Desert Dwelling

We're officially established in our fourth state as a married couple. The kids have claimed three states as their own and Claire has decided she is all done moving. Girlfriend doesn't like change as much as the rest of us. Meanwhile, Benjamin has requested we take him to see "the whole world." They're different personalities, those two.

 Scottsdale Library + our favorite ice cream shop

I finally hung the last of the lingering pictures on the walls this morning (along with calling 748 people to manage bills and doctor appointments, etc.). That's the WORST part of moving anywhere. I almost want to stay here forever just so I don't have to pay another deposit, establishment fee, or search doctors covered under insurance and make appointments for a whole family for dental, dermatology and primary care. That adulting stuff is seriously the pits.

 ASU Art Museum, Diamondbacks Game with Aunt Mansa & Phoenix Children's Museum

As for us, Arizona hasn't brought all that many surprises, but it definitely has delivered the majority of our expectations. It's hot. We've killed as many cockroaches as we have lived here in weeks. (They also happen to me my least favorite creature on the planet.) The pool is our friend. The water bill is not (hello $480! We also know this isn't normal and we're taking action.). The electric bill is also not at $430.

 Swimming at Uncle Justin & Aunt Anna's House and post theatre production happiness with Tweedledee.                                  

Y'all, I'm not sure we've ever paid more than $100 for a water bill (which would've been extremely high because we're fairly water wise). And even in the heat of a Midwest summer, we never spent more than $250 on our electricity, with the average about $150 in the summer months. This house is about 1/3 smaller than our Illinois two-story home with basement, so it's both baffling and cringe-worthy. With that said, I'm told that winter brings bills that are mild and breezy.


Moving to the Sonoran Desert in the summer was a unique choice.

T-ball, cool parks, s'mores and slurpees. Basically, Hashtag Summer.

The kids haven't been on bikes or scooters since leaving Reno and won't likely be back to riding until the fall. Parks just sit vacant, because while the rest of the country is flocking to the local parks, it's impossible here. We'll catch up in January when it's a perfect 75 here, though. Not complaining.

Cabazon Dinosaurs & Dinner with Family

In the 1.5 months we've been here, we've visited the Phoenix Children's Museum, Arizona Science Center, ASU Art Museum, gone to a Diamondbacks game, hiked Camelback Mountain, eaten at countless incredible restaurants, visited libraries, and spent time at pools and rec centers for swim lessons and t-ball. Benjamin had theatre camp at a local theatre (and loved it, of course). The final presentation of Alice in Wonderland was awesome and we plan to sign him up again this fall. Both kids attended VBS one week and Art Camp another week.

We've had three sets of visitors stay with us and I took the kids on a road trip to LA to quickly see the family before sprinting back here. It sure was a boring drive, but the fake dinosaurs near Cabazon, CA were an interesting bunch to break up the monotony.

It's only a high of 98 here today and I legitimately felt a breeze in the air when I was packing my car up with stuff to take to my classroom tomorrow. You know you've acclimated when 98 feels "breezy" to you.

Off to lather up with sunscreen and hop in the pool. #required

No Shortage of Places to Live

We're currently under contract for three different rental properties.

I'm sitting here in Reno in our perfect-fit rental with all the upgrades we want, just enough space and the ideal price point that makes you feel less uncomfortable about throwing away the equity. The kicker is that Elliot isn't working in the state of NV anymore, so we're merely here to finish up school and get things packed and moved.

During weekday evenings and during our family spring break trip to Tempe, Arizona last week, our one-bedroom rental there is occupied, but typically it's only Elliot as he travels each week for work. It's mostly empty, but during spring training, we needed to procure a rental because the hotel rates skyrocketed to multiple hundreds of dollars per night. It's really just for sleeping and for securing spots for school for the fall because they required an AZ address that we didn't previously possess. It's served us well for the 3-month lease we wanted, but we're looking forward to a bigger place outside the university center life soon.

And then there's the house we just signed the lease for in Scottsdale, AZ. It's about as big as the two aforementioned combined and has a pool-- something we swore we'd never have (unless we moved to FL or AZ). I've never seen it, but Elliot gives it a thumbs up, so we're in.

In case you didn't gather, we're making another move, but this time to the border state of Arizona. It's an 11+ hour drive (to match our total of 11 months in NV) and we made it once already, so one of our cars remains in Tempe while the other is here with myself and the kids. On Memorial Day weekend, we will bid farewell to Reno as we look ahead to full time school for both kids starting in August... in a new state again.

The story is simple and in short, we never wanted to leave Reno, but we're adventurers and a cool, unexpected job opportunity grabbed us away from the beloved mountains once again and here we are back on our journey, this time to the Sonoran Desert.

I'm not quite sure what's possessing us to move during the extreme temperatures of the desert at their peak, but that pool is about to come in handy BIG time. Expect instagram pictures to be on overload with backyard pool pictures starting approximately June 1. #becausearizona #abouttobuystockinsunscreen

Any AZ natives out there and want to give us tips on how to A. Not melt, B. Keep our energy bills low(er) and C. Recommendations in general about your favorite local hangouts, we're up for hearing all about it!

One Off Tucson

We just returned from a 4-day trip to Tucson, tagging along with Elliot to a nice hotel in the middle of the nice, warm desert. We love these trips. The actual travel and sleeping parts are often stressful, but so much fun to visit a new place and share these experiences with the kids. My parents also love Arizona and booked themselves a flight from California and took three days off work to spend time with us while the husband was at work meetings all day. With winter overstaying its welcome here in Illinois, we were looking forward to our Tucson trip for awhile!

Some people call me a little crazy for choosing to travel with kids. No, it's not always fun. But, there are always redeeming qualities from these trips. Sarah wrote a little about making memories that last recently and it totally made me think of this trip. Even if we have an uncooperative kid for a few hours on an airplane, we know there will be some excitement that will make it all worth it. We really want our kids to have these explorations so they know there is a big world out there to see and enjoy. It's there for them and they just have to prioritize their interests. We just don't want it to be us who didn't plant the seed of interest.

With all that said, this trip was just a little off. Nothing catastrophic happened. We are all alive and still happy we went. But just about everything we did, we encountered some kind of issue.

My parents have a timeshare in Tucson they've stayed in before. It was booked. It's never booked. I was sort of banking on them being able to take the kids overnight or something. Didn't happen.
They booked a hotel local to ours and were still able to come and relieve us for breaks like a date night and hike.

Benjamin came down with a serious stomach virus the day before our flight that lasted the entire trip. The worst virus he'd ever had and the longest lasting one, too.
Miraculously, we still managed.

Elliot dropped us off with all our luggage at Midway Airport ticketing. Me + the kids solo. In that 15 minutes of time, Benjamin starts to gag and in the knick of time, I made it over to a garbage can where he vomited into the trash at 5:00 in the morning as ticket agents watched. Before our flight.
Miraculously, this was the last vomit of the trip. Lethargy and diarrhea took over from there.

Our hotel room might has well have been in New Mexico, it was so far away from the main hotel and parking.
But, it was nice. And clean. And spacious. And we brought our double stroller to transport.

All six of us got suited up to head down to the pool for hot tub time. It was too cold for the pools or the waterslide. There were three hot tubs. Two were cold for some reason and the third had just closed because someone vomited into it. No hot tub for us. Then, Benjamin had to use the bathroom and told me he was done, but he wasn't. Diarrhea all over us both.
Hot shower followed.

We stayed for four days. The first two days were rainy and in the 50's with weather before and after our trip in the 80's with no rain in the forecast.
We did have a full day of perfect weather and the day we left was nice, too.

On our first nice day, we planned a zoo trip. Elliot accidentally took the keys to the car into his important meeting, so we were stuck in the hotel room without a way to get the carseats out.
We made the zoo trip an hour late, but still saw all of the attractions and animals, with time to spare.

We were supposed to have a date night beginning at 3:00 and his meeting didn't let out until 4:30. (Kids were still on CST, so our bedtime was still early for them and thus we had to return early.)
Date night was still nice and we ate delicious food, had delicious drinks and a nice drive after. Short, but sweet.

There was so much traffic from Tucson to Phoenix that we barely made our flight.
We made it by 12 minutes. With dinner in hand (nevermind that we didn't have lunch!) and the very last 3-person row on our Southwest flight.

The rental car people took ages to check us in when we returned. Then, the shuttle to the airport was about 100 people long. Only for our airline. Of course.
We still got on a bus and people gave up their seats for us with the kids.

Benjamin dealing with a stomach virus the entire time we were there and sleeping terribly.
He didn't fall out of the bed (haha) and only managed to wake Claire once (who went back to sleep easily).

There were great memories made though:
- Getting to spend 4 days with my parents and having the kids spend more time with them.
- Enjoying the wonderful 1.5 days of sunshine we got!
- Eating delicious Mexican food, homemade tortillas and some fun gems recommended to us by friends.
- Having a date night at a restaurant we used to eat at in El Segundo, California (we just found out closed!) thats original location is in Tucson.
- Driving by to check out the Air Force boneyard and enjoying fun drinks without the kids
- A nice zoo day with my parents (even if the kids slept the majority of the time)
- Making memories. Even if it would've been easier staying home in our bubble, it's so nice to get out, explore, find some fun gems and share as much of the world as we can with our kids.

Arrived at the Westin and Benjamin was chipper... until the sicks hit again. On our way to the pool and it rained.

He wanted to go down the water slide. He wasn't allowed.

That bathing suit is a 6/9 months! Score on two seasons!

Delicious.

Lemon/pina colada/strawberry mix + veggie sandwich is where it's at!

We love Grandpa. This was when we all attempted to hit up the hot tub... that was cold. All three out of commission.

Tucson Tamale Company for dinner one night. Yum

Zoo baby. Dirty knees because, no interest in walking but LOTS of interest in moving about.

Zoo selfie with a peacock. Both kids were asleep and we were walking the zoo in peace.

Hello Mr. Giraffe.

Date night. We went on many dates to this restaurant in California... visited the original and ate delish food again!

After drinks at dinner, we got more Eegee drinks and headed on a little drive to the Air Force boneyard.

Claire was not a good kiddo on this flight, but Benjamin was great for both flights. I think 3yo + iPad is the easy zone. Claire was crying and we were drinking. Thank you, Southwest Airlines for serving such a quality beverage. 

Little sister was happy to be on that flight out, but also happy to be vocal about her disapproval on the way home.

Finger Rock hike the day of our departure. Left the kids with the grandparents for about 5 miles of beauty.

*Most photos taken by Gawbee and Grandpa and these were the ones I managed to get uploaded from my phone! I have more, but this blogging app is driving me bonkers, so I'm done.