happy birthday!

august 18th was my mom's birthday... although we ended up celebrating on the following sunday. we made fajitas and invited fun people over for dinner... and kelsey & i made a killer cake for dessert. it was a white cake with a raspberry filling and buttercream frosting [per the mom's request]. it was fabulously delicious.

happy 50th birthday, mama! 

i love you! :) 

garden of pumpkins...

"adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience."

...ralph waldo emerson

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i woke up & worked in the garden this morning... it's amazing how relaxing it is. and it was such a beautiful morning. we got an awesome monsoon yesterday... so this morning was cool & breezy. it really is a fantastic morning. i did end up cleaning out my garden though. the squash & zucchinis were looking pretty sad... i took them out to make room for tons of sunflowers & zinnias. i hope it turns out as cool as i see it in my head! haha... welp. here is my rather empty garden [as of this morning]. you can see how the pumpkins have grown the wrong way, lol... i dont mind. they are still doing great [they are in the shade over there].

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oh, also... remember this little tiny baby pumpkin that i blogged awhile back? [this one...] well, it has grown. apparently we got a small breed of pumpkin, this one grew to about the size of a basketball. i still think its pretty dang cute though!

then...

now...

ps... here is another cute one that is growing... its about the size of a grapefruit.

:)

katie...

so once upon a time, katie [one of my best friends] came to tucson and stayed for a month. it was a way super fun-filled time. for some strange reason i haven't blogged it yet, but i really want to before i blog washington so here goes...

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we got ice cream at coldstone and then took a walk 

& played on some construction equipment... haha...

we played mud games for fhe once...

ps: i got a killer cool bruise from the 3-legged race. haha...

we went to the desert museum & 

nicole almost died, but shoot... we had fun!

we took a drive down memory lane & went to thatcher. 

we got some jileberto's... visited the now vacant a&w 

where katie & i used to work, saw the new gila valley temple 

& visited with our old roomie hayley [and her 2 kids & hubby!]

katie & i drove up mt. lemmon to windy vista & went exploring!

we had many a pool parties & good times swimming. this was the finale...

 ::

we seriously did so much and had such a blast! 

i miss you, katie mae!

birthday number 23...

so... its my birthday today!  :)  the big 2-3. haha....

i woke up to a decorated door... and i stepped into the hallway and there was confetti everywhere! the confetti led to the kitchen where there were presents on the table & a banner on the sliding door. it made me smile. i have the cutest little brother & sister ever! we went to bruegger's bagels for breakfast and then shot over to verizon to get our phones fixed. i had to work today... and everybody was cute about it at work... i even got sung to! haha... they are so sweet! i came home... and one of my visiting teachers brought me some chocolate peanut butter chip cookies which were delicious! then i got to open presents. i got a lot of fantastic cards and great presents...including a new watch, socks, a lint roller, a cake decorating kit, gardening tools, jewelry, a lunch box, an awesome huge floppy hat, mini gummy bears & a few other things... it was a great day!

i got tons of texts & facebook comments... i feel so very loved! thank you to everybody for making this such a great birthday!! :)

records...

so... let me start at the beginning of this story. for years & years i have wanted a record player... i've always thought they would be so much fun! so... last week while i was working [oh ps... i got into deseret industries job placement program.... so basically they brought me in as a lead on the sales floor at their thrift store here in tucson while they are helping me find a permanent job elsewhere. its actually a really neat program. i'll tell y'all all about it later.] so for a few days last week i was working in the book section... trying my hardest to get all those blasted books organized. i've decided that's the worst job in the whole entire store. i got a little ocd about it... trying to get it all done & organized and looking nice. well... part of the book section is the records & tapes. so i was looking through those and it just brought those old desires to own a record player to the surface.
 
so when i got home from work i looked on craigslist to see if there were any for sale. and there were. so i tried to find a post that didn't seem too uber creepy... and i contacted him. i felt like i was getting ready to buy drugs or do something illegal. i've never really gotten into the whole craigslist thing.... its kinda creepy. so this dude & i were all like "yeah, lets meet at the northwest corner of wal-mart's parking lot at 5 pm" haha... for some reason that whole situation just made me laugh. it was such a bizarre contact & trade of goods. i don't know how people do this for serious. haha... anyway. so blah blah blah i bought a record player [a sansui sr-2050c belt drive manual turn table]... brought it home & tried to play some records [i bought some from di... including an elvis christmas album, sinatra, the bee gees, elton john & dean martin]. and there was very little sound... like less than a whisper... i spent awhile trying to figure it out. needless to say, i was bummed. i thought i'd been scammed and bought a dud. so i'm sitting on my floor messing around with the 40 year old piece of equipment and my mom comes in and says "where's the volume?" yeah... thanks mom... i have no idea!! my dad comes home... [oh... by the way, they both think i'm crazy for wanting & buying this... they love their cd's & ipods and just don't know why i would want to go back to something like this...] anyway, my dad comes home and we were checking out my newly purchased item... and apparently i missed the memo that said i needed a receiver and speakers. lovely craigslist dude didn't mention anything of the sort. haha... then i called uncle dan... he agreed with my dad and was a big help! so adrian brought up our old receiver the other day and i hooked it up... and... still no sound. i was really about to give up. mason came up last night... and wham bam thank you ma'am he got it hooked up...  just like that. apparently i'm not very good with antique electronics... or brand new electronics for that matter. hahah... he really is my newest hero. i owe him big.

so now... i'm sitting here listening to elvis presley on my record player as i write up this little post. pretty fantastic, eh?

adrian's birthday...

 adrian's birthday was last saturday. she came up to our house & we had a great day lounging in the pool and having fun. we went to marie callendar's that night... so everyone could get a slice of delicious pie! we love marie callendar's pie. lol.... anyway. the next day we met at her house for a big birthday bash... we had delicious kabobs for dinner [high five to dustin for grilling them!] and a cake for dessert that kelsey & i made. she opened tons of fun presents & then afterwards the parentals left and we had a game night with just us kids... plus some friends. what a fantastic birthday weekend!

happy birthday to my favorite big sister! :)

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[apparently we are lame-o's and forgot our camera's... and matches. haha...]

[^ this was our first time try making a checkered cake... it looks really cute and it tasted really yummy, but it was a bit ineffective as a cake... it fell apart in cubes. hahah...]

we didn't get any pictures of shane & sheryl or dad & grandpa, but just know they were there too! :)

these are pictures of the kids who stayed to play games... we played mad gabs for a bit, and then fact or crap, and then catch phrase. holy sha-moley we are a silly group!

       travis, austin, nicole & warren                                                   warren, dustin, adrian & austin

      austin, kelsey, greg, me & brad                                        brad, katie, austin [kind of] & mason

my hero...

i have a new hero today. his name is zac baker. 

so let me tell you a quick story about how this hero of mine became heroic.

once upon a time, my dad & little brother went to rincon rendezvous [a week-long scout camp out]. well, my dad, as everyone is well aware, absolutely hates packrats. like... h.a.t.e.s them. hardcore. every now & then he'll even cuss at them... it's pretty funny actually. so my dad left a few rat traps around the house and his shop and stuff [some are live, some are not]... and he left a lot of rat poison out too. my mom came home from a trip to see a good friend of ours in casa grande and walked in with a ten dollar bill in her hand... she asked me & kels if we wanted ten bucks... kelsey said, "i'm not killing any more animals" [click here if you don't know what i'm talking about... hehe...] and mom said, "don't worry... you don't have to kill anything, it's already dead." at that moment we understood what had happened... a packrat had been caught and needed extracting. i wasn't about to "extract" anything... i told her i'd bury it [trap & all]... she didn't think the dad would go for that idea. and then we thought that maybe we could throw it away [trap & all], but our trash doesn't come till fridays now... so that was a definite no-go. instead we brainstormed about who we could call to get this thing out... our only option was zac. and thank goodness he was home... he came right over and disposed of this nasty dead animal.

bless his heart.

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caution: due to the graphic nature of this pictures, viewer discretion is advised [rachel].