Happy Birthday Matt :)

Matt turned the big 2-5 on Sunday. We had a fun day together which is always nice. His parents were able to get Diamondback tickets that were about 6 rows back from home plate. (Not to brag, but our seats were a little better than Matt Williams former D-Back player who was actually at the game). Since Matt is OBSESSED with all things sports Matt's parents gave him the tickets as a birthday present. The game was actually on his birthday so that worked out well, and the D-Backs won which made the day even better.

This is before the game. We were this close to the field!

Here is the fancy pants restaurant for the the "special fans." There were even private bathrooms :)

Just us in our seats waiting for the game to start. The seats were padded and there was plenty of leg room...always a very important thing for Matt!

Mr. Randy Johnson batting. He pretty much went up to bat, took the first three swings and went to sit back down. After time number 3 I began to think it was on purpose...

This is one of the radar guns they used to measure the speed of the pitches.

The team celebrating after a 2-1 win :)

I got Matt Lord of War (a movie) and Gears of War 2 (a video game) which he wont get until Nov. 7th because that's when it comes out. He made me give/tell him both of his presents before the actual day (OK, so he didn't have to break my leg or anything, but it was initiated by him not me)! He is just so impatient when it comes to presents! Oh well, he loved them both which is what matters. I also made him a steak and mashed potatoes dinner with ice cream cake for dessert. I was really happy because everything turned out well. I am not really a steak and potatoes kind of girl so its hard for me to cook them because I wont try it to see if its good or not. He seemed to enjoy it though so that's good! Well that pretty much wraps up his birthday, until next year!

I love you babe! You are my favorite husband and I hope you had a great birthday ;)

Some cool things

First cool thing: Well its a little overdue, but Kelsey, Matt's cousin had her baby. Her name is Jaiden and she was born on September 7th. We went to see her in the hospital. She was such a good baby. I don't think she cried the entire time. She did however poop on me! We are not off to a very good start so far. Anyway, here she is...

The other cool thing: Queen Creek gets the coolest storms. It seems like the sky is just a little clearer out here and there are not as many buildings to obstruct views. I took these pictures of the lightning the other night. It took a lot of tries, but I finally got a few that turned out.

This last one is my favorite because you can actually see the lightning bolt. Let me tell you that was no small fete to catch on camera.

Happy "Bithday"

Well I am officially 24. Honestly, it doesn't feel any different, but in some weird way I feel like I am an adult now. Apparently 24 is the "crossing over" age. I had a nice birthday. Matt in his impatient nature made me open up presents in the car on the way to work (he was driving)...this was after he tried a hundred times to make me open them up the night before. He got me the Justin Timberlake CD (that's right! I brought sexy back the whole way to work), Rob and Big Seasons 1 and 2 (bit of a guilty pleasure), Prancer Returns (which was supposed to be the original Prancer, the new one is on its way), and his big present was a picture book that he made on snapfish.com. Without ever meaning to I always ruin the fun by finding out what my presents are before the actual day and this year was no different. Matt specifically told me to not check my e-mail since all the things he ordered he did with my accounts. Stupid me forgot and checked it anyway. Sure enough snapfish e-mailed me saying that my order was being shipped. The conversation pretty much went like this:

Nikki: Hey Matt, I just got an e-mail from snapfish saying that my order has been shipped, but we never ordered anything? They better not be billing us for something we didn't even order!

Matt: Huh, I don't know.

Nikki: You don't think you mom went on and ordered some pictures do you?

Matt: Maybe. I am not sure.

Nikki: That's weird...I was on the phone with Meghan and continued talking about how that was really weird if his mom did in fact go on and order something from our account without telling us. I left the room and didn't think much else of it at the time. A few minutes later...

Matt: Nikki can you get off the phone? I need to talk to you.

Nikki: Whats the matter? (Meghan, let me call you back)

Matt: I told you not to check your e-mail. Now you ruined your gift that I spent a lot of time on.

And so it happened yet again. I ruined his big idea. I have a sneaking feeling that it will only get worse now that we are married and live together. I really don't even have to try. I am very patient about waiting to find out what my gifts are, but for whatever reason something always goes terribly wrong and I find myself apologizing over and over again for something I didn't mean to do :( Anyway, I loved my gifts this year. These are all things that I have wanted for a while so I thought it was really sweet that he kept a mental note of all of them. He also spent a lot of time putting the book together...even if I did find out about it beforehand.

Notice that he spelled birthday wrong hence the title of this post. I thought it was funny and so did Ben!

One of my students brought me in a present which I thought was too sweet. He got me animal crackers and teddy grahams. A few days earlier he told me he was going to bring me some cookies so that is exactly what he did. You generally don't get presents in high school. I just have some really sweet students. I also got a special delivery from my friend Janine. Aren't they so pretty? I am such a sucker for flowers.

My mom got me some candles that don't actually use fire. They have a flickering light bulb inside so you get the appearance of a burning candle without the melted waxy mess and the smoke that goes into your air vents. I put them in Jack's bathroom (our cat) because that is where his litter box is. My mom thought they were the coolest thing so she bought a million of them and I got some. She also gave me cash which is always my favorite gift. That is pretty much what I got from everyone else. Matt and I are saving for our trip to Maryland in October so this will help us out a lot. Since my birthday was on a Wednesday I didn't really want to go out. Instead we went out this weekend to Claim Jumpers which is one of my favorite restaurants. They have a barbecue chicken sandwich that I love! We went with Meghan and James. Meghan got me a gift card to World Market, my favorite store in the whole world! I cant wait to go spend it :0) I completely forgot to take a picture at dinner which sucks, but of well.

Overall I had a very nice birthday. Thank you everyone for spoiling me so much!

9/11...A Day that Can Not be Forgotten

It has been 7 years since my country came under attack by the way of ignorant, ruthless, and cowardly murderers. It seems that as each year passes, people (and especially my students) care less and less. This day is single-handedly to blame for the 2 years I spent worrying each and every day about my step-dad who was serving our country in Iraq. This day single-handedly claimed almost 3,000 lives of innocent people. Since this day has there have been deaths of another 2,000+ soldiers, and hundreds of thousands of troops who are STILL overseas fighting for our country. For the life of me, I can not understand how anyone can not care about this day and the impact it has had on all of our lives.

On this day I would like to remember the victims in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the passengers on Flight 11, 175, 77, and 93. The troops who have served, and the troops who are currently overseas, the families of solders who are living without their loved ones, the many firefighters who gave their lives to save another and the children who will grow up without knowing their parent because of this day.

God bless America. Land that I love...

Recent Events...

It has been such a busy week. I'll start with Saturday...

Meghan's mom (Cindy) and I teamed up to throw Meghan a bridal shower. There was quite a turn-out! The theme was foods you can dip (chips and toquitos with salsa and con queso dip) and a large array of sweets that could be dipped in chocolate. Here are some pictures of the food.

At some point I will have to post the recipe for the con queso dip (yum!). I got it from my friend Sherry at work. I am convinced she was a gourmet chef in a past life.

Anyways, back to the important stuff. It was nice to see some people that I hadn't seen in a long time. There was a bit of a Gilbert High School reunion. From left to right; Courtney Mehlhouse (VanHorne), Nikki Kealy, Meghan Allen, me, and my sister Courtney Crooke. Its kind of funny because there are 2 sets of Nikki and Courtney's...seriously Meghan, get some new friends...with different names!

On to Sunday...

We went to see Meghan and James' house which is a beautiful home. They are very lucky to be able to get such a nice home right out of the gate. That night though my foot did the weirdest thing. Around 11 it started Charley horsing. It pretty much went on for the rest of the night. I was in so much pain that I was only able to get an hour of sleep. I finally gave up and went to Wal-Mart at 2:30 in the morning to buy a heating pad...I thought it would help, but it didn't. Turns out, stupid me drank hardly and water and my foot was reacting to dehydration. Yay for H2O. Anyways, Monday pretty much sucked. It is really hard to teach when you are delirious. I'm pretty sure my students thought I threw a few back before work that morning.

Wednesday was my youngest sister's 17th birthday. Danielle makes me laugh, maybe its because she is the youngest, but she acts more like she is 25 than 17. Either way she is a pretty cool kid. Happy birthday Danielle!

Labor Day Weekend!

3-day weekends are my favorite! I especially like them because that means that Matt will get off 2 days in a row!! We pretty much kept it low key, but it was nice none-the-less. Saturday night we went out to dinner at our favorite Chinese place Iron Chef. It was very yummy and we got to see the cashier fight with another customer (I guess he was offended that she was working in a spaghetti strap shirt?). It was like dinner and a show all in one! After that we went to World Market because they were so kind as to give me a $20 gift card for my birthday! Last year during spring break I painted our guest bathroom blue and ever since I have been eyeing these towel hooks that would go perfectly. So I took my coupon in there and I bought them...for $0.57! Thanks World Market ;) (They are not hung up yet, but you get the idea).

Once we were done with that, we decided were were in the mood to roam around Target (just like the old days). There is a Starbucks in the one by our house so I suggested that we go use some gift cards that I had gotten from work (last year...we are just not big coffee drinkers). They had a strawberry and cheese piece of cake that looked pretty awesome, and since it was my cheat night I figured I would indulge. The Starbucks guy gave it to us for free because he was just going to throw them away! What a night! I told Matt we should go get some lottery tickets.

Sunday we got up and went to church in Scottsdale with Matt's family. We had a nice visit. We don't get to see Matt's grandparents too often because they live so far. Even though our birthdays are a couple of weeks away (mine on the 17th and Matt's on the 28th) we went ahead and celebrated them because we probably wont be back out there again for a while. Matt got the usual socks, underwear and money and I got pajamas and money. Typical grandma huh? After church we went to visit my parents. Again, we had a nice time visiting. We pretty much just sat around and talked, but I like do that so it was fun. When we came home we found out that our friends Meghan and James were finally buying a house. They have been searching for FOREVER! I am really happy for them. We also found out that we were going to be able to go to MD in October!!!! It has been so long since I have been home. I can not wait...Matt's brother Jay is also coming with us. He has never been back to the east coast so I am really excited to bring him along. I am sure I will be writing more on this later.

Monday we woke up and cleaned (and I mean cleaned) our house. It was much needed. Since school has started I just don't have the time to keep up on these things. It felt really good to have it done. I wonder why we don't do it more often because every time we clean I am in such a good mood afterward? Later that night, our friend Ben came over (the person who is responsible for introducing Matt and I). This picture is actually from our wedding, but its nice to have a face to go with the name. We had a nice visit. He actually just had a game released on Xbox live that he did a lot of the artwork for called Shred Nebula http://shrednebula.com/index.html. He did all the background scenery, which in my opinion is the best part...no, I am not being biased! We are so happy for him! He has worked so hard to achieve a dream and its so cool to watch it come true. My sister and nephew ended up coming over too because they wanted to see "Uncle" Ben too. It was a late night but we had a good time and laughed a lot (at least I did, Ben is pretty much one of the funniest people I know).

So that pretty much wraps up the weekend. I just have one more thing to add...Tuesday after work we went and bought this:

Matt and I are hooked on this show! We have only seen one or two episodes on tv so we had no idea what had happened since Pam and Jim decided to go on a "date" at the end of season 3. We were not disappointed! I will say however, that I get a different vibe from season 4 than I do the other seasons. There is a lot more drama! Before the humor was so simple...I mean jokes about "gaydar" and putting Dwight's stuff in Jell-o. Now, Dwight is all depressed so Jim and Pam can't be as relentless as they were before. I miss it a little bit. We have only watched the first couple episodes so well see how the season unfolds.