Romeo and Juliet

So for the past few months we have had a visitor on our back porch every so often. And living on the second floor, it is rather uncommon for any creature to find their way into our house. We leave our porch door open almost all day because our cat likes to sit outside and relax or watch birds. Our apartment complex has several stray cats, and one of them likes to scale the stucco wall up onto our porch. It is an amazing feat, and I'm not quite sure how he's done it so many times without falling. But the most bizarre thing is how he gets back down. It's something you have to see for yourself to really appreciate it. And as entertained as Jake and I are by his theatrics, Sphynx has no interest. She hisses and runs into the house to hide. Poor Romeo. He'll have to scale another maiden's wall.

Valentine's Day

Well this year for Valentine's Day we were house sitting for Jesse and Mallory while they were in Texas. It was great to be in an actual house and have so much more space (I miss their kitchen already) but we also had two more dogs to take care of. They are quite a handful, but they love attention and would get so excited every time we'd walk into the room.
The day started out by Jake showering me with chocolate. And not just any chocolate, DOVE dark chocolate. My favorite! He's so good. All I did for him was make a card. Nothing too spectacular. Throughout the day I was greeted by other little surprises that were so sweet! It was great! Later in the afternoon we went to this cool park with Jitters and walked around for a while. All in all it was a pretty spectacular day!
Life right now is pretty slow, Jake has school every morning and he's enjoying that. I'm still job hunting and trying to teach myself new techniques on the computer (in photoshop and illustrator), and drawing every once in a while.
I don't remember posting that we got a calling, but we teach CTR 6 in church. We have about 10 kids and it is crazy! Some days it's hard to keep their attention for more than 10 seconds. The primary president is considering splitting our class, which is sad but will probably help the kids learn better, and that's the important thing!

White Christmas

Well it's been a while but we're finally getting some pictures up from Christmas! Jake and I went to Utah for Christmas and it snowed almost the entire time! We left a day earlier than planned because there was a huge storm the next day. The drive was fun, we thought it was pretty exciting driving through Hoover Dam, where they filmed part of Transformers! The week in Utah was so fun! We were a little worried that Jitters would freeze in the snow so Jake tried to make her a little sweater :) so cute! But it turns out she didn't need it. She LOVED the snow! Funny story, the first night we were there Jake and I drove my little brother and sister around the neighborhood to hand out some goodies, so my parents were in charge of watching Jitters. They look her outside to to her business when suddenly a huge owl came out of no where and swooped down to pick up our dog! My parents ran screaming after Jitters and caught her just in time. Talk about scary!

My family loves to play games. And eat delicious food. So that's basically what we did the entire time. It was too snowy to drive anywhere and it's always cheaper to stay home anyway! I think Jake was a little gamed out by the time we left though. But he's super amazing for putting up with my competitive family for so long!
On Christmas eve we went to Salt Lake to see the lights at temple square. They were beautiful! I'm always so blown away by how great they are. And we also went up to Logan to visit some more family and eat some more good food. The roads were treacherous! I am so glad I don't go to school in freezing icy Logan anymore!
It was so wonderful to spend time with family, I love them so much! But it's always nice to come home after a trip and relax. On the drive home we stopped and both Rucker and Warner Grandparents houses. I'd never been to the Warner's home so it was neat to see that and spend some time with them.
And that was our amazing trip to Utah! Sorry this is so long!

Hoover Dam. They are building a new bridge and it's ginormous! And scarily high.

Festive Jitters :) She didn't like it so much.

BLIZZARD!

The whole gang at temple square

Christmas loot. Favorite items from my family: Muffin tins and a rolling pin w/pie roller sheet. And we got a sweet mixer from Jake's parents. Bring on the baking!

I love this picture. That's Fernando. He's a beast!!

Phoenix Zoo Lights

Last weekend Jake and I went to see Zoolights with our friend Tamlage and his gf Kalicia.  It was quite an interesting experience.  My back was killing me and I couldn't breath half the time, but I had to suck it up and walk around for a few hours.  The lights were pretty but I think we all were expecting more.  It definitely wasn't $8 worth!  It might have been made more for kids anyway.  But even though it wasn't all we were hoping for it was fun to leave the house and do something new.  Afterwards we had some hot chocolate and played the dice game!  yay!  Tonight we're planning to go see the lights at the Mesa Temple.  Oh, and yesterday Jake's unofficial adoptive brother Josh got married!  Congrats Josh and Rebecca!  It was fun to spend time with family and get to know them a little better.

And update from the last post: we never found anything out about the policemen and helicopters, but we think it was probably drug related or something.  Woot!

Leaving the Temple.  The photographers made them walk out about three times.

These were some zoolights across the lake.  They were really pretty!

An orangutan/ballerina/elf

Ghetto Much?

So at this moment, Jake is looking out our windows at some cops with M-16s and a helicopter flying over our complex shining a spot light. Um... creepy? About five minutes ago Jake was taking Jitters outside when he saw something out of the corner of his eye... a cop up against the wall, brandishing a very large gun. Then he was hit by the spot light, and he stood there trying to look as innocent as possible to avoid being taken down by the watchful cop. The helicopter is still circling and we'll be looking online for the news to see if we can learn anything about what is going on!! Our apartment is so ghetto!! But thank goodness for a wonderful husband who doesn't make me take the dog out at night :)

Elf Dance

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Babysitting

Well today ends our two week babysitting adventure. We were privileged to watch our good friends Tomi and Naomi's dogs while they were visiting family in Japan. There names are Mei and Sue, both chihuahua's, and Jitters is used to them because she was at there place while we were in Utah. The only problem has been our cat. She was terrified at first and we had to lock her in our room. But now, on the day they leave of course, the cat roams free. The dogs are probably more scared of her than she is of them. It's been pretty crazy having two extra dogs in our tiny apartment, but these dogs are very obedient and love to cuddle! Sue is very inquisitive and likes to know what's going on. She likes to sit and watch me make dinner a lot. Mei is so sweet, she is constantly scratching at my arm so I'll pet her. These dogs love attention, and Jitters acted pretty jealous at first. We've had a lot of fun but we know these guys will be happy to get home where they can run around again!

The girls

Sue

All four of them in one picture! The cat was too terrified to run away

Jitters. So crazy cute!

This is what Mei does when she wants attention. And every time I tried to take her picture she'd turn her head like that.

The cat found high ground to stay safe