eye candy... colorado road trip 2009

0ur trip to colorado and back included travel through california, nevada, arizona, utah, colorado, and new mexico. josh and i both agreed that utah hit a homerun when it came to overall beauty, but we also fell in love with the gorgeous sites of colorado and arizona. getting out and hitting the open road for a week was relaxing, exciting, inspiring, and amazing. with a few stops at national parks (bryce canyon, grand canyon, zion, and arches) and a few drives through national forests and landmarks (fishlake, pikes, moab, and the rocky mountains), we were constantly reminded of the endless beauty intentionally created by God. after every turn, and up ahead each mile, another gorge, valley, mountain, hill, canyon, river, or lake would appear. the green trees were greener than usual, the yellow leaves were bright yellow, and the sky-spanning rainbows were clearer from end to end than ever before. i don’t know if our eye for landscape was a little sharper, as the focus of our trip to go out and “see” all the incredible sights, or if it truly was that gorgeous… either way, we so enjoyed the driving and the sightseeing, that i can only hope that some of these pictures give the sights we saw half the credit they deserve.

@ arches national park

@ the grand canyon

arizona

colorado

mountain towns in colorado

the colorado river drive

our tunnel ;-)

leaving colorado

Don't forget to pack the dog!

Traveling with a dog is, well, different, than traveling without a dog. HOWEVER, it is SO MUCH FUN! We took June to Colorado with us this past week, and that lucky dog hit 6 states in 8 days! She absolutely loves car rides, and I think she really enjoyed being with Josh and I 24/7. Here's some advice for those that plan to road trip with a dog (we learned a lot and thought we'd share):

1) Definitely get a pet friendly hotel. They may charge a few bucks to have your pup there, but I couldn't imaging trying to sneak a dog into a hotel room.
2) Get two beds in the room. Your puppy can enjoy the other (shhhhh)...
3) Two words: Poop Bags
4) Bring something from home. June really stuck to her routine of "going to her bed" as soon as she realized where we put it. I think it helped keep things consistent.
5) Leave LOTS of space in the car. June had a place to sleep, along with a few areas she could walk around in, if she needed to stretch out. It really kept her from going stir crazy--she lasted about 12 hours a day in the car!
6) Water, water, water, especially in high altitude areas! This pup definitely got a little spoiled this week, but it's a one time thing...

It's Sola Time!

Josh and I took this past week off to hit the road for a few hours (40+ hours, actually) to go visit our friends in Colorado. Kristy, her husband, JJ, and their two boys, Braylon (2 1/2) and Jaxten (1) moved to Fountain, Colorado in July. JJ has been stationed at Fort Carson, just outside of Colorado Springs, and the Sola Family has really made a nice life for themselves out there. Kristy is pregnant with baby #3 (a girl, this time), so we thought we'd go say hi and spend a week in the life of the Sola Family prior to the chaos of the 3rd little one! Actually...we can't wait to meet her!
We spent the week playing with the boys, hanging out with Kristy and JJ, catching up on life, hitting local hot spots and parks, going out for some yummy food, and enjoying the cool Colorado air. June came with us, so the boys had a new friend to play with for a week. Braylon thought it was so cool to have a "Fruff Fruff" live with him for a week, but he was pretty sad to see her go. As a matter of fact, he was sad to have to go to sleep at night, and on various occassions woke up during the night looking/crying for the dog. So cute, but I hope he's adjusted okay since we left.

Jaxy & BrayPlaying around with Mom!Check out this crew!Josh and Bray playing Monkeys! Big bro feeding little bro some ice cream! Little man. Such a sweetie.Tackle time! Jaxy: quite the book worm! Sweet family! Bye guys--thank you so much!

FAMFAM

I have been extremely blessed by a wonderful family. My mom, my dad, my brother, and my sister have all been so influential to me in my life. My memories of childhood are all positive, and I can barely remember fighting with my brother and sister, although they'll be the first to tell me that it wasn't all that rare of an occurence. These days, we all live within 30 minutes of each other and are lucky enough to share the occassional dinner, weekend barbeque, movie, and shopping trips. It's no question that we always celebrate birthdays and holidays together--to not would be a crime! And the best part is, I LOVE my family. My funny, crazy, nosy, sweet, knowing family will forever have my utmost love and respect. All 4 of them! Yes, even Rolly. ;-)

Not too many people can say what I just said. All too often, the word "family" means a father in one state, a mother in another, brothers and sisters spread across the globe. Whether it be unresolved conflicts or just plain distance, good, strong, loving, sharing families are hard to come by. It takes work to build a family, and even more to keep it standing strong.

Although God is the only one with control over which family you come from and belong to, you get a little bit more of a choice when choosing one to marry into! Not much more...just a little more :-) I fell in love with the Johnson Family the day I met them. I have so much to learn from the techy movie buff, Jacqui. I am reminded of kindness and thoughtfulness everytime I'm in Jessica's presence. Mark challenges me to think harder than I've ever had to think before speaking (an excellent challenge that most would let me get away with). I am blown away by the unending patience Lynette has for all of us, and will forever love her home-style cookin'! And there's never a dull moment when Don is around--the man spreads cheer like it's Christmas! The newest edition to this legacy family is little Joel, who, in his 3 weeks of existence, has been such a neat little miracle I've gotten to experience. (Thanks Mark & Jess, for sharing him with us!)

For Lynette's birthday, we all got together and gave her a series of moments to capture. Thanks to a little help from our friend Jim Farmer (the guy on the other side of the camera), here's the greatness I call the Johnson Family!

We should've known...

People (all too often) ask me what the hardest part about being married is. Why they want to know so badly, I’ll never know…

But, I’ve finally found it.

I knew it would come. Everyone always says, “You think marriage is so great now…oh, just you wait…” It was truly inevitable; and oh boy can marriage stink!

The hardest part about being married is… the moments we are apart. I’m not kidding, it is not easy. You get married and you think, “Wow, this is going to be great! We get to spend the rest of our lives together! You and me against the world!” Boy, were we wrong. I find myself loathing just about anything that doesn’t involve Josh and I hanging out. Morning’s stink because we have to go to work. Sunday nights just mean the end of fun weekends together. Sleep is no fun because we don’t get to hang out those 7-8 hours.

I’ve calculated this…

There are 168 hours in a week.
We sleep 56 of them.
We each work 63, at least.
I think I drive an extra 10 of those.
Josh does school work for at least 20 of them.
Not to mention we DO have friends and family we shouldn’t be ignoring…it’s just not polite!

That leaves…19 hours a week to spend together.

Does anyone else think it’s crazy that Josh and I went and got married in an effort to spend 19 hours a week together!?! Holy Molybdenum! (**New favorite phrase—doesn’t mean squat.) That’s ridiculous. That averages out to less than 3 hours a day; 2.7 to be exact. It honestly makes me mad. There are days I wish I wasn’t so "into" my husband. I wish I didn’t think he was as fun as I think he is. I wish I didn’t think he was the funniest guy I’ve ever met. I wish I didn’t melt the way I do when he wraps his arms around me. I wish I didn’t think he had the cutest, sweetest smile in all the earth. But he does. So I want to be with him…all the time.

So there it is, folks. 7 months in and marriage has shown its true colors. It can really blow. (But it doesn’t.)

yup, still glad we tied the knot ;-)

happy

six month-iversary,

my love!

i hope it's been

everything you've hoped for

and more!

i love you

something fierce.

i love this guy...

quality time: antiquing in orange circle

Sure, why not?!

Two words have been used to describe me in the past: stubborn and hard-headed. That’s just absurd, don’t ya think?!

I am going to Comicon on Sunday. That’s how I know I am not stubborn, nor hard-headed. Attending Comicon (an annual Comic/Fantasy Convention held in San Diego) is my proof!

I’m a realist. I have no imagination. I don’t like things that don’t make perfect sense. Fantasy does not peak my interest, whatsoever. Star Wars gave me nightmares as a kid. I have walked out of a number of Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter-type movies in my lifetime. I teased kids with imaginary friends in elementary school.

“So why the heck are you going, Gigi?” you may ask.

Well, because Josh asked me to. It was presented to me as “an opportunity to do some incredulous people watching” and “have a $20 day-cation”. Who says “No” to a deal like that?! Not to mention, I’ll take any opportunity to spend the day in San Diego with the hubby rather than with coworkers and clients (no offense to any of them…)

Here’s the real kicker--I’m getting excited to go. Josh has done an excellent job of bringing to light that my stubbornness is typically predicated by the fact that I haven’t given something a chance. (My parents probably told me this exact same thing 349 times over the past 25 years, but unfortunately I wasn’t listening, or I was busy saying, “I know”, and moving on. Sorry, guys. Please forgive me…) Josh is a total “techy”, and I have always given him a hard time for it. However, lately, Josh has subtly encouraged my little bit of techyness to surface. He’ll take apart a computer a put it back together, and a little part of me wants to know what all the pieces do. He once asked me to try watching an episode of LOST with him, and it turns out it’s one of the best TV shows I’ve ever seen! I’m so hooked! He’s pulled his phone out to do “on-the-spot research” about 100 times now, and I’ve recently noticed myself doing it. I now somewhat find entertainment in the occasional video game; there are days I am more active on Twitter than he is; and I actually “wikihow-ed” something the other day. It’s amazing what marriage does. I’ve learned to like “techy”.

So when I say I’m excited, it’s not because I can’t wait to wear my Star Trek costume, it’s not because I’m hoping Spiderman will be stuck in the upper corner of the convention center somewhere, it’s not because I’m curious what The Hulk feels like in person, and it’s definitely not because I’m excited to see how much Harry Potter and his friends have grown in the past ten years. It’s really because I’ll be giving something a chance, and I’ll probably like it more than I think.

Being open-minded is really quite exciting!

a bit overdue...

My quarter century birthday was a couple weeks ago, and Josh and I invited some friends and family to come hang and spend the day with us. I know it's a bit overdue, but I thought I'd share some pics from the day.
The intention was a POOLSIDE BBQ, but the drizzle and grey clouds made for a half indoor/half outdoor, fully clothed party. The cloudy day couldn't keep the BBQ from firing up and cooking some brats and hot dogs.

Simple... relaxing... outside... grub&bevs... poolside....

FRIENDS. FAMILY.

That's what I'm talkin about!! I REALLY enjoyed the day. It was exactly what I'd hoped for. Thanks to Josh for organizing the whole shindig! And thanks to everyone that came to make it special!



TheFOOD

TheFRIENDS & TheFAMILY







TheFUN

TheGIFT

If you haven't figured out (by my increased levels of techy activities related to Facebook, Twitter, Emails, and Texts) my birthday gift from Josh was a new iPhone! A new-new one. The one that came out the day before my birthday! Josh had been pushing me to get one for a while, but, being my grandmother's granddaughter, I chose to be stubborn and wait until the day I could no longer use the phone I have, just to be sure I got the most for my money. I said, "When this one breaks, I'll be sure to get an iPhone next..." Well, my phone was just fine but the day before my birthday I found Josh and I standing in line at the Apple Store. I thought we were there to visit Jacqui, my sister in law, who was working like a horse on the day of the new phone release. I look over my shoulder to find Josh twisting my phone and ready to throw it to the first floor of the mall. I asked him, "Are you BREAKING my ph....... wait a second...... we're not here to 'visit Jacqui', are we...?" I LOVE the stinkin thing. And I LOVE the awesome husband!

Assembly Required!

Two weeks ago Josh and I revisited our roots by spending some time “building an office”. It was just like the days we met—long hours in front of new furniture with lots of labeling and loads of trash. But it’s these times of working together in which we are reminded of our many similarities…and our many differences. AND… how we best handle them.

We have two bedrooms in our house. One, we sleep in, the other, well, the other is for everything else. Got a computer or two? Throw it in there. How about some old mail? There’s a pile or 9 in there for that. Books? Sure, why not chuck those on that bookshelf thingy?! What do we do with this vacuum? Eh, put it in the “office”. People are coming over!! Hide all that crap in the front room!!!

After feet and feet of measuring tape and pencil sketches of our ideas drawn on scrap paper, we were ready to shop! We borrowed a couple trucks, emptied out our furniture, and headed to Ikea for our new goodies! With 2 days and 15 hours of “free time” to devote to this daunting task, we began to get a move on putting our new office together.

Marriage is great. You wake up next to your buddy, you enjoy dinners together, you cuddle.

You also learn to work together. Whether you like to or not. And it can be difficult.

So, you communicate. It’s do or die. If you can’t communicate—well, you’d better learn.

Josh tore open the first filing cabinet. I got started on assembling the file boxes (yes, at Ikea, you even assemble file boxes). An hour later, I was done with my file boxes and Josh was well into the file cabinet. And he was cruising! I offered to help, as I wanted to show off my skills as a handy(wo)man to my hubby. I was taught how to hammer, screw, snap, crackle, pop, etc. as a kid… I’m fairly handy for a woman, you know? This particular piece, however, proved to be rather difficult, took a LOT more force than I’d expected, and required a good understanding of how each piece connects to its neighbor. Quickly frustrated, I shoved it back over to Josh and left the remainder of the task to him.

My frustration quickly turned to a quiet demeanor. I felt as if I’d failed at something I thought I was really good at. I felt as if Josh had positioned himself as the one in the household that would always handle the physical stuff. I know that’s a typical “man-function”, and I’m all for “marital roles”, but I felt that I’d lost some of my independence. (I may feel this loss of independence more than some women—I don’t deny my “tomboy roots”, leaving me proud of my few carpentry abilities…) I felt it was unfair.

Josh finished the filing cabinet (one of two!) and we decided to leave the rest of the assembly for the next day. After noticing my quietness, Josh began to inquire as to what crept into my head over the past hour. I had two options. I could pretend nothing bothered me, hit the sack, and wake up the next morning hoping the feelings would go away. OR. Or, I could communicate and share with Josh the thoughts of unfairness and jealousy that I’d felt. I chose the latter. As I explained my silly fears, the frustration began to dissipate. Josh listened intently with an encouraging and loving ear (nothing new, if you know my sweet guy). I felt awful for actually holding his abilities and talents against him, and of being jealous of him for that hour or two. It’s so silly, I know, but it was a “deal” to me… and it could have been a “big deal” had I not chosen to work through it with him. I apologized for being such a nerd, and Josh told me he’d try to be more patient with me and continue to help me refine my handyman skills if I wanted.

Twenty four hours and a thousand and five giggles later, we’d completed assembling our new office. We had so much fun working together on the project. I found that my strengths really lie in cleaning, organizing and sorting (typical, how’s that for ironic), rather than with drills, screws, nuts, and bolts, so I left those things (eagerly at this point) to Josh. And check out the job we did!