Minnesota trip and the end of summer

It's been almost a month since we were in Minnesota visiting my family, and now it's almost officially fall! Our trip to Minnesota was great! We got to spend time with my parents and my brothers in Rochester, as well as visit both of my grandmas, my grandma Lucille in Austin and my grandma Elsie in Redwood Falls. Sean had never met Elsie before, so it was wonderful for them to finally meet! I meant to take more photos while we were there, but this is the only one I captured. We got a little lost in western MN, and during our driving adventure we spotted a crop duster plane. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take a photo until the plane was out of sight. Here, instead, is a wonderful photo of Minnesota Highway 14 and the car behind us.
After getting back from Minnesota, we were finally done with our travels for a while. In the meantime, we've been busy with work while trying to find a house to buy. After a few disappointments, we think we've lucked out with one. I'll post pictures once we're closer to finalizing everything. For now, things look good!
With fall comes football, and we started the season off by driving up to ASU's Camp Tontozona in Payson where the football team trains during the month of August. The field is set right in the mountains, and we lucked out with great weather the day we went for the scrimmage. Sean loved it, of course, but I think Brinkley would rather be lounging in our air conditioned house than up in the mountains. In fact, you can probably see him trying to escape in this picture!
With three games already down, and another one tomorrow, the Sun Devils are doing well! We've enjoyed going to the games with friends, and look forward to Jim and Robin coming down for the big USC game over Thanksgiving.
Unfortunately, Sean has to miss tomorrow's PAC-10 opener against Oregon State. He's currently working on a trial in Laconia, New Hampshire, which is quite a nice coincidence since his cousin Tim and his family live just a couple hours away from Sean's trial! He plans to visit with them this weekend while he's "off," before he returns to court on Monday.
Tomorrow is Christian's birthday - happy birthday! - and the day after that is the official beginning of fall! The weather is finally starting to cool down a bit, around 90 degrees during the day instead of the 100s we were getting just a few weeks ago. And speaking of Christian, he will be joining us for some ASU football and a short weekend visit in October!
Not much else to report...here's a picture of Brinkley playing TV commando :-)

A year already?

It's hard to believe, but Sean and I have already been married for a whole year! Just about a year ago, we were all gathered in Minnesota with friends and family, celebrating a new marriage and taking advantage of having so many loved ones in one place! Since then, so much has happened, including many travels. Sean and I are in agreement that our favorite thing about the past year, besides being married of course, is all the trips we've taken. Beginning with our honeymoon last August, and coming full circle with another trip to San Diego for a co-worker's wedding at the end of July!
This time we stayed on Pacific Beach a hotel right on the beach. The hotel was okay for the weekend, but I wouldn't recommend staying in a small, beach side hotel with no A/C for longer than a couple days. Our first night in town (Thursday), we met up with some of my co-workers for dinner. We ate at a pretty good restaurant on the main drag called Gringo's. It was pretty good Mexican food, and they had giant margaritas! After dinner we wandered down to the Tavern on the Beach where we all took advantage of the "3 Dollah Make Ya Hollah" special. We then continued the night at Sean's pick, an Irish pub called Hennesey's where our friends were the stars of karaoke night! By then it was past all of our bedtimes, so we called it a night. The great thing about the whole evening was that all the restaurants and bars were close to our hotel, so we got to walk everywhere. The next morning Sean and I took a walk on the beach, picking out what house we would buy if we won the lottery. Would it be the modern, all-white one, or the Tuscan style one? What about the adobe one, bringing a little piece of Phoenix right to the beach? Ha! We can dream, right? We then searched for a breakfast place and stumbled upon Belgian Frys, a little place that makes great, well, Belgian foods! Belgian fries, Belgian waffles, etc. We couldn't resist ordering fries for breakfast, so Sean got his ranchero style (eggs, cheese, salsa, etc.) and I got mine benedict style (bacon, eggs, hollandaise sauce). The perfect greasy breakfast to follow a late night! Then, deciding that waking up early when I didn't have to, I crashed back at the hotel for a nap. Never ones to miss a meal, once lunch time rolled around we decided to get moving. We walked on the beach again and stopped in for a beer at the PB Shore Club. They had great windows overlooking the ocean. A cold beer, a cool breeze and the ocean view with the sun shining made us glad we weren't sitting in our offices! By this time we were ready to eat again so while Sean tied some things up for work (hey, at least it wasn't in the office!), Stacey (my friend and co-worker) and I went to Santana's to get their delicious California burritos. These gigantic burritos hold carne asada, salsa, guacamole and fries. They are absolutely amazing. And yes, Sean and I had fries two meals in a row. You can probably hear our arteries clotting from wherever you're reading this. After a huge, filling lunch, we had just enough time to wake up from our food coma and get ready for Kelly's wedding. They provided a coach bus (or as our driver said, with whatever accent, "cooooch" bus) for us to ride to the wedding in Balboa Park, to the reception at El Cortez, back to our hotel on Pacific Beach. How nice!
The wedding was beautiful, the reception was a blast, and we returned to the hotel pretty darn tired! Saturday was the day I was looking forward to the most because we planned to spend time on Coronado Island, where we honeymooned. We drove over to Coronado about 9 a.m. and ate at a cafe we enjoyed the last time we were there. We then parked our car on Star Park Circle, right by the house L. Frank Baum summered in while he was writing the Wizard of Oz. We wandered back on to Orange Avenue and stopped in at the Coronado History Museum. It was fascinating to see the time line of events, from the time the first land purchase was made, to when the Hotel Del Coronado was built, to present day. By this time we thought it was late enough in the day to justify getting a drink. We walked over to the Del (what many people call the Hotel Del Coronado) and took a walk on the beach, then got a drink on the deck. It overlooks the beach, and similar to our beer at the PB Shore Club, this beer was equally as blissful with the beautiful weather, cold beer and salty breeze. Although this was only my second visit, I can definitely say I am in love with the Del. It's special because of being our honeymoon location, but also just a relaxing, beautiful place to spend time. One of my favorite things to look for when we stayed there, and again on our most recent visit, was the fresh floral arrangement in the lobby. Each day there is a new arrangement and it's always beautiful and ornate.
After our drinks we took another walk on the beach and took a few photos. With our beer cushioning our stomach, we thought it appropriate to indulge in an overpriced drink at the Babcock and Story bar inside the Del. Sean ordered his drink-phase-of-the-moment drink, a Manhattan, and I tried a strawberry lemonade concoction. And what better addition to a liquid lunch than some ice cream? We wandered over to Moo Time Creamery and ordered a Monkey Sundae: vanilla bean ice cream, bananas, peanut butter, hot fudge and a cherry! We enjoyed this on the deck, although all the good seats overlooking the ocean were taken. After one last walk on the beach, we walked back to the car to drive back to Pacific Beach. We took an alternate route through questionably safe Imperial Beach, but on this route there was a point where we were driving with water on both sides of the road! We've been watching John From Cincinnati lately, which takes place in Imperial Beach, so we were curious to see it in person.
We returned to the hotel and went for another walk, this time on Pacific Beach. We returned to the PB Shore Club (I guess we were regulars by now!) for a drink and a late-afternoon snack. We sat in our same spot facing the water. We discussed what a great time we were having, and how some day if we're lucky we'll be able to make San Diego an annual thing. We've already got two years in the bag! We took the beach route back to the hotel, walking closer to the water and watching the surfers. We cleaned up for dinner and headed to a sushi place we'd spotted the first night. It was delicious! I'm not a big seafood person, and when I do have it it has to be a very specific food prepared in a very specific way (calamari: FRIED squid, tuna salad with MAYO, crab rangoon FRIED with CREAM CHEESE, seeing a pattern here?) and the California roll I had was amazing. I think because it was real, fresh crab. Not the usual Krab I'm used to when dining in a land-locked state. We sat right at the bar and got to watch our sushi chef prepare everything. Very cool!
Again, we found ourselves at the PB Shore Club after dinner. This time we ran into one of my co-workers and her husband, and we spent evening with them, chatting about San Diego. After our fairly late nights on Thursday and Friday, we turned in early to the hotel.
Sunday morning we packed up and headed to downtown San Diego to eat breakfast at a famous-to-Chicago-people restaurant, Walker's Pancake House. Good food! Then it was on the road back to Phoenix. On the way in to town we stopped at a new development, a kind of faux town called Verrado. The houses were beautiful, but we sure did not like the idea that we were still 25 miles outside of the very western edge of Phoenix!
And so, there's a probably way too detailed summary of our most recent trip!
Other than travel, Sean and I have been busy with work. I'm in planning mode for a big event in November and Sean is working on several cases, one of which he'll have to travel for next month, we think. And of course, only a couple more weeks until Sun Devil football!
Next up: Minnesota for a long weekend to see my family and help celebrate my grandma's 90th birthday!

Our visit to Salt Lake City

Hello!
While it's been about 110 degrees here in Phoenix, we had a chance to escape the heat and see some family this weekend in Salt Lake City. We flew in on Friday night and were greeted at the airport by Sean's aunt Maureen and uncle Linc (who very kindly provided a place for us to stay for the weekend). Maureen and Linc live in a beautiful historical house in SLC, over 100 years old. We also got to spend time with some adorable golden retrievers: Betsy, who is aunt Colleen and Grammie Eileen's dog, and Maureen and Linc's Jasper.
Saturday morning breakfast was spent at Lamb's, SLC's oldest restaurant, built in 1919. We then wandered over to the Farmer's Market, where Linc was stopped every couple minutes by a former co-worker or friend! Maureen and Linc picked up a couple tomato plants, and then we headed over to Colleen and Eileen's house to meet up with Sean's aunt Kate and uncle Mike to do some moving. Eileen recently moved into a wonderful apartment complex called Parklane, and Colleen moved into a great apartment close to Maureen and Linc, as well as Eileen at Parklane. After showing us her new apartment, Colleen drove me by the University of Utah campus where Maureen teaches in the art department. We all convened at Kate and Mike's for lunch with everyone, including Sean's parents, Jim and Robin, who stopped in for the weekend before continuing on to Vail, Colo., for Jim's annual judicial conference. After a leisurely lunch, Jim and Robin brought us down to Temple Square (which I had never seen), where we got to see the outside of the Temple, the Tabernacle, as well as tour a Mormon historical museum, detailing the Mormons' journey to SLC and the construction of the Temple. The grounds were beautiful, and it was interesting to see all the different countries from which the tour guides hailed. Each tour guide had his/her home country flag on his/her name tag. I saw Canada, Japan and Australia in the short time we were there.
In the evening Eileen hosted a wonderful dinner for us at her apartment in a private dining room of her building. Eileen made some very touching remarks after dinner commenting on the presence of family and the joy of being able to gather in SLC. After-dinner drinks and snacks were had at Maureen and Linc's house where conversation ranged from politics to family to pets.
Sunday morning we enjoyed a pre-brunch snack at Maureen and Linc's regular Sunday spot, Cucina, an adorable deli/cafe just around the corner from their house. Betsy and Jasper joined us for the walk and seemed to enjoy their time in the sun just as much as the humans did. With a 1:30 flight departure, Sean and I joined Jim and Robin for a mid-morning brunch at Little America before leaving for the airport.
Although very quick, our trip to SLC was filled with time with family, and of course, some great food. We're looking forward to either our next visit to SLC or the next time we have an opportunity to gather with this side of the family.
Our next trip is to San Diego at the end of this month...stay tuned for details of that trip!

Stay in touch

Greetings from Phoenix!
I figured this might be one of the easiest ways to keep friends and family caught up on what we're doing here in the desert. I'm not sure how often I'll be posting, but hopefully often enough that you can check back regularly and read what's new in our lives. Although it's our (plural) blog, I doubt Sean will be posting much, so you'll probably be reading everything from my point of view. I also hope to post photos on here as often as possible.

2007 has proven to be a busy year for us! After a nice visit over Christmas to Kansas City to visit Jim, Robin and Katie, as well as my brother, Joel, and his family, we returned to Phoenix before the new year. I started my new job at the ASU Center for Nonprofit Leadership and Management as their Marketing and Communications Specialist. It's been wonderful since day one! No day is the same, and I get to work on a variety of projects, including graphic design, writing news releases, creating event invitations and signage, and even a little media relations. I also work with some wonderful people, who are not only great at what they do, but also fun to spend time with. We have already spent many a happy hour getting to know one another.

February started splendidly, as Katie announced her engagement to her boyfriend, Adam Gasper! We are looking forward to the wedding in May 2008. Sean has been enjoying his work at Snell and Wilmer, where he's been working since September. In February, Sean had the opportunity to go to trial, which as I understand it, is a pretty neat experience being only a first year associate. The case ended up settling, but of course not until the jury had begun deliberation. February was a fun month...we celebrated Sean's birthday and Valentine's Day at one of our favorite Phoenix restaurants, Durant's, which is known for great meat and a ring-a-ding-ding atmosphere. I think it would have fit well into the Sopranos! February also brought us back up to Kansas to celebrate Matt Morgan and Mary Riley's wedding. We had a wonderful time, and got to see lots of friends and our Kansas City family again.

March and April (which included an ever-so-holy trip to Las Vegas for Easter) flew by, and before we knew it, it was May and we were back to logging quality hours at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. Sean went on a bachelor weekend to Chicago to celebrate Brett Lambert's last hurrah before his upcoming nuptials, while I spent the first full week in May in the Bahamas with my parents and two of my brothers, Christian and David. We both had a wonderful time on our respective trips, and barely had time to catch our breaths before the annual Snell and Wilmer attorney retreat (my Saturday afternoon "activity" was laying poolside, sipping drinks!) one weekend, then Brett and Erin's wedding the weekend after that. Again, a wonderful chance to see friends and family.

Now it's June and we still feel like we're flying by the seat of our pants! Sean is currently en route to San Francisco where he will be arguing a case before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals tomorrow. Very exciting, and nerve-wracking, for a first year associate!

While we're both busy at work, we've been fortunate to befriend a lot of Sean's co-workers and their families, so we have had some fun weekends attending BBQs, bowling, seeing all the summer blockbusters, etc.

July brings a nice holiday (even if it is in the middle of the week) and a weekend visit to Salt Lake City to rendezvous with Jim and Robin, as well as make up for the botched Easter trip, to see the SLC O'Hara clan. At the end of July we will be attending my co-worker, Kelly's, wedding in San Diego. This is especially nice, because just about a year earlier, Sean and I honeymooned there. We hope to make it over to the Hotel Del Coronado, where we stayed on our honeymoon before leaving.














On August 5th we'll celebrate our first wedding anniversary! Other than that, August is looking pretty quiet. And of course come September, we will be spending a lot of time at Sun Devil Stadium for ASU football.

Hopefully that catches you up on the past few months! Might have been a little unnecessary for some of you we talk to on a more regular basis, but there you go!

Keep in touch, and keep checking back for updates if you're curious (or if you just want to see more pictures of this cute little guy)!