New York City! Part One

Conrad and I got to go to the Big Apple for spring break thanks to my brother and sister in-law James and Tricia. They gave us their free frequent flier tickets for Christmas last year, so thank you James and Tricia! We had a blast! New York City is such a fun place to visit. We spent 3 whole days there and did so many things and yet we barely scratched the surface of the things you can do there. We saw Broadway shows, ate New York pizza and other delicious food, went sight seeing, got lost several times, and walked around A LOT! I went from hardly walking to walking 6 or more miles a day and boy were my feet and legs sore! But it was so worth it.

We left bright and early on Tuesday morning. Here we are waiting to get on our plane. We look so tired!

We arrived in New York in the early evening, I was a little worried when we pulled up to our hotel and saw this...

The surrounding area of our hotel was a little sketchy looking, but it wasn't bad at all we had a nice stay there.

We were right across the street from a cemetery. It was crazy how tightly packed all the tombstones were. Just like all the buildings in New York.

The hotel told us that since we were staying four nights they gave us their best room. We were surprised to find this in our room...

Our very own personal Jacuzzi right next to our bed. Yes!

We were so tired from the plane trip we decided to order in food to our room and turn in early.

We had to walk a mile everyday to the subway from our hotel. It took us a few days to figure out the whole subway thing. We either got on the wrong one, or we got off at the wrong stop and had to get back on. Oh, and a couple times we missed it because we took too long to get on or off.

So happy we found the right subway!

Our first day in New York we walked around Time Square and looked for shows that were selling discount tickets.

Right in the middle of Time Square. I couldn't believe I was actually there.

I really wanted to see Wicked, I saw it in San Fransisco 8 years ago and LOVED it and I have been wanting to see it again ever since, but the tickets are so dang expensive. So we signed up for the lottery that they do before every show to try and win super cheap front row tickets but we didn't win. I was so bummed. BUT, we did win the lottery tickets for the play, Godspell Wahoo!

We were in the very front row sitting on pillows, yep pillows. It wasn't the most comfortable place to sit. Conrad wasn't too thrilled ha ha.

Here we are sitting on our pillows.

This is a really bad picture, but I just took it to show exactly how close we were to the stage, I could rest my chin on the stage, we were that close.

GodSpell was pretty good. It was a bunch of different parables from the book of Matthew. I almost got kicked in the face a couple times though ha ha.

After Godspell we walked around, ate some delicious Pizza and then saw the show Mama Mia.

After Mama Mia we walked around and enjoyed all the lights and craziness of New York City.

More pictures to come soon.

He Wants to Draw a Cat for You!

Lately Conrad and I have really gotten into the show "Shark Tank." It's one of those shows that I wouldn't normally be interested in but it is surprisingly entertaining. Different entrepreneurs come on and present their business or invention to a board of self made million and billionaires (The Sharks) and they try to convince the Sharks to invest with them. You would be surprised at what inventions are successful, it makes ya think, "Really?? I can do that" or "why didn't I think of that?" and now they are millionaires because of a stupid little idea.

We just recently watched an episode, and one of the presentations cracked me up, so just for fun, I thought I would share. Maybe someone will think it's as amusing as I do.

Keep in mind I am easily amused.



Yep, this guy made a deal with Mark Cuben, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks. I'm thinking I could save my $9.95 and draw myself a cat picture.Would you buy a cat drawing? Because apparently a lot of people do. Who would have thought? Now I'm always trying to think of some stupid idea that could make millions. When I share my ideas with Conrad he just shakes his head and says,"We're not going on Shark Tank."  Yeah, I would probably cry if I went on there, they are ruthless.

Anyway, just thought I would share, maybe it brightened your day a little.

"I want to draw a cat for you!" I bet that song is in your head now huh?

A Dachshund doing tricks???

Conrad recently put a video of Chloe doing simple tricks on You Tube. He taught her the tricks and he is very proud of it, hence the posting of the video on You Tube. Conrad taught her really easy tricks but wiener dogs are a pretty dumb breed so it is impressive that Conrad was able to teach her any trick. I taught my other dog Jersey how to shake and he was not the smartest dog by any means. So, I thought I could teach Chloe the same trick but I lost the patience to keep trying. Conrad told me it's because I am just a beta and she only listens to him, the "alpha dog." mmmhmmm... I'm sure that's it.

Here is the video he posted.

Bring your wife to school day.

Last Friday Conrad took me to his school. His school recently moved into a new building which is right in Downtown Phoenix so we thought it would be fun to hangout in Downtown and have Conrad take me through his typical day at school. He showed me where his classes were and where he likes to study. We had lunch at his favorite place he likes to eat during his lunch break, Five Guys burgers and Fries. It is right across the street from his school, I think he eats there like twice a week probably more. After Five guys we ate dessert at Yogurtini another place he frequently eats at for lunch. Then we just walked around and looked at some stores and enjoyed the perfect weather of Phoenix, Arizona.

Here is a bad picture of Conrad's new School building.

This is the view from the very top of the building where the cafeteria is.

Eating our Yogurtini.

Walking around downtown.

Valentines Day

Since Valentines day was in the middle of the week this year, we really didn't do much on the actual day, we ordered a pizza and watched New Girl, one of our favorite shows to watch together. That was pretty much our night, nice and relaxing. I know kinda boring, but we did celebrate a little more on the weekend. We thought it would be fun to go and do sealings at the temple. Where is a more perfect place to celebrate love than the temple? :) It was our first time doing sealings besides our own. It brought back all the great memories of that day when we were sealed together and the overwhelming happiness and joy that I felt knowing that we are going to be together forever. I was reminded of the promises that we made to each other and to our Heavenly Father and how blessed we are because of our choice to be married in the temple. I am so thankful for Conrad and so happy he is my eternal companion. Going to the temple and doing sealings will definitely be a new Valentines tradition.

After the temple we went and ate at our most favorite restaurant, Tia Rosa. The food was delicious as always, and the perfect ending to a great night.

Here we are at the Mesa Temple.

Here we are waiting to fill our bellies with yummy food.

And, just for fun I wanted to post some pictures of our first Valentines together when we were dating. Conrad is really good at planning fun creative dates and this one was one of the best dates I had been on... and it was the first time he held my hand, which is a big deal for Conrad, he took holding hands very seriously. It was also the first time he told me how he felt about me. All so romantic on a not so romantic but very FUN date.

White Trash Valentines. Meet Cleetus and Luwilla :)

We shot cheap electronics with shot guns. My first and only time shooting a gun, I was terrified.

We went to the Monster truck show. They even painted hearts on the dirt hills.

Chewed some spits while watching the show...

Then we ate at Denny's after.

We definitely looked the part. My stomach and cheek muscles hurt from laughing so hard the entire night.

And that is the end of the trip down memory lane.


Happy belated Valentines!

Lately

Lately it's been pretty busy for Conrad and I. Conrad is back in school and I have been working at the speech clinic for a month now. Both of us had such a long break its been kinda hard to get back into the swing of things.

So far I really like my job, I work two days a week in the Clinic and 3 days out of the week I go to the kids homes and do therapy there. I was a little skeptical about doing the home base therapy, okay I was really skeptical. As someone who watches the show Criminal Minds I had a lot of different scenarios in my head of what type of homes I would be going to or what could happen to me. It didn't help that there have been several episodes with the crimes happening in Phoenix, it's all fictional but still, it makes ya wonder why they keep using Phoenix. Don't ask me why I watch that show, I am already paranoid enough as it is ha! Anyway,it's nothing like what I imagined. I actually really like going to the homes, all of the families are great and the kids are adorable and so sweet, I've only had one kid hit me ha ha. Even though I feel safe at the homes I still have mace on my key chain ready to go if I need it :) I really like working in the clinic as well they just moved into a new building and it is so fun and huge! literally every wall has a painting of different cartoons. Its just fun to walk around and look at everything.

Conrad is not liking school as much as I am liking work. He is already burned out. I would be too though, he is usually at school from 7 am to 8 or 9 at night then when he finally does come home he still has more reading to do. I don't know how he does it, I wouldn't survive.

I took a picture of my typical view every night. I come home from work and sit on the couch and watch my shows, Conrad comes home from school and does this....

Poor guy.

We did have some fun this past weekend, on Friday we went out to dinner with some friends then saw the movie Chronicle. It was alright. Then of course there was the Super Bowl! We made a bunch of junk food and then realized we didn't even have the channel to watch it NOOOOOOOOO! Honestly, we didn't really care, I actually didn't even know who was playing in the game until the day before. I don't know if that is something I should admit but it is true. I only look forward to the Super Bowl because of the food which we had, so it was all good. I mean the food is the most important part anyway, who even cares about the football part right?


So that is our life right now. Chloe hasn't adjusted well to both of us being gone for so long during the day. I have to say though, it is sure fun to come home to an excited little puppy jumping 3 feet in the air flailing her body around like a fish jumping out of water :)

Here are some pics of the Clinic, I just can't get over how cute it looks inside.

These are some of the speech and occupational therapy rooms.

This is part of the physical therapy room.

This wall is one of my favorites. It's one of the walls in the physical therapy gym.

More of the speech therapy rooms.

And another one of my favorite walls.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Our lovely vacation in Utah has come to an end. We had so much fun spending time with our families.
We went to the Up house, made rock album covers, played a lot of board games, went and saw 4 movies in the theater (I would have to say Mission Impossible was my favorite). We ate at Cafe Rio 4 times, shopped til we dropped ate lots and lots of junk food, watched the first and only season of the T.V. show Outsourced(very funny show) and did I metion we played a lot of board games?

This year we spent Christmas Eve with Conrads family. We had a big tastey dinner then we all shared our testimonies. After that the grandchildren acted out the story of the birth of Christ while it was read from the Bible.

Violet and Preston as Joseph and Mary

All the cousins

We spent Christmas day with my family. We woke up early opened our presents and went to church. It was a nice relaxing day. We watched movies and played games and lounged around in our pajamas.

Off to Church.

Amber and Chloe. Chloe was a big hit with my mom and sisters.

My mom LOVED Chloe. Ha ha this picture makes me laugh.

Best friends!

We spent New Years Eve with Conrad's family. Every year they have a big party with lots of yummy food and fun games. Around 10:00 we had fake New Years for the little kids and we did the count down with them and blew the horns for about 10 minutes. By the end my ears were ringing ha. After the kids went to bed we palyed games and rock band and brought in the new year with Ryan Secrest and Dick Clark.

The kids blowing their horns in Conrads face.

Every year Conrad gets two horns and blows as hard as he can. It sounds like a dying duck it is so funny and yet annoying at the same time.

Happy New Year!!!

It was a fun vacation but now it is back to reality. I will finally start my new job next week which I am both excited and terrified about. Conrad doesn't start school until the 30th the lucky duck. I am slighlty jealous okay maybe really jealous.
I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.