Thursday, April 23, 2015

Grocery Shopping

A few weeks ago, Grammy and Pop took Cooper to the grocery store.  He saw the little buggies and immediately wanted to be a little helper!  She sent me these pictures at school and they are the cutest! things! ever!



You know if he has control of the cart that there will be cheetos in there.  ;)

He looks like such a big boy!





This is what I feel like at the end of grocery shopping, don't you??

I love this silly boy!


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Thursday, April 9, 2015

Tucson Day 3 & 4

Friday was our last full day in Tucson.  This was our "free day" and we were able to do whatever we wanted.  The resort had an awesome pool area, golfing, a spa, and they were running a shuttle every 30 minutes to a local shopping area.  That morning when we got up, we went to a Starbucks that was located in the resort.  We took our breakfast out to the pool area, found a little ledge to perch on, and just sat and talked and ate our breakfast.  It was pretty early (like 7am Tucson time), so it was pretty much just us outside.  Honestly, it was one of my favorite parts of the trip.  It was really quiet, we were all alone, everything was just waking up, and it was just so peaceful.  Matt and I talked just about our life, our plans, obstacles we've made it through.  It was just an awesome morning.

The view was breath-taking!  The mountains just didn't look real - I loved looking at them.

I love this man.  I love being his wife.  


After breakfast, we spent some time in our room reading, taking a nap (we lived up being able to nap!), and then we headed to a little sandwich shop next to the golf course on the resort.  After lunch, we headed out to the pool for the afternoon!  We laid out, took a few short dips on the pool, ordered some pool-side food, and even took a turn on the water slide.  It was a very relaxing, perfect afternoon!



I loved the pool-side service.  There's nothing like being able to be even more lazy while you're being lazy.  ;)  Matt had been wanting to try a prickly pear margarita (I mean - you have to try that when you're in the desert, right?), and he said it didn't disappoint!  I tried it, but did noooot like it.

Pool-side chips and guac.

We headed back the room to get ready for dinner.  This night was our "fancy night" and the awards dinner for the trip.  They did say black tie on the paperwork, but we did not do the tux/long dress route (some people did!).  We just stuck to a cocktail dress and a suit - but we still clean up nicely if I do say so myself!

This man is good looking in a suit!

Saturday morning, we were on a shuttle to the airport at 4:00 am (yuck!)  We grabbed a quick bite to eat once we went through security and then sent a picture to the kids.

When we got to Atlanta, we only had a 1 hour layover and had to get to a different concourse - it was a tad stressful!  Our flight went from Atlanta to Tallahassee, and then we still had a 2 hour drive home.  We were exhausted!

Once we made it back to Valdosta, we were so excited to go get our kids!  Well - I was.  Matt was sad about the vacation being over - haha.

A few days after getting home, Matt's award arrived at his office (the star on the right - this was the "Shining Star" trip).  It makes a nice little addition to his award set-up in his office!  This is not a bad stash for just hitting 2 years with the company!

I am so proud of Matt and how hard he has been working!  I'm also so thankful for a company that rewards it's employees like this!  In addition to the trip and the award, we also got a $500 Amex Gift Card for the trip - that is just amazing!  The trip for next year will either be San Diego, Phoenix, San Antonio, Las Vegas, or Miami.  I'm really pulling for San Diego, and I'm really pushing Matt to make it again.  If you can do it once, you can do it again, right?  ;)


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Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Tucson - Day 2

If you missed Day 1 of our trip, you can read all about it HERE.

Thursday in Tucson was our "fun day".  Mediacom gave us three options of excursions and we were allowed to pick one.  We chose to go to Sabino Canyon for a tour.  Our tour wasn't until lunch time, and Matt had a business meeting in the morning for breakfast.  We woke up around 6:30 every morning (9:30 GA time), so I had plenty of time to kill until Matt's meeting got over around 11.  I spent the morning in our room: I ordered room service, read my book, took a nap, and took my time getting ready.  It was wonderful!


When Matt's meeting got over, we spent a little while walking around the resort and checking out the view before it was time to meet up with our group.  Our resort was right at the base of the Catalina Mountains - and it was beautiful.

A panoramic shot from one of the balconies at the lobby of the hotel.







It almost didn't even look real to me sometimes.  It felt like I was looking at an image projected on a green screen.


The lobby had beautiful views through its huge windows!

It was about a 20 minute bus ride from our resort to the canyon. Once we got to the canyon, we had a tram tour through it.  There was some miscommunication with Mediacom and the travel company about what time we were supposed to be back at the resort, so we weren't allowed to actually get off the tram and walk any of the trails.  Matt and I both were super disappointed in this.  But it was a beautiful ride while we were there!  Our tour guide was a older, very dry humor lady.  She cracked us up, even if we were mad at her for not letting us get off.




There were saguaro cacti everywhere.  I loved it.  The tour guide told us that saguaro don't start to grow their arms until they are 50-75 years old!  And some of them never grow arms.  

This rock face looks a lot like the guys at Easter Island!

Since this is a national park, visitors aren't limited to certain trails or areas.  It was nice to see people just exploring wherever they wanted to!  I loved seeing all of the families enjoying this little "beach" near the stream.


At the top of the canyon the tour guide let us off the tram for literally 1 minute before we had to begin our journey back to the start.  





This cliff face behind me is approximately 400 feet high - the same height as a 40 story building!

After the tour, we had a few minutes to look through the gift shop.  We got some prickly paw cactus candy and jelly and some cactus seeds for our family.
After our canyon tour, we went back to our room to take a nap and get ready for our dinner.  This night, we went to a local restaurant where we were supposed to have dinner and do some star gazing with an astronomer.  Of course, it was super cloudy, so the star gazing go cancelled, but dinner was very nice!

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