins visited.


Thee Pitts Again... Interesting name I know but it was good. Have you ever heard of barbecue pulled turkey? well I hadn't and that is what I got, and it was GOOD :)


The waiter gave us little individually wrapped jelly bellies! how cute! I have never seen them individually wrapped before!


I just could not get enough of these!



Day 3: Mini Golf, more food and the Temple





This guy got like 3 holes in one, not because he is good though, he just got lucky ;-)






After mini Golf, we took my parents to the 50's Soda Parlor, Mac Alpines, the one that is also an antique shop. We got shakes and malts there. They were delicious!

This is a cool phone I found in the shop. Pretty sweet huh?



Conrad found a chair that looked exactly like the one his grandparents had in their house.


Later that night we drove to Mesa and ate at Tia Rosa. We saved the best for last. My Brother and Sister in law, Jessica and Adam introduced us to this place. We are sure glad they did. It still holds the place of our favorite restaurant over all the places we have tried so far here.


I get the same plate every time. Really tasty enchiladas. It is like a fiesta in your mouth:D


It was the perfect night to eat outside, they had the whole place decorated for Halloween. I loved it!





We drove over to the Mesa Temple after dinner to walk around for a bit. You know to walk off all the food we ate over the past 3 days.





A great way to spend the last night of a fun trip.


We had a lot of fun. It was good to see my parents and it went by too fast.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Missionary Experiences

About a month ago Conrad and I had the sister missionaries over for dinner, we got to talking with them about people who were investigating the church. I asked them about a girl who had come a few times to young womens on Sunday. They pretty much answered me by asking Conrad and I if we would like to come to the discussions with them and this girl. Of course we said yes, from then on we have been going with the missionaries once a week to visit this girl and her family.

It has been such a great experience. Being able to share what we believe has been a great testimony builder for me. It has made me realize how truly blessed we are to have the gospel in our lives. Having grown up in the church I sometimes take for granted the knowledge that we have and how great that knowledge is. It has been so fun getting to know this girl and her family and seeing the light and knowledge come into their lives.

Even more exciting is that this girl (Adrian) decided to get baptized and she asked Conrad to baptize her. She just got baptized tonight. I had the opportunity to give a talk at her baptism. Of course I bawled the whole way through. Hopefully they could feel the spirit because I am not sure if anyone could understand what I was saying. They were probably thinking why did I ask this blubbering idiot to speak ha. It was Conrads first time baptizing someone since his mission and his first time in English so he was pretty excited. It was a good night. :-)

Here is a picture of the exciting night....

The Sister Missionaries, Conrad, Adrian and her mom and sisters. Her mom and one of her sisters are already baptized. The sister on the very end I heard wants to be baptized now as well!

Friday, October 7, 2011

Unique Names

For the past two weeks now, I have been going to a speech clinic and a private school to get my clinical hours for my speech therapist license. It has been a lot of fun for me, each time I go, I get more and more excited about working in the profession. I have met many different kids who have a variety of special needs. Most of them are just the sweetest cutest little things ever. Having met so many different kids, I have come across some quite interesting names that make you wonder where the parents came up with that name.

First: Identical twin girls, BOTH have autism, interesting I know, even more interesting is that their names are Liz- Beth and Liz- Eth..... Huh? alrighty then? The names aren't weird but they sound the same. Thats just confusing for the parents. My mom gets tongue tied with mine and my sisters names sometimes and our names sound nothing a like.

Second: I have never met another Conrad other than my husband, just yesterday I met a cute little six year old that shook my hand and said, " Hi, my name is Conrad Jessie Danger Flores but you can call me Conrad Jessie" Ha! so cute... Danger though? I don't know about that. I think he should go by Jessie Danger, that sounds pretty cool. Conrad (my husband) thinks its a pretty sweet name :D

Third and probably most interesting is a cute little six year old boy whos name is........Wait for it...... . Heaven-Lee-Peace Omega Duran. Heaven-Lee-Peace is his first name and Omega is his middle name. Apparently he has a second middle name but the therapist said there wasn't enough room to put it on his records. Hmmmmm? Interseting... I bet there is no one else in the world who has his name so that is pretty cool.

I am sure I will come across many more unique names such as these. I wonder how people come up with these names?