Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! And I mean Merry Christmas. It's sad how careful you have to be down here in Arizona not to offend anyone. Some people are such Christmas scrooges. I have had to be very careful at work not to say Merry Christmas. Instead, you say "Happy Holidays" or something else along those lines. It's not just me either, I've noticed that most people at work do the same thing. The first question you have to ask is, "Do you celebrate Christmas?" if they answer yes, then your're safe with Merry Christmas, if not, then it's happy holidays. Anyway, enough of my little soap box.

Our Christmas was very exciting down here in Arizona. I have to admit I do not miss the snow one bit. Clint and I hung around in our PJs all day. I was a little more excited about Christmas than Clint was. I was awake at 6. I finally woke him up at 6:30 and then dragged him out of bed at 7 to open presents. This year we set a spending limit and then it was decided that if the person didn't like their gift - or would rather have something else - then the gift could be returned without any hard feelings. Clint's big present was an itouch. I was hoping he would like it - I'm acutally surprised how much he does like it. We've spend way too much time playing with it since Christmas. He's actually playing with it as I type. My big gifts from Clint were a videocamera for blogging and a new watch. I was very surprised by the videocamera, but I haven't used it yet.

We ended our Christmas evening with a feast! We cooked the whole meal ourselves and I am very proud of it - hence the reason I took a picture and posted it. I had to document that we were able to cook something like this.

Hope everyone had a great holiday season!

Halloween

I do realize this is several months late, but I figured better late than never. I lost my camera charger, so the camera was useless for quite a while. This was our first Halloween, and we decided we would go to Savers and see what we could put together for costumes. We left with corpse bride and groom costumes which we thought was appropriate for our first Halloween together. We went to dinner, carved pumpkins, and played games with some of Clint's pharmacy friends. Thanks to Jed and Aubrey for the entertainment.

Our friends Jonny and Alie. A lovely couple

It was the Mears family vs. the Andersons for the final prize. But to get there, you had to eat ant pudding. Unfortunately we were blindfolded for this, but when we took them off, Jonny didn't have a shirt on anymore. Not quite sure what happened. . .

Jed and Aubrey have the cutest puppy! He is very friendy and licked off all the white paint from Clint's chin.

Our finished product

A day at the Phoenix Zoo

We went to a Diamondbacks day on their weekly Friday family night. When you purchased a baseball ticket, you got a food voucher and a free zoo ticket! Of course we had to take advantage of our tickets, and we spent one Saturday as our zoo day. I was a bit surprised, but the Phoenix zoo lets you bring in bikes. So Clint and I loaded our bikes and a cooler and set off for the zoo. We ended up walking our bikes in the busy spots, but we had a great time cruising around.

Petting Zoo! We may have been in their with a bunch of kids, but we definitely had more fun

Whenever I go to the zoo the animals just sit around, so I had to document this monkey swinging on the ropes doing monkey things.

The little rodents get surprisingly close. No idea who this kid is - I just couldn't believe an animal would be crazy enough to get this close to a little kid.

A New Pastime

Much to my pleasure and amusement, Clint has taken up a new pastime here in Arizona - Cricket hunting. I find it very superior to any other kind of hunting, except of course to black widow hunting - which we have also had to do down here. I was lucky enough to catch Clint right in the action and am posting the pictures. I prefer a different method, but I am realizing that I will do things my way, and I will let him do things his way. One way may take longer, but the other meets the same purpose and often is a little less messier. I hunt with a flip flop, he hunts with a tissue (I actually prefer this method because I am entertained longer).

The prey is spotted - usually by Amy - and the hunter (Clint, unless he is asleep) is called to action

He chooses the tissue method - perhaps he does not want to clean the wall after

The cricket drops to the floor and hops to get away. . .

(I think this may have been the only time our ironing board has been out since we moved here - must have been a Sunday. We never iron. My mother would be so ashamed)

Hunter Clint stalks his prey and comes from behind for another successful kill!