photo recap.

Just a brief recap of some of our weekend fun that I happened to have the camera for. We love our trips to Tucson. 

First: Baby Emily. I know, right?! She's so precious, it's ridiculous. 

Second:  I've written before how I always feel like I have approximately 100 brothers due to the constant influx of teenage boys in and out of our house that play sports with/spend copious amounts of time with my brother. He's had friends over all weekend and it's been hysterical to say the least. Bottom line: this is what happens when you leave your camera out in the open and three fifteen year old sugar-high boys get their hands on it. I nearly peed myself when I found the photos. [Note: I used extreme restraint to keep myself from posting all of them.]

Um....ridiculous much? :)

Third: BBQ! Christian has been wanting to barbecue for weeks now and we decided the pool is finally warm enough to have a good swim. We pre-gamed by napping a lot. Again. I think Chris is going to spend the summer napping away all the stress from first year. My mom pulled out all the stops and make some AMAZING ribs. Megan and Fiona baked us blondies. Grammy brought cookies. Christian grilled everything. We watched the Mav's beat the Heat (sorry Lar) on a tiny porch TV.  Fantastic night.

I need to do a better job taking photos of myself. It looks like I didn't go to my own fam's barbecue. I'll do better next time.

Great weekend. Lots of love. Exciting week up ahead.
<3
Ash, Chris, and Viesserton

Oldies.

Besides the fact that my incredibly handsome then-boyfriend now-husband is adorable in this photo, I love getting a glimpse at the cluttered walls of my teenage bedroom. It reminds me of how Savannah's bedroom is now, however hers is minus all the sports stuff and the Johnny Depp/Ashton Kutcher.

Yes, that is my teddy bear and my kitty blanket, my tried and true comfort objects since I was a baby....yes, I have both with me up in Phoenix. In fact, we may or may not have seen the kitty blanket make a blog appearance...

'Cmon. Tell me you guys don't have ANYTHING from when you were little. I can't let go. I even kept that cute guitar-playing dude in the photo.
(Hint: 6 month wedding anniversary post coming in 7 days! When did that happen??!)

the dog is snoring.

And so is everyone else.

I think this is my cue to meet up with Chris' family. As much as I love communal living room naping while we all half-watch the original X-Men on Netflix, I took an amazing yoga class this morning (courtesy of Sarah) and I feel great. Lots of energy (for once)!

We're off to see a movie with Chris' family and then dinner. Ahhhhh...Saturday.

Love,
Ash

520.

We're home!

 I mean...there are moments when Phoenix feels like home, but I guess where your family is will always feel like home. First stop: swim meet. Ethan swims for the Orcas out of an Eastside pool but his meet was all the way out at CDO. The only thing that makes going out to CDO worth it is how totally gorgeous it is. Also, the CDO pool is surrounded by lovely park which meant Viesa was happy.

Ethan did a good job! We got to see him swim the backstroke like a champion. Swim meets are so crazy! My sister and I grew up playing soccer and coming to a swim meet is a whole different story. They're super long and there are kids running around everywhere! Ethan likes his team and it was cool to just hang out and visit with my other mom (in-law sounds so weird).

I already got to have breakfast with my nursing school loves Lace, Kris, and baby Em (CUTEST BABY EVERY BTW), catching a movie with Kris tonight, and I get to have a belated post-yoga birthday lunch with Sarah tomorrow! LOVE catching up with my friends. <3

More photos and such, maybe later, maybe tomorrow. Right now, we're watching the Stanely Cup Finals (GO BRUINS) and waiting for my mom's enchiladas to be finished. Ahhh. Home sweet home.

Happy Friday, all.
Ash + Chris + V

son-of-a-bee-sting.

June is ticking away already!!! Another day, another dollar...or in our case, another day another dollar OWED. Sorry, that was a downer. And things haven't been too shabby for us here in the 602.


Since we spoke last about Comic-Con, we have (sort of) kicked off our summer. Summers don't quite mean the same thing when you're not both in school, however due to my "premature" departure from Maryvale, it feels as though we are getting a last chance at a summer break together. As most of you know, the great folks at Georgetown decided to make a last minute curriculum change for the midwifery students and it is easiest for them to do so in the summer as to not effect the 'in-house' students on campus who will return in the fall. However, the full-time midwifery correspondence students who were supposed to start in May were kind of shafted (namely because there weren't that many of us and it made most sense to screw us instead of an entire class of on-campus students). UNFORTUNATELY...they informed me of this decision about 48 hours AFTER I left my job at Maryvale for my May 23rd class start. Oops on them. They have been great to work with and extremely apologetic and are even able to take care of some expenses for the program that would have originally been on us. So, even though it's not ideal, I have bumped back into the next cohort (starting August 8th) and will be starting school the same exact day that Christian starts his second year of medical school! Fancy that. And I am taking a forced summer vacation one last time. Things could be worse, right? June will bring us: Chris doing some more research (man, that kid loves research) at Maricopa Medical Center, me teaching my first series of childbirth classes for Teen Outreach, two weddings, and at the end Chris will ship off for San Fran.

But in the meantime:

We found the "dollar" movies up here! Well, they used to be a dollar when I was a kid, but $3 is nothing to scoff at. My FAVE go-to activity is a solid cheapie movie (or not-so-solid, I'm not too picky). Sarah and I made an effort to go every Tuesday in Tucson for two dollar Tuesday (#tonguetwister) for a while and although that lasted about as long as anything else I've ever tried to do consistently, we had a great time. Our Phoenix cheapies is called Pollack Tempe Cinemas and is ALSO home to $2 Tuesday! The only thing playing we wanted to see was Adjustment Bureau (eh...not bad but not awesome) but the real experience was the totally trippy theater itself.

YEAHHH!

I had a work retreat for Teen Outreach in Casa Grande (yes, you read correctly...it's the 'halfway' mark for Tucson and Phoenix staff). We had two days at a hotel in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE to get training on a four-year federally funded research project that includes my teaching site and about a half a dozen others in Tucson and Phoenix. It's pretty exciting stuff. I'm glad to have something worthwhile to do while going to school. And I can't lie, I had a really great time spending the evening with the other nurses and case managers there. Boxed wine and hot tubs (and me as the sober lifeguard)! Makes me feel like a normal 24-year-old. :) Also, makes me wish all my besties lived in Phoenix with me so we could find hot tubs to have shenanigans in every night. :/ I miss you guys.

After Casa Grande, I joined Chris in Tucson for a few short days (every day there seems way to short).  We got to watch Josh play some basketball, go to a graduation party for a family friend, and see X-Men: First Class with my mom and Ethan!

Photo found here.

It was awesome and I'm kind of on an X-Men kick. First X-Men movie is on Neflix instant stream! Uh oh. :) And that James McAvoy is easy on the eyes.

Viesa got some quality time in with her Auntie Megan. She has a really hard life.

Until she actually DOES. Some of you may know that Viesa has seizures sometimes, usually when she needs to throw up (or maybe the seizures make her throw up, not too sure). She can feel them coming on and she'll run as fast as she can into one of our laps before it starts. We snuggle her through them and she usually bounces back soon enough. She had one this morning, poor baby. It sucks to watch, but I'm always glad to be around when she does (to our knowledge, she's never had one while we're gone...we've never found a pile of puke). So now, she's pretty tuckered out and usually rests for a big part of the day after being sick. And so, like any good mom, I'm couch-bound in solidarity.

The rest of our Monday will (hopefully) be less eventful and very productive. We're looking at being in town again this weekend (again, hopefully) so I can see you --> SARAH AND KRISTIN I DIDN'T FORGET YOU. Dang. Bad friend of the year award.

Happy Monday everyone.
Love,
Ash + V