2013 -- week 30 -- work, work, work, & lots of fun!

this past week was one of my busiest -- i had to work six of the seven days, drive over 1000 miles, and recruit students from three different schools to join the teen pregnancy prevention program i run. it was a bit intense. 

(ps. if you're interested in learning sex ed facts and statistics, please like pinal county teen outreach program on facebook. it's a great resource for teens, parents, and teachers to learn more about teenage sexual health education!)

but there were also some really awesome things that happened this week -- rcg and i celebrated our anniversary with dippin' dots, the ice cream of the future, and my favorite ice cream of all time, and we went to a matchbox twenty concert! it was like a two day extravaganza especially for me. and it was amazing for a couple of reasons. when rcg surprised me with dippin' dots, it convinced me, beyond any doubt, how awesome he is, and how well he knows me. and that's a really cool feeling. and then he was totally supportive of my desire to appease my eighth grade self and see matchbox twenty. he patiently sat through the concert, without so much as one whine, even though he had been up since 3:30am and hiked 15 miles, and would have much rather been asleep than listening to rob thomas croon to screaming girls. i'm so lucky!

since i am the one who puts together our project life "pages" each week, sometimes i feel like i'm not properly documenting what goes on in rcg's life, just my own. which is totally lame. especially since he gets to do some cool things at work; just check out his day in the life from february 28, 2013. so anytime he does something super cool without me i try to remember to ask him to take at least a couple of pictures for me. that way i can document the neat things he does when i'm not around. like this past weekend, when he went hiking with a friend in the santa catalina mountains. (if you're interested in trying out the trail they hiked, you can find it here.) they've been doing a lot of hiking over the past couple of months (in june they hiked mt. wrightson and in march we all hiked baboquivari) because they're prepping for a rim to rim hike through the grand canyon in september! i'm pretty pumped for them!!

what do you do so that you can document everyone in your family's week?

2013 -- week 16 -- date night under the stars and our engagement!

growing up i wasn't super athletic; i played soccer for a couple of years, but who didn't? i wasn't good, by any stretch of the imagination. in fact, i was the joker near the goal box who would run up to kick the ball and watch the ball sail past me towards the goal. it was a disaster. i only played a couple of seasons before realizing that it was a waste of everyone's time. i was much more suited to running. i didn't need hand-eye coordination, something i clearly lacked, all i needed was a pair of shoes and a road. now as i've grown up, i've gotten lazy and developed asthma, so i don't run nearly as much as i should. but i do still enjoy being outdoors and getting the blood pumping, so we decided to play kickball (plus we wanted to make friends). we started in the fall and met such great people that we came back for the spring season, and have already signed up for the summer season too. and this season we're actually starting to get good, it's kind of exciting. (check out plan b!)

maybe one the best nights of my life was two summers ago in oaxaca. it was the day after i met rcg, and we went to a lagoon to swim with bio luminescent algae. swimming and shimmering in this lagoon was a once in a lifetime experience. but the night was made so much better, for me anyways, because you could see every star in the sky. you could make out constellations that you rarely could find and you could see both bands of the milky way. it was spectacular. and i got to share it with rcg. it was kind of like our first date. ever since that night, whenever the night is clear and the stars are out, we try and take a minute to enjoy the beauty of the night sky. so it seemed only fitting that we go to kitt peak national observatory, a mountain in the sonoran desert that hosts the world's largest collection of telescopes, for a date night. 

kitt peak has a nightly observing program ($50/person) where you show up before sunset and stay until well into the night to look at and learn about the stars, planets, moon, and the telescopes. we learned so much! and we got to see some of the coolest stuff ever -- the banding on jupiter, saturn's rings, and the craters on the moon. when we looked at saturn it was like a picture out of a magazine or a textbook; when rcg looked at it, his first words were, "holy shit". it was that amazing. and the telescope was powerful enough to show both saturn and jupiter's moons. it was crazy. but the night only got crazier -- after we drove down the mountain (the first mile with no headlights!), rcg pulled over and asked me to marry him! i'm still a little shocked, but in a deliciously happy kind of way.

happy winter!

and a merry 2013!

a special thanks to csv for taking these pictures for us!

october 1, 1991

when rcg and i first met

we lived a million miles away from each other

so we tried to get to know each other 

the best we could. 

we would send emails

and texts

and we would share all 

of our favorite things with one another.

we called them

"fun facts" --

just little tid bits 

that were otherwise

inconsequential

aspects of our 

personalities

and our lives

that individually

may mean nothing

but all together

made us who we are.

and it was all of those little things that

helped us both realize

how awesome the other was

and how much we wanted

to be near each other

and to be with each other.

and one of those things for rcg,

one of those adorable little quirks

that maybe he was nervous about,

was his love of comic books.

and for this particular comic book
and it's spectacular artwork:

i'm not a comic book fan, 

but i was definitely impressed.

i mean, 

the details,

the colors,

the action,

the composition -- 

it is so crazy awesome.



so why not buy a copy,
or rather,
4 copies?

(the comic books are the same
but their covers differ;
they show the whole image
split across four covers.)


and then,
why not frame them
and hang them?


so that's what we did.

it's amazing

and it's beautiful.

shutterfly

so i recently did a lot of research 

about how to make a blog into a book

because vb sr. wants to turn his two blogs

mischief in new zealand

mischief's motorcycle ride across america 

into books.

turns out there are tons of programs

that make this process crazy easy.

(now if i wasn't a lazy bum

and actually did it.)

but then jrw had a coupon for shutterfly. 

i've seen tons of people make these books

and they always look awesome.

so i decided to give it a shot.

it's pretty easy.

it's just unfortunate that i am totally neurotic 

about making things look just right.

so it kind of took me a while. 

but i think it turned out pretty rad.

Click here to view this photo book larger

one year.

thank you lp

for making me go to mexico,

rather than the dr,

to learn spanish.

good things happened there.

and i will forever be grateful.

the shark

when we moved in, 

the shark was a really heinous gray color:

boring.

so we decided to paint.

and by we, 

i mean me.

not my best idea. 

but 20 hours later,

it's beautiful.

even if the bathroom

and kitchen

are still gray.

oh well. 

the living room: 

white duck & redbay.

the bedroom:

lemon twist & flyway.

come visit us!!

rcg's dallas

last time i was in dallas

i didn't really get to see dallas.

the weather was gray and rainy.

it was cold outside.

and for the most part,

i stayed in grand prairie. 

none of these things is necessarily bad,

but it does mean that i didn't get to see 

all of the places that made rcg who he is today.

i didn't see his elementary school,

or his mother's hair salon, 

or his uncle's restaurant.

i didn't see the famous

and "dangerous"

oak cliff.

 i didn't see the places where he hung out

 or the places where he got into trouble.

but this trip,

i did.

and it was sunny and warm.

hallelujah.

i know we are sometimes

a product of our environment, 

so this is just a sample of rcg. 

the 1980s and 1990s version.

gerber daisy delight

six months.

daisies.

choapan 10