Celebrating Mother's Day (a Week Early and a Week Late!)

The Monday before last, my dad emailed me with a great idea - surprise my mom by flying out for mothers's day. Unfortunately, I had a wedding that weekend, so it was a no go. Fortunately, I was free that weekend, as in 4 days from then. Too short notice and crazy? With some free flights from all my dad's traveling and a surprisingly open schedule, we decided to go for it, and by Tuesday I was booked on a flight!

Now, I am not the calmest of fliers, so it was a good think my flight was midday and I could justify a glass of wine. I was very proud of myself though, despite mild turbulence, I didn't freak out and in less thank two hours, I was safely on the ground in Orange County. 

My dad picked me up and snuck me into the house, where my mom was taking a nap. I sat next to her on the bed and gently shook her awake. She was so surprised to see me sitting there above her! Very happy as well :). My dad did a great job setting this up - she had no idea. 

My dad had already made sure the day's plans would be lovely, and could include me. First off, we headed to a lovely design house in Laguna Beach (I'll do a full post on that later - suffice to say, it was spectacular!). 

We were joined by our next door neighbors that our family has been close friends with since I was in 2nd grade! So, a very long time. 

After spending a few hours imagining we were living in an almost $19 million dollar house with ocean views, it was time to head to dinner. 

This was where my mom got her second surprise - my sister, brother in law, and niece drove down from LA to join us! Unfortunately, they hit traffic, to the surprise was broken with, "table of 8 and a high chair" rather than them in person, but that just built up the anticipation :). 

Pictures came out a bit blurry, but look how big my niece is getting! 

She was so so cute saying, "ba-ba" for bread and then saying "peas" and making her little please hand motion. 

My mom and I may have sent my sister and her husband to the other end of the table so that we could soak in Amelia cuteness. 

I even got to take her outside and carry her around for a while. Such bliss. She also loves saying "bub-bles" which is what she called all the birds she excitedly saw flying by. 

In between niece cuteness, we did also eat delicious food. 

As did Ameila. 

She totally hooked the wait staff around her little finger and got a bowl of craisens to eat in addition to mom packed snacks. 

Of course, she may have played with them more than eat them, but they were a very welcome distraction. 

Of course, we got to celebrate my mom's birthday/mother's day early, complete with a very yummy dessert. 

I got amazing bread pudding!

And, before we knew it, it was time to say goodbye. I am so so glad I got to see my sister and her family, since our time together seems few and far between. Luckily, Ash and Amelia will be helping us move, so we only have to wait 45ish days to see them again :) (Sad brother in law James can't join us, but not everyone has teacher summers...)

Seeing Amelia walking around in all her confidence, with her oh so cute converse was icing on the cake.

The next day, I took my parents out for brunch, after a nice walk around the lake with friends and a trip to church. 

We continued the celebration with a bottle of wine and a bracelet for my mom - a spontaneous gift purchase at the design house that my mom seems to really like. So nice when gift ideas present themselves so perfectly. 

Afterwards, my mom and I hit up the festival of art, and checked out all the beautiful chalk art.

There were also some interesting garden art displays, including this 60's retro garden, 

And this possibly education Sonoran garden (in case you forgot, we are moving to the Sonoran dessert, so apparently we can grow all of this!).

Just over 24 hours after I arrived, it was time to leave again. It had been since probably college at some point that I'd celebrated my mom's birthday and mother's day. 

I'm so glad that I had those 24ish hours and that they were so perfectly spent. 

Happy (early and belated) Birthday and Mother's Day mom!

Our New Appliances

Ah, the fun of growing up, when you get ridiculously excited about buying your first appliances :). For better or worse, our buyer let us know from the get go that she'd be taking the washer, dryer, and fridge, so we know we'd be needing to get these. Downside - sort of big initial cost. Upside? We get to choose our favorite low energy appliances that will last us a *hopefully* very long time.

Our first purchases were with very thankful help from my mom and dad, who gifted us with much of the cost of this beautiful washer and dryer set. Of course, my dad was a bit shocked by the cost - things have changed a bit in the 20 years it's been since they've had to go appliance shopping! We did get good deals, though, about $100 off each appliance and free shipping, courtesy of home depot.

So, here they are!
       
Our beautiful LG washer and dryer. Despite the seemingly huge popularity of the front loading machines, it seemed cumbersome to bend down to pull out the laundry, unless you bought a bottom bin for an additional $250, and they seemed, across the board, to have huge issues with mold. These models both got rave reviews (the best we saw, even with higher priced machines), and are very pretty besides. We liked the see through doors on both machines (though functionality wise, not totally sure about the reasoning). In any event, I've never been more excited to do laundry. Good thing, since I may have made many many promises to Ed regarding my doing lots of laundry once we had our own and didn't have to walk to the laundry building at our apartment complex.

For our fridge, we knew early on we wanted either a side by side or french door model, since the fridge is located across from the island, and a full door would be a bit tight. Ed surprisingly really fell for the french door design, so we decided to splurge and go for that. Again, we pored over reviews, learning that ones with water dispensers often have serious issues (so we stayed away from those), and finally settling on this beauty:

We visited this guy too, while we were at Home Depot, and very  much loved the bluish LED lighting inside, the freezer space, and all the shelves and drawers. This is also an LG, so our appliances will be in good company.  Without an ice dispenser in the door, there's a ton more space available, which was a great added bonus. 

All of our appliances are set to be delivered within the first few days of our move! 

Only 47 days to go...

Closing!

It's hard to believe that less than a month ago, we were introduced to this home:

It's even harder to believe that as of today, it is now our home. As in, belonging to us. As in, we're homeowners! So, while we still have another month and a half in the bay area, we officially have an Arizona address (and are landlords, too, since this home has officially switched into a rental property for us).

Reflecting back on the experience? It was much easier than I imagined it would be. A lot of that has to do with entering an inexpensive market (compared to the bay area) with savings put away with the idea that we'd be entering a much more expensive market. There was also a decent amount of inventory in our price range and, though the price was low by our standards, it was still on the high side of midrange out in Phoenix, so there was less competition. Add in a very helpful real estate agent who had a strong connection to a creative and effective loan officer, and  you have a prefect mix for a great experience. And, of course, having an amazing, easy to work with husband helps too :)

While we got, "congrats" phone calls from both the loan officer and our real estate agent, it feels like there should be something more, like some kind of certificate that says, "Congratulations, you've completed the home buying experience!" Ed said that that's what the house keys are. 

Until then, we'll drink champagne and celebrate being one step closer to our move :).

Exploring Arizona: (The Farm at) South Mountain

In the last of this "series," I wanted to share a place, rather than a whole region. South Mountain itself is, well, a mountain, with lots of Sonoran Desert flora and fauna, and doesn't really look anything like these pictures. To be honest, I didn't visit South Mountain on this trip (though I hope to soon). However, Ed and I did make our way to the Farm on South Mountain for lunch on our last day, which is in the area of Phoenix just North of the mountain, and we were so glad we did!

Basically, the concept is this: this place is a working farm, growing delicious foods. They then make the food using their own, or other mainly local ingredients, and then sell this tasty food at one of their different "restaurants": they have a morning place, lunch, and dinner, all supposed to be quite good. 

We could not have gotten luckier with the weather. Sitting on the picnic benches in the beautiful, not too hot sunlight, it was hard to believe that this was the desert. 

I went with this delicious strawberry, pancetta, pecan and chicken salad, with a poppyseed dressing, that was fabulous.

Ed got an italian sandwich which he also raved about. 

For dessert, we couldn't help but get a slice of this delicious coconut cake (that we excellent!). 

Even better, though, was just spending time relaxing outside. We both commented that this trip felt so much more like a vacation than either of us had predicted. After we ate, we sat for a while and just read and rested. 

Before we took off, we walked the property a little, admiring all the very cute buildings.

We also admired how green things were! It will be interesting to come back in a different season and compare.

We even got to check out the rows of some of their crops, and feel inspired to maybe try to grow some of our own this year (any Arizona locals try growing crops at home? Any recommendations?)

We appreciated how larger plants were shading smaller ones (like the lettuce in the picture below). 

Even though we won't be living particularly close to this lovely spot, we'll definitely be back!

Soon to be Moving to Phoenix!

I thought I'd give this link up a try from Kelly's Korner, since it's certainly hard to make friends, especially when you're moving somewhere where you basically know no one!

My husband Ed and I are about to make a huge local shift. We've both called the bay area, in Northern California, home for almost a decade (5 of those years together), and have loved every minute of it.

But, Ed just got a job as an assistant professor at ASU, so we are now Phoenix bound! We've bought a gorgeous home in Gilbert and are doing our best to get to know our new area. I'm busy applying for teaching jobs in the east valley and hopefully will find a great school to work at. So far, we've only visited the area twice, but we've liked what we've seen (especially on the longer, second visit in April). It helped that the weather was ideal and we found our dream house, but we still really liked the feel of the area. We can't wait to get to know it better soon.

So, if you live in the general Phoenix area, it would be great to get to know you!

Exploring Arizona: Scottsdale

Now, this is a place we never really considered living, so that why I'm saving it for last. Scottsdale is, for whatever reason, the place where the "wealthy" go. It's been compared more to Orange County, and certainly has the home prices to back that up. While it's nowhere like the Bay Area, homes still run around $500,000 and can cost much, much more. For the price range we were exploring, a home in Scottsdale would buy us the zipcode, but the area itself would be older, more run down, and just generally less desirable. 

Nonetheless, it does have a lot of strengths, and is a great place to visit! So, the Thursday we were there, while we were waiting to hear if we got the house, we decided to make an afternoon exploratory trip to Old Town Scottsdale. 

Driving there, we skirted the north side of Papago Park (which houses the zoo, botanical garden, and other special places) and were treated with this bizarre looking rock formations. They reminded me of some I saw driving through the desert on the way to Big Bear last year. 

Like everywhere else, Scottsdale was gorgeous in spring. 

We parked in the cutesy (and free!) parking corral and headed of the check out the sites. 

Very shortly into our walk, we discovered a self guided tour stamped into the pavement and, of course, had to follow it (though I should point out this was mostly me driven, rather than Ed driven). 

On our way to the first spot on the map, we found a great sculpture garden with southwestern ironwork. 

I'm not entirely wild about cacti, but this metal Saguaro was just beautiful. 

We also got to see this beautiful cactus in bloom and had to get close to believe that it was actually real!

Ed and I both commented that it seemed like a place our mothers would really appreciate. 

We also walked through this very pretty park and commented to each other that we liked Scottsdale a lot more than we thought we would. It helped that it was in the low 70s with a light breeze. 

Finally, we made it to the little red schoolhouse, a historic building in this town and one of the oldest. The inside was a museum about the town's history, featuring a replication of one of the many tent houses that used to fill the streets. 

They also had a model of the schoolhouse. Just a little smaller than what we have now :). 

I especially loved all the rules! I would have lost my job as a teacher a very, very long time ago. 

Back on the main street, we enjoyed peering in the somewhat touristy, but still fun, stores that abounded, most with a southwestern theme. I, of course, had to snap a picture of this store name, paying homage to my alma mater. 

The whole town had that old western feel, which we've noticed everywhere. Before planning this move, I never really thought about the connection between these desert towns and cowboys/westerns, but you can certainly see those roots when you're out and about. There are a number of old west towns (like Tombstone) that are on our list to visit while we're out there. 

Hands down, this was the oddest and creepiest souvenir that we saw - a dagger and display made with a real rattlesnake! Seeing this may or may not have made me more paranoid about rattlesnakes in general (to the point that I was a bit skittish on the run Ed and I did this past weekend). Seriously...who would buy this?

At some point, I'd love to try out this very cute dessert place (part of the history tour as the building has been around for something like 100 years). 

After taking the walking tour of this whole side of town, we settled down in some comfy chairs with some gelato and relaxed. About 30 minutes later, we got the call we'd been waiting for, and found out our dream home would be ours. 

So, while we're not going to relocate to Scottsdale any time soon, it certainly has a special place in our hearts.