Happy Halloween!

I hope everyone had a fabulous night tonight full of fun or frights! Drew and I stayed in and carved pumpkins while greeting our neighborhood trick-or-treaters. We actually had quite a few kids come by, which is always fun and exciting! Annabelle loved all the visitors and watched over the front wall as kids walked up and down the street.


Now that the evening's passersby have started to slow, we are gearing up to watch a scary movie in honor of the night's theme. I hate watching scary movies, but Drew enjoys it, so this is a special treat for him. Right now we are leaning towards The Exorcist (apparently the ultimate Horror movie, which I have never see), but I might have to browse the selections myself for something a little tamer. I will let you know tomorrow if I survived the night and what we end up choosing. Any thoughts on greatest horror movie you've ever seen?




Drew's Scared Face



My Slightly Evil Jack O'Lantern

Knuffle Bunny

In November, Make Way for Books has our largest event. It is called Story Town, and it is basically a street festival with all sorts of activities and performances that have to do with reading. We have live music, art activities, games, free book giveaways, and costumed story characters walking around. The planning of this event has taken over my responsibility list at work the past few weeks as we get down to the last minute details. I am really excited to see it all come together on November 15!

As part of the festival, MWFB and some of the library branches each choose a story to perform for the kids. We chose "Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale" by Mo Willems. If you have not seen it before I highly recommend reading it, especially if you have toddlers in your life. Anyway, here are some of the photos from backdrop and props we have been working on for the story performance. It has been so much fun--kind of like working at summer camp again! :)

A street in New York, where Trixie and her dad are taking a walk through most of the story (to and from the laundromat). In the book, the backgrounds are all Black and White Photographs. I think we captured that pretty well! The door on the left is Trixie's house, where her mom comes out and notices Knuffle Bunny is missing! This is what Trixie has been trying to tell dad!

Our laundromat!

Knuffle Bunny, what are you doing in the washing machine?!

A guys' weekend

Well, I don't have as many pictures from my half of the weekend. I didn't have Em's camera through most of it, so you'll just have to settle for the pictures when she was there.

So, we got in late on Thursday night and just crashed. On Friday, Emily ditched me to go hang with the girls and pick out a dress for Mary. So, the groomsmen decided to hit the beach... although Evan decided to go check out the koalas at the zoo. We must have thrown the frisbee for 2 straight hours, and despite Vishal's urging, it wasn't used to go "fishing" for girls. We went for a run down the beach and also noted the "gold" mentioned in Emily's earlier post. We weren't fooled by it though.

That night we went to the rehearsal dinner and had an amazing meal. Toward the end of it I had to give a toast. Now, I by no means think that my oratory skills are that great, but I think I was the only one this weekend that didn't sound like he/she was making things up. I got to tell a few Derek stories from college, and I sounded a little sappy with some sentimental stuff. Luckily, I was a good groomsman and refrained from telling some of my more "colorful" stories. Also, I didn't weep like Derek did at my rehearsal dinner.
After the dinner, the bridal party hit the town while Emily and the Vandy girls went to bed. Jack told well over 2,000,000 jokes, Vishal got two numbers from random girls he met, and I got locked out of the hotel room. It was a very fun night, and all of the bridal party got along, even the ones who had never met before.

Saturday started out pretty traumatically for me. A giant rat crawled out of a sewer drain and jumped on me!!!
Well, that might have been a dream, but it doesn't mean my high-pitched scream didn't wake up everyone else in the room. After the embarassment subsided, I joined the rest of the groomsmen and Derek's dad for a round of golf. I think I played the best I've played since I was 12, getting 3 pars in 4 holes at one point. We didn't quite finish 18 holes though, as Derek got a little nervous about being late, and we headed back to get ready.

So, we headed out to the Hotel Del Coronado. After a few pictures, we went down and hung out at the bar for awhile. Yes, the groomsmen were allowed to drink BEFORE the wedding. I guess they figured the plentiful supply of Gummi Bears we were provided would help soak up some of the booze. Then, it was go time. The ceremony was awesome out on the beach, with an incredible sunset in the background. Katherine looked amazing, and Derek did an ok job of holding it together.

After the ceremony, we all went off for some photos and goofiness...
Yes, that's the Warrior Pose.

Anyway, the reception was great too, and I won't go into too much detail about that since Em's already covered it. It was a really fun weekend celebrating my best friend's marriage, and I'm extremely happy for him. Now we just have to wait for Jack's wedding. Yes ladies, prepare yourself, the human joke book is still out there and single...

A girls' weekend...

This weekend at the wedding, Drew was gone (with Jack & Derek) most of the time performing obligatory groomsman duties, so I got to spend a weekend with the girls! We had a blast hanging out with each other on our 5th year Vandy reunion weekend. We went to the beach, tried on wedding dresses with Mary (I think she found the one!!), walked all over Coronado Island, relived college-like experiences we thought we would never see again... ;-D, and attended lots of beautiful wedding events! Here is the weekend in photos:

sipping on our "mojito"

Nicole and I saw a delicious looking mojito on a tray passing us by and decided to order one to go along with the wine we were already drinking. Well, when we placed the order, we were the only two carded at the table, and then our drink tasted like soda water and mint (aka a mojito with no rum...) I guess they didn't think our ID's were real!

Mary's first taste of sushi...

From the look on her face, I guess you probably could tell she didn't have another bite!

The gals at the rehearsal dinner


How to become a millionaire...

Pan for gold on the San Diego coast!! So, while we were at the beach on Saturday, Ankita and I ventured down to the water to stick our toes in (it was about 60 degrees, so that didn't last very long), but we noticed the sand was extra sparkly and discovered gold scattered throughout the sand. It literally looked like gold glitter had been spilled by the tons along the beach. We aren't sure what it was or where it came from, but in our excitement, we decided we would come back and become millionaires (once we figure out how to separate it from the sand!)


in front of the Hotel del Coronado on the way to the wedding


Our Wedding Footwear

Because we walked to the wedding (about a mile), we decided to wear our flip-flops/sandals along with our wedding attire...it made for some very stylish outfits, and of course we couldn't pass up the chance for a photo!


The Vandy Crew in San Diego


Waiting for the ceremony on the beach to begin
so cute! Nicole and Ankita together again!


The Sunset (I am obsessed with these lately!)


Me and my Mary


Jack dancing with all of his "dates" for the weekend!

Congratulations Derek and Katherine!

Drew and I were in San Diego this weekend for the beautiful wedding of Derek and Katherine. As many of you know, Derek is Drew's best friend from Vandy and was Drew's best man this summer at our wedding! We wish you both the best!!

Other shots from the wedding:

These are the place "cards."

the beautiful flowers from the ceremony on the beach (with the sunset behind!)


looking back at the ceremony site and the Hotel del Coronado


Derek and Katherine's first dance


the place settings


the wedding cake...a delicious chocolate/espresso cake on the inside...YUM!

Sad news...

Well, I've long suspected that there might be something sneaky going on in my house, and I've finally confirmed it. It breaks my heart to say that Emily's been sharing our bed with someone else while I'm away, and I caught them red-handed!

A peek into our daily lives in Tucson...

Here is Annabelle lounging with her favorite pig, Wendel. Wendel is an incredible invention. He is part of Target's Roadkill line for pets. It is a stuffed animal with NO STUFFING! She loves it, but she can't destroy him, so we love it too!

Notice the Wii in the background. It has taken over our TV room with all of the accessories. We only have 6 games, yet about 15 different pieces to go with them! Ridiculous...but so fun.

This is our back "yard." It is essentially a brick patio. We love the shade though, because it easily cools the space to about 20 degrees less than in the direct sunlight. We are awaiting a visit from my dad to help us figure out what else to do it. Just a couple more weeks!!


This is our front "yard," complete with cacti and all, and our cute little orange house!


So, as I was stepping out the door at work, I was yet again in awe of the scenery surrounding me, and luckily had my camera with me, so I can share it with you! The mountains literally look painted onto the sky. So crazy and cool!!

You know you're officially a Southwesterner when...

you put salsa and sour cream on EVERYTHING!

Vamanos a Agua Prieta Mexico!

Hola! Today I had one of the more incredible days of my adult life! As part of my job at Make Way for Books (www.makewayforbooks.org), we do trainings for preschool teachers about early literacy and reading readiness in the preschools where we have set up a library. Over the past few months, they have been working with their first Mexican preschool in the border town of Agua Prieta, and today we visited the school to meet the teachers and do the training!

The day started with my first trip on a "private jet." The foundation that provided the funding for this particular program is run by a family that owns a company that has done very well here in Arizona. When we scheduled the training, they offered to fly us all down on their plane! So, the day started in Tucson meeting the plane to take us down to Douglass, AZ, where we would cross the border.




Here I am flying on the plane. It was very exciting!!




So, the story of Agua Prieta is: The Armstrong Foundation (the one that funded us and shuttled us down there) has been working on a project called Rancho Feliz. This is essentially a housing project in Agua Prieta that is very strictly run, and very well built. Mission groups and college volunteer groups come throughout the year to help with construction. As part of this vecino (neighborhood), they also created a state of the art day care center which is where we did our training today. One of the coolest things about the training is that initially we were only training the teachers from this one center, but about a week ago one of the other centers in Agua Prieta found out we were coming down and decided to send their teachers. Then another center found out and sent their teachers. When we arrived today, we found out we would be training 75 teachers!! That is basically all the preschool teachers in the entire town!

This is the preschool where we were:

While we were there, the teachers were all very enthusiastic and full of questions. We could tell they were very dedicated to helping the kids and very interested in learning more about what we had to say. We showed them how to read stories, sing songs, do puppet shows, and basically have a good time with the kiddos! When the presentation was over, they were asking when we could come back for the next training. SUCCESS! :-D

Other highlights of my day:

*being able to actually use my Spanish for something more worthwhile than just helping me travel. AWESOME!

*the guacamole at lunch...YUM!

*meeting Alejandro, our driver and a high school teacher in Agua Prieta, who had amazing stories of crossing the border at the age of 16 by swimming the Rio Grande, and making enough money to put himself through school! Gives you a whole new perspective on illegal immigrants and why they do what they do.





*the sunset on the way home






*waiting less than an hour to get back across the border (apparently this is a very rare occurence on the weekends).

*being able to watch out the cockpit when we landed in Tucson...AMAZING!!!

Here are some more photos from the day:

JoAnn, our "sponsor" and the MWFB crew standing in front of the neighborhood

the fence between the U.S. and Mexican border


the old "barrios" that remain near the Rancho Feliz homes

me in front of a Rancho Feliz home

If you want to see more about the Rancho Feliz project, check it out here: www.ranchofeliz.com

Days like today make me very sure that I did the right thing in dedicating my next year to service in the Tucson area. Already I am learning and seeing so much about the world surrounding me, and I have only been working a month! Wow!

In Awe of Autumn...

This week I have had a new swing in my step, as the fall weather sweeps out the 100+ degrees days. The crisp cool air pumps energy into me inspiring me to get things done! The cool weather is not what has me in awe though. Every time I step outside I am surrounded by mountains in the distance set against a clear bright blue sky. It is truly incredible! I feel so lucky to be living in a place of such beauty.

There are so many awesome fall things to be thankful for: crisp apples, warm colors, down comforter on the bed, soup, hot drinks, pumpkin spice lattes (well all things pumpkin), football games, and long (cooler) walks in the park with Annabelle.

Happy Fall!

Hace frio...

So I know it's hard to believe it, but coldness has swept the desert. We've finally shut off our air conditioner and swamp cooler. During the first couple nights, we left the windows open too. It made for the perfect temperature in which to go to sleep. However, two nights ago it got down into the 30s. Let's just say it was pretty chilly in the house the next morning. That wasn't the worst part though. It seems that our hot water heaters are set on vacation-mode... which is 60 degrees. It's not fun to take a cold shower early in the morning, and then emerge into a house that's freezing. I've finally figured out how to get the heater for the guest house turned on, but the heater for our house is in a locked closet that we don't have the keys to. We're having to run to the guest house for our showers in the morning. Did I mention it's cold outside in the mornings? I know all of you out there in much colder climates are laughing at us right now... truthfully, I'm laughing at us.

Baby duty

So I spent the morning in the newborn nursery checking out babies. I only had to take care of five this morning, so I finished pretty soon. Nobody was sick, so all the new babies and mothers got to go home. I'm getting better at my "baby burrito wrap," and I've become quite skilled at the whole shove your finger in their mouth so they'll quit crying trick. Unfortunately for one baby, I put my finger in right after I had used the disinfectant lotion... at least the baby's mouth will be clean. Em and Annabelle came and met me on the way home and we had a nice walk.

I'm on Mommy Call today, which means I take all the calls from the concerned parents that go to our clinics. It can range from 1-2 calls up to 15-20. I've been lucky so far and haven't been woken up in the middle of the night. Most of them are just first-time mothers who are freaking out because their baby spit-up or hasn't had a bowel movement in 3 hours, so I just try to reassure them and say that everything's ok. Then, you occasionally get the, "my baby's been drinking Febreeze, what should I do?" Yeah, so it can be quite fun at times.

I'm still a little bit depressed about Vandy. I can't say that I'm surprised. We're totally a team that could beat anyone, but at the same time, we could be beaten by anyone. I hope we can still make a bowl game.

Annabelle v. Cactus

Well, poor Annabelle had her first run-in with a cactus this morning on her am jaunt through the neighborhood. Upon getting out of the shower, I hear her whining in the other room and come in to see her pinned to the floor by Drew as he attempts to pull the little pricklies out of her face.

After chasing a lizard down the sidewalk, a floating cactus ball decided to join in the chase and attached itself to her poor face... we will see if she stops chasing lizards!! Luckily, he got the cactus ball off, but not before getting attacked himself by the cactus and ending up with a bruised hand.

Oh the joys of desert living...

Settling in...

We have been in Tucson for 3 and a half months now and are finally getting settled! We are excited about the new adventures in store as we jump right in to married life, explore our new city, and begin 2 new jobs!