Visit from the Stocktons

If this seems like a long post, it's because we've had an action-packed week! Mike's sister, Tiffany and her adorable little boy, Kingsley, came to visit for a week. We had so much fun!

Aside from the jealousy, and the total lack of sharing, I'd say Ellie did pretty well having Kingsley around. Ok, it wasn't all that bad... but the girl definitely needs to learn a few things before she gets a sibling (which won't be for awhile... sorry grandparents).

Mike had Monday "off" for Labor Day. He didn't have classes, but he did study for most of the day. Despite his studying, we managed to go to Los Reyes De La Tortas (another feature on the Phoenix edition of Man vs. Food, although this one wasn't featured for a food challenge, rather their exceptionally good food!). It was delicious!

We all tried the Torta del Reyes, which was massive. Luckily, Tiff and I shared one which was more than enough food.

We managed to go swimming a few times.
It was Kingsley's first time swimming in a pool, and as you can tell by the picture, he really enjoyed himself!
Wednesday was my birthday! Tiffany made some seriously AMAZING Andes Mint Cupcakes.

We all enjoyed them, and true to form, Ellie licked off all the frosting and left the cupcake part untouched.
We also spent a day driving out East to the Superstition Mountains. We stopped at the Superstition Museum which was really neat! For years, there was a place called Apache Land, which was a town/movie set where several Western Films were made. In 2004 the entire city, minus a few buildings on the outskirts of town, burned to the ground. So they moved the remaining buildings to this museum. They had a wall full of pictures of actors and actresses who filmed movies in Apache land: Clint Eastwood, John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, etc.

This building was called the Elvis Chapel because it was used in parts of Elvis' film, Charro! (which is the only film he did which didn't feature him singing). In the movie, they built a fake steeple and blew it up with a cannon!

And people get married here all the time.

These are the gallows...
Steve McQueen's boot prints...
A Stage Coach
And of course, a jail...
And they also had a display of like 300 different kinds of barbed wire. Who knew there were that many different kinds?
We drove just a little further to Goldfield Ghost Town, a genuine 1890's ghost town which has turned into a large tourist attraction. Although, since it's the beginning of September and still deathly hot, half of the shops were closed and we only saw a handful of people. So it really felt like a ghost town! The Superstition mountains were beautiful! You can sort of see them in the background of this picture.
We drove about 30 minutes further on the Apache Trail (a twisty-turny road with beautiful scenery) and saw Canyon Lake. It's kind of weird to see a lake out in the middle of the desert.

Tiffany served her mission in the Philippines, so we found a little Filipino restaurant for dinner. I'd never tried Filipino food (aside from the Ramen/hot dog thing my little brother made once). It was really good!

The best part was the dessert though! On the left is Halo-Halo, which is kind of hard to explain but it's delicious. It has shaved ice, evaporated milk, fruit, sweet beans, and purple yam (ube) ice cream. It reminded me of stuff I had on my mission in Korea (pat bing su). And on the right is a coconut boba drink. I think it's also called bubble tea, or pearl tea. It's basically a coconut smoothie with these huge tapioca balls (boba) at the bottom. So it comes with this massive straw so the boba can fit through. It was SO good.

Speaking of delicious food, Tiff and I also made a few fabulous recipes which I highly recommend: cookie brittle, crispy chicken wraps, and a fantastic pulled pork recipe. I definitely need to commit to my diet again after this week!
We also drove to the Mesa Temple, which looks so different from most other temples, but it's really beautiful in its own way.
We had a really good time, and hope Tiffany and Kingsley did too. So there you go folks... come visit any time and you too can experience these things first hand! We'd love to have you!

Memory Lane

I was organizing some files on my computer and came across these old pictures from college. So friends, walk down Memory Lane with me. And if you're slightly embarrassed by any of these pictures, rest assured that I have worse in my possession. You should thank me for not posting those ones. I'll email them to you instead!

Good ol' Fugal Hall

I took this picture with me on my mission, and people found it especially funny because when you want to call someone ugly in Korea, you call them a pumpkin.

Emily & Darth Vader (I mean, the Blind Illiterate Hunchback/Cataract the Cat/Tom)

Do any of you remember Cami, the cutest girl in the world? She must be 11 or 12 now.

I was too short to participate, so I took pictures instead!

Me & the Hobbits

Homecoming 2003

Halloween 2003

I think Ebbie was actually on the phone, and the rest of us were just making fun of her!

Halloween 2004

This picture is especially funny to me, cause 5 years later we actually WERE pregnant together.

Ahh... the Testing Center.

Ebbie, has Andrew seen this picture? (P.S. do you guys remember our Peaches/Boyfriends video? I sure wish we still had a copy of that!)

The Fireplace!

Ebbie's creepy black gloves.

Heather Heights

This pretty much sums up every night of our Junior year.

You can't stay mad at a Pancake Mouse.

Coolest Ice Sculpture Ever.

Thanks for indulging me! I had a lot of fun looking at these pictures, and I hope my old roommates don't mind too much.

Cooking Mama!

Cooking Mama. My favorite Wii game AND a great description of my life recently.

Being a stay-at-home Mama has its perks! I get to make all of the recipes that I've always wanted to, but never had time for. Like bread. I made rolls and breadsticks for the first time in my life!

I'm no food photographer, so please excuse these poor photos. I just wanted to share these awesome recipes that I've discovered lately.

Flat Bread Pizza with Caramelized Onions and Feta

http://www.ourbestbites.com/2010/07/flatbread-pizza-with-spinach-caramelized-onions-and-feta/

Only, I made my own pizza crust instead of using flat bread. I'm so domestic.

And here's a great recipe to help stave off the heat:

Fresh Mango Sorbet with Pineapple

http://www.ourbestbites.com/2008/06/fresh-mango-sorbet-with-pineapple/

This tastes exactly like Mango Melon Starbursts. SERIOUSLY. GOOD.

So if you're stumped about what to make for dinner this week, here are some ideas for you!

We just discovered Funny Faces!

Flagstaff

I knew it would happen. And it did. I fell in love with Flagstaff.

My sister and her family just moved to Flagstaff this past weekend, and we drove up to help them unload the truck and get settled.

Ellie and Ada were so fun to watch! They're both walking, running, and dancing now so Ada is definitely keeping up with Ellie. They also both share a love for Yo Gabba Gabba, and got their groove on.

So Flagstaff was about 30 degrees cooler than Phoenix. These next pictures were the view out their windows. All we can see out our windows are parking lots and cars. You can see why I fell in love with the place!

And this is what we saw at IHOP. Who drives this to an IHOP? That's just the way they do it in Flagstaff, I guess.
It was very depressing to watch the temperature rise as we drove the 2 hours back to Phoenix. But we'll see who's laughing in a few months, when they've got snow and we're sipping pina coladas by the pool!

Valley of the Sun

After talking about law school for years, the time has come to begin this adventure together! The move went well. No major mishaps or injuries. Just a small bout with heat exhaustion while unloading the truck, but at 108 degrees that's sort of to be expected.

The apartment itself is really nice. 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, and a killer deal. Can't beat that. The location, however, is interesting. We live in a big city now, which I'm having to get used to. And apartment complexes tend to attract an interesting crowd anywhere. The day we moved in, our neighbors were moving out. Mike was talking to the family and it turns out they'd only been living here for 7 days and their apartment had been broken into. Not really something you want to hear on your first day in a new place. But we haven't had any bad experiences so far. And after talking to several people, including a couple in our ward, it sounds like this rarely happens and it was just bad timing to have it happen right as we moved in. Oh! And the power went out the night we moved in. So it was like 90+ degrees in our apartment. Not very conducive to sleeping, but luckily the power came back after a few hours.

This is the new play mat we got for Ellie's room. With all hardwood floors, we had to invest in some rugs/mats. Anyways, she loves running around to all the different letters and saying, "A says Ah! The B says Buh!" She's pretty smart.

So I finally understand why they call this the Valley of the Sun. It's cause it feels like you're actually walking on the Sun. That should give you a vivid picture of what it's like to live here in the summer. Or, it's like that rush of hot air that hits you when you open the oven, but it never stops. I'm blogging at 9:39 pm and it's still 101 degrees outside. Bleh!

Here's Ellie eating a free Creamsicle at Costco.

Mike on his first day of school. Here stands a future lawyer!

Mike's school gave us free passes to the Children's Museum and Ellie had a blast!

This part of the museum struck my heart with absolute terror. The Noodle Forest. Kids screaming all around you, limited visibility, darkness, claustrophobia... it was like walking into a horror movie. I was just sure a chain saw-wielding clown was going to jump out at us. Neither Ellie or I enjoyed it very much.
To commemorate Mike finishing his first week of school, I took him out to dinner: Alice Cooper's Town, owned by the heavy metal rock legend himself. Mike was watching the Phoenix episode of Man vs. Food and saw Adam Richman eat a 2 lb. 2 ft. hot dog. Mike, an avid hot dog lover AND an avid food challenge lover, decided he just HAD to try this. The restaurant is actually quite close to his school, so we went after his last class. Mike enjoyed the challenge, and it seems like it was a popular dish because about 5 other people ordered it in the hour that we were there. Every time a waitress brought out the dish, they rang a big bell and everybody yelled.

We also witnessed our first Haboob. Excuse me? That's what I first said when I heard Mike use that term. Anyways, it's just another term for an intense dust storm.
Not the best pictures of it, but it was neat to see. We were driving towards downtown when we noticed it, and found ourselves walking around downtown in the middle of it. But it wasn't that bad. Just irritating to the eyes.
Dowtown Phoenix is beautiful! Ellie loved these fountains. Anything to cool down and wash the dust off!
So far, our experience in Phoenix has been great! I think I'm going to like it a lot more come October when it's supposed to cool off.