Top Ten Monday?

So it's not Tuesday, but whatev.

Here are my Top 10 things I'll miss about Arizona!

10.  Playgroup and Storytime.  I've become good friends with one of the moms there and her 2 daughters are the same age as Dominik and Brooklyn.  It was sad to leave them.

9.  Being able to walk to Target.  I absolutely loved being less than a mile away!

8.  Taking care of my garden.  I've had it up and running for over a year and my cherry tomato plant is FULL of tomatoes still.  I told my neighbors they can sneak in and get some until the new owners arrive.

7.  My neighbors.  They are fun.  We hang out every once in a while, and it's always nice to have someone looking after your place when you go out of town.

6.  Kiewit wives.  Yes there will be Kiewit wives in SoCal, but they won't be the same.  Thank goodness we still get to come back for district meeting.

5.  The Hunter Family.  Nik was Bruce's first friend here.  The first year Bruce lived here we had Thanksgiving with Nik and Melissa.  We've gone to Vegas/UFC's with them.  We've been through pregnancies together.  Our kids love hanging out and playing.  We've spent countless Saturday nights at either one of our houses watching UFC, drinking, playing games, and eating delicious food (and some not so delicious food--note: do NOT try and make spinach artichoke dip with Miracle Whip.  haha)  They will truly be missed, good thing we have a big house so they can come visit and go to Disney!!

4.  Our doctors.  I think I just hate trying to find new ones, and the ones I've found, I can barely pronounce.  :(  no fun.

3.  Sitting with the window open in February.  We'll I'll probably still be able to do that, but it's just fun to say and rub in to all of my Nebraska friends' faces.

2.  Direct flights to and from Omaha.

1.  Our house.  This is our first house and we've had a lot of memories here.  Even though it's only been a short 5 years, we've had many visitors, laughter, tears, and love come through here.  I really am going to miss every little piece of it.  Well, minus the scorpions of course :)

Bundled up in AZ!

Its been pretty cold lately. And by cold I mean 40s at night and 60s during the day. So that means I've had to bundle up Brooklyn for our walks/runs! She doesn't seem to mind, but Dominik throws a fit every time I try and put a coat on him despite his goosebump laden arms. Oh well, he'll learn (hopefully!)

dah dah dah

Just a quick note...

It's been a rough couple of weeks for the Applegates.  First, our house floods.  Second, Bruce works in Salt Lake City for 2 weeks.  Third, I'm very (extremely) pregnant.  Fourth, it was the hottest August ever in Arizona.  And fifth, our best friends, Jamie and Andy, moved to Georgia today.  Needless to say, I feel as if I'm in a glass case of emotions...(quick, name that movie quote).  It's been rough, but I'm so happy Bruce is back home, and we should be back in our house in 6 days.  I cannot wait!

Haboob

According to Wikipedia-an intense sandstorm commonly observed in arid regions of the world. Well, we experienced a huge one last night. The pic below I stole from the azcentral.com, I wasn't able to get any as it was too dark by the time it hit our house.

We heard the winds pick up and I went to go peek outside. This was around 8:15 pm. Sure enough, the wind had blown over a couple of our patio chairs (and not just weenie little chairs, we have big sturdy, bar height chairs) and was now attacking Dominik's pool. I told Bruce we should go out and secure everything, so we did. Dominik watched from the window. We could barely see anything! When we came back in, I had to wash my face and mouth out because it was fully of dust and dirt. GROSS.

So we felt better with everything secured. We sat down to finish watching Master Chef (our new summer tv addiction). We were just about to get up to put Dominik to bed and BOOM, 8:45 pm, the power goes out. Fab-u-lous. Well, we lit some candles, got the flashlights and put Dominik to bed. We were slightly concerned about having no air conditioning, but figured we'd wait a bit before completely freaking out. Bruce went outside to see if the whole block was dark, and it was, except for a few neighbors running around with flashlights. So there wasn't anything we could really do, so we decided it was bed time. Not 2 seconds before I blew out the candle in our room, did I hear little Dominik feet running to our room. He wasn't liking all the howling wind. So we all cuddled/sweated as a family. FINALLY, at 10:02 pm the power came back on! Halleluia! Dom had fallen soundly asleep, so we carried him back to bed, and then went to reset all the clocks and make sure everything that needed to be on turned back on, i.e. fridges, a/c, security system. We were good, so then it was finally bedtime! Whew, I was just glad to have a/c back!

I may regret this...

...But hopefully it will keep Dominik busy. Today I washed down his slide/jungle gym to bring inside. I figure we aren't using it outside since it's so hot (110+ degrees for the next week or so) so I'll bring it in. I just feel really trapped and miserable in this heat and it's only June. I still have until September--for both baby to come and the heat to finally subside!
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Pool days, shmool days

Just another thing to rub in all of my Nebraska friends and family's faces--pool days in March! I set up Dominik's pool this week and we've been in it twice. Let me tell you, it will be fabulous for me when I'm 9 months pregnant this summer! It is a pretty crazy pool, it has a slide, an archway that sprays water, an elephant ring toss, and a blow up seal with balls. Dominik loves it and gets mad when it's time to go inside!

I'm 11 months today!

Can't believe how fast 11 months has gone! We had an eventful day planned, but only got around to half. We are in Yuma right now and they had a Veteran's Day Parade, so I thought that would be fun. It was supposed to start at 8:45 am, but didn't get going until 9:15 am. I was getting worried as that is close to nap time. We saw lots of army equipment, Marines, Shriners, Bands, Girl and Boy Scout Troops, and other random groups that made floats. We stayed until 10:15 am, as Dominik couldn't make it any longer. I'm not sure how much more parade there was, but it seemed pretty rocking still as we got to the car. Oh and there was WIND. Today was super windy, so there was plenty of dirt flying through the air, getting us all gritty. Which leads us to why we cancelled our afternoon 11 month photo shoot in the park. Hopefully tomorrow is less windy!

Some of Dominik's current activities: opening and climbing INTO cupboards, walking everywhere, eating all finger foods at meals, nap time/bedtime without the pacifier, making noises with his tongue, getting one tooth on top (we have a total of 3 now!), playing/initiating the game of peekaboo, and running away from diaper changes.
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Pretty rainbow in Utah

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Waiting Game...

So I consider myself a fairly patient person, but these last couple of weeks are killing me! I keep getting more and more anxious the closer and closer we get to my due date! I was the most uncomfortable last night. I was extremely exhausted, so I headed to bed around 8:30 pm. Well I could NOT for the life of me get comfortable! I was tossing and turning and to make matters worse a HUGE monsoon came up and started pounding rain on the windows and the wind was howling and shaking the house. I seriously thought we were going to blow away! Bruce came in right after that started and he saw how upset I was that I couldn't get comfortable--I'm thinking it was mild contractions-- so he massaged my back, and talked me through some breathing exercises (he DID pay attention during class! haha). He then got up, got me some water, and an ice pack for my back. He was soooooo sweet and I totally appreciate it. After all of that was done, he laid with me and held the ice pack on my back until I fell asleep. I was debating about whether or not to go to work today, and I decided that one more day couldn't hurt, so here I am. No pain like I was feeling last night, but hopefully that pain moved BBA along in the birth process! Dr. Appt tomorrow and hopefully news on how soon this little guy will arrive in this big world!

These boots were made for walking

Not really boots per se. I really don't think boots are very comfortable to walk in. Last night Bruce and I began taking (hopefully) nightly walks. We've been semi-motivated by Kiewit, they've created a walking program and if we participate we get prizes, namely a gift card, and who doesn't like gift cards? The other reason we are motivated is because I can actualy feel that it is getting "cooler" in this desert place that we live in. Even though the temps are still in the 100s+ during the day, it is actually feeling cooler at night-YAY! I'm gonna guess and say it cooled down to maybe 80 or so, which is a huge relief! So there we are at about 9pm, lacing up our walking shoes, and strapping on the pedometers. We were ready to go. Bruce was really interested in the whole pedometer aspect. He's never used one before and couldn't wait to check out how many "steps" he's taken. The walk was awesome, although Bruce complained that it was still too hot. I just enjoyed being outside and not feeling miserable and sweating my butt off. I also enjoyed looking at the stars. That's why I'm glad where we live, we can actually SEE the stars! If you live any closer to Phoenix, you miss out on those things. The damn city lights are so bright that you don't see anything. I'll keep you posted on the walks, hopefully we'll keep them scheduled :)