San Diego!!

One of the perks of living in Arizona is that we are FIVE hours from the beach! This is pretty awesome for us because from Utah it's more like a 10-13 hour drive. We decided to visit San Diego over Labor Day weekend with the Rafferty's. It was such a blast! I went to high school with James and Amy and they actually live in our same apartment complex! It's been great having them around and we had a blast together in San Diego. We packed SO much into 2 and a half days! Here's a few of the things we did:
We attended a session at the San Diego temple. It was so beautiful!

We took a complete gamble on the food places we tried out, but it worked out very well! Saturday night we went and tried out a pizza place in Little Italy. And it was AMAZING! Definitely the best pizza I have ever had. Mike said it was the first time since his mission that he had pizza that tasted like that.

Sunday morning we went to an amazing ward! I have never been to such a touching and spiritual testimony meeting. After church we went to La Jolla where there were sea caves and beautiful beach.

We also got to see a cute family of sea lions. There was two babies, a mom, and a dad. The dad was GINORMOUS!!! But I didn't get a picture of them all together.

We spent a little time playing at the beach:

Later we went over to Point Loma to go to Cabrillo National Monument where we got to go inside a Lighthouse and get a quick look at tide pools.

Amy and I tried really hard to get a cool jumping picture, but we didn't do so hot...

That night we found another awesome place to eat called Rockin' Baja. It was a bunch of fun and way yummy!

Monday we drive over to Coronado. We chilled at a beach/park for just a little bit. Then we grabbed some yummy frozen yogurt and headed over to Old Town. We were way excited to see the Mormon Battalion Monument there, but it's closed for renovation so we'll just have to see it next time. We did get to see a grape stomp like in I Love Lucy, so that was awesome!

On our way to San Diego we passed this hilarious hotel in Gila Bend, AZ called the Space Age Lodge. We thought it was so funny that we decided to make awesome tin foil alien hats and take a picture on our way back. (James' idea) We were trying to beat the sunset, but we didn't do a very good job.

Moving!!! - Finally...

Ok here's the actual moving update. We spent about a week and a half packing up - mixed with spending time with family.
Here's some of our junk stacked up:

And here's how we slept for three days because we had put our bed up to have more room for boxes: (Notice the little lantern next to the bed - Mike wanted to pull it out because we were "camping" haha He cracks me up!)

We spent a very long hot day (at least it wasn't in Arizona) packing up the Uhual. My parents and 3 siblings were wonderful to come and help. Plus we had a few friends and family come by to say goodbye which was very sweet. My dad was amazing! He spent the whole day standing in the Uhaul and he packed that thing like sardines! It was awesome! We were able to not only fit all of our stuff, but also all of our good friend the Rafferty's stuff. They just got married and didn't have a way to get things to Arizona.
Here's us in front of the Uhual:

We got here safely and are now settled. We both really like it here. The only thing that is missing is family.

Pincock Reunion 2009

We had such a perfect ending to our Utah life by having the Pincock Reunion up until literally the day we packed up the Uhaul.
We did an paper airplane flying contest:

And the winner got to put the Mentos in the Diet Coke. This was such a cool thing! Everyone should try it out - in a place where they won't have to clean like an field.

We did lots of other fun things like volleyball, card games, and of course Settlers of Catan. It was also very fun to get to hear my grandpa tell us that he was just called to be the 1st counselor in the Monticello Temple Presidency! We were also able to get group pictures. This made me really happy since the group pictures that they took during Thanksgiving had everyone except for Mike and I. Here's just a few:

Holy Cow - It's Been a while.

Wow! Sorry everyone! It's been a crazy couple of months, but we're finally settled and I feel like I have tons of stuff to add to my blog! I will get to the move in a post later, but it'll make me crazy if I don't put up events chrologically! So here you go:
The weekend before we moved we went up to Leah's cabin! It was SO much fun and such a great way to end the whole "Heidi and Leah" phase of my life. :( I know it's sad...but we're still way close - it's just lame that we live to far away from each other!

This is everyone that went. It was great to hang out with old friends and new ones!

Later that week Leah made us a yummy vegetable pizza for dinner:


After we had dinner we decided to go to Willow Park Zoo because Mike and I had never been there. It was a lot of fun, but kind of a lame park. I definitely wouldn't call it a zoo. (Mike says "Whatever, it is too a zoo.") But it was fun to see the cool things they had and even more fun to walk around with Leah and talk.

Anyway there's a little update. I will try and slowly get caught up throughout the next few days.

Other Photos from our Vacation

We stopped at the Manti temple quick on our way to Arches. Mike had never seen it so we decided to stop quick and take a picture.

Arches! It is such an amazing place!

Mike being a good uncle and carrying Christopher during part of our hike.

We made it! This was a fun, but very hot hike. We had a blast though!

Anna, Thomas, Christopher and Mike's head by a Indian Hogan in Blanding. They had a hole in the top that was just right for Mike's head. :)

Melissa and Mike watching the 4th of July parade. They were having a blast...not really.

Mesa Verde, Tempe, Arches & Blanding twice!

We have had such a fun week! We left two Friday's ago for a week long trip through four different states in hopes to spend a lot of time with family and find an apartment in Tempe. And we accomplished both! We went to arches last Saturday. Sunday we spent the day hanging out with my Grandparents in Blanding. Monday and Tuesday were spent in Mesa Verde with Mike's family.

Wednesday we spent the day driving to Tempe. Thursday we decided on an apartment in Tempe. And Friday we drove back to Blanding for the 4th of July. We got back to Logan around noon today so we are a little shell shocked. It has been a whirl wind of a week. We put over just a little shy or 1800 miles on our car! Woah! I have more pictures from the other days of our trip, but I left my camera in Blanding so I'll post them next week.

THE SEWING MACHINE

So here's to story - one of my good friends from my work was talking to me one day and I told her how much I wanted to get a sewing machine one day. Then she asked me if I wanted hers. :) She said it's in bad shape outside, but as far as she knew it was in pretty good working condition. So, I came and took it from her.
It sat in my apartment for a few weeks and then at my mom's house for a few more. Finally one day my mom got sick of it being there and we pulled it out to see if it was worth salvaging. After working with it for a while we were both pretty impressed with it's capabilities. So I decided to take on the project of making it not smell like mold and making the outside look cute. :) Here's what it looked like at the beginning:


Pretty gross right? We let it sit for a while after we peeled off the old paper in hopes that the mold smell would dissipate. It did kind of did, but it still needed some help. My grandma suggested that we paint over it because that would cover the smell. So I put a few layers on it this weekend.
Paint:

Then over the past few days I have taken vinyl covering and covered the whole thing. We also had to cut a new cover for the bottom because it was completely ruined. Then we just bound some little feet thing for the bottom and we were done! I'm really excited to have a sewing machine and hoping to start some fun projects with it.
Finished project:

Shock!

I know... I know... Everyone is shocked that I'm actually updating our blog! A LOT has happened since I updated our blog.

• MIKE GRADUATED!!!! It was so great to know that he is done! We had a party with our families instead of him walking (he didn't want to) and although initially I was really stressed about it, it ended up being a lot of fun! I definitely couldn't have done it without my wonderful mother-in-law and mom.
• We celebrated our 1st anniversary! We didn't do a whole lot because we're poor and we didn't have time to plan anything because of school. We did end up driving down to Salt Lake to go out for a dinner. We went to Happy Sumo and we were both brave and decided to try sushi for our first time. It was yummy!
• We've had more family parties and driven more miles in one month than we ever have before!
  

I have loads of pictures to share, but I don't have any of them with me here at work. Except for these "sister pictures." The same weekend of Mike's party we had a get together with my Dad's sisters family. My cousin was about to leave on his mission and Mike & I wanted to go with him to the Salt Lake Temple before he left so I cooked up a get together. While my aunt at my parents I asked her to cut my hair. And it ended up being a big hair cutting party because all of my sisters got their hair cut. We all got bangs (except for Melissa - she already had them) and so we decided to take some pictures.

We tried to do a cute little pyramid pictures and as soon as Whit got on we toppled over. Mike was an awesome photographer and snapped a picture right as we were tipping over.

I love my sisters a whole lot if you can't tell.

Birthday and Easter

Last week was a great week! It was spring break for the practicum school I am in, so I got it off! I hung out with Mike for the first couple of days. And then headed to Blanding with my mom, siblings, aunts, and cousins! It was so fun! But first birthday fun:
Sweet Leah came over on Tuesday night and brought dinner and a yummy ice cream cake from coldstone! She made the cake herself! And it was beautiful and delicious!

Then, Thursday I hopped in the car and headed to Blanding. We had tons of fun! We celebrated four of the family April birthday's that night.

The next day we got to go to the sand dunes and for a fun picnic. We also had an Easter egg hunt and an Easter egg treasure hunt. And yes, they are different things. :) It was so great to get to spend time with family! Especially now that I know that I probably won't get to do quite as many family thing for the next few year as I have in the past. However, I was SO ready to get back home to my sweet husband after being away for four days! Overall, things are wonderful! We can hardly wait to move and start a new exciting adventure!

He Got In!!!!!!!!

Mike got into graduate school... and not just any graduate school! His top choice - ASU! We've been waiting to hear back from this particular school for 4 months and 3 days, so the acceptance email that came at 8:30 last night was a VERY welcome sight! This means that as of August15th or so we will be moving to Tempe, AZ for approximately a two year Computer Security Masters Program. We are so excited! Now to just survive the last 4 weeks of this semester...

Pluggin through the semester...

Well it's been a while...yet again...I apparently struggle with blogging. :) So we are more than halfway through the semester! Yay! Which also means that Mike has a little less than 6 weeks before he graduates! Yay again! We are still waiting to hear on graduate school, but we're learning to be patient. As for me, I just started a practicum in a 1st grade classroom. (I was supposed to start last week and got stuck with a toothache that transferred smoothly into the flu.) My practicum may kill me, but at least it is only for a few weeks. Twenty 7 year-olds in a confined space for 7 hours is not exactly my forte. I pray I can land a teaching job in a grade a little older than first grade.
Here are the favorites from Cancun I said I would put up.... The first one is favorite - I don't care if it makes people gag - I think the huge wave behind us is awesome!!!! Oh and I must give credit to my dearest bff Leah for that pic. :) Thanks Leah!


Cenote! The weird pool that is 150 feet below ground level.


Chichen Itza! Such a cool place!


Yum, green celery juice stuff... :)

After Mike hurt his foot really bad in the ocean. :(