Wrapping up!

On our final day here in AZ we started the day off by heading to my Grandma and Grandpa Harvey's house in Apache Junction which is about a 30 minute drive from where our house is. It was a quick and easy ride to their place and a pleasure to get a chance to see where they spend the winter months! We pulled into the community in which they stay and found their place very easily as Grandpa was waiting for us right at the entrance!

Their home as well as their community was very nice. They took us on a quick tour of the area showing us the community center in which all sorts of activities take place such as woodworking, jewelry making, dance lessons, etc. It also has both an indoor pool and outdoor pool and an exercise room, there literally is something there for everyone!

After exploring their community we headed off into the mountains to an area called Tortilla Flats. About 1/3 of the way into our jaunt to Tortilla Flats we noticed a man on the side of the road literally falling out of his car in distress. We all pulled over to assist him as it seemed as if he was having a heart attack. He held his cell phone up to Mike and said 911! 911! So, Mike made his first ever call to the 911 dispatcher to get an ambulance up the mountain to this man. It was pretty amazing, within 5 minutes we had 4 nurses and a doctor who stopped by complete coincidence and within about 15 minutes an ambulance had finally made it to us and loaded up the gentleman and took him to be further evaluated, one thing they thought was that it could be medication complications. We really hope he was treated and released back to his wife, it was a pretty scary situation to see him in such distress, but we have faith that he walked away from the scare just fine.

After all of the excitement we finally ended up at Tortilla Flats where we had a great lunch (thanks Gram and Gramp)! It is a neat little area which a ton of tourists go, but there isn't much other than a restaurant and a gift shop. A quirky thing they do is have guests fill out a dollar bill if you have one and then they pin it up on the wall, ceiling, and just about anywhere else they can find room. A few years ago they counted and they were at $95,000. Amazing!

The scenary up and down the mountain was absolutely beautiful. The mountains were spectacular, but there was also a lake that added to the beauty as well as the thousands and thousands of cactus along the way.

After our time spent in the mountains the girls headed for a little more shopping and the boys decided to head to some car dealerships and then went back to the house for a dip in the pool! They ended up coming to meet us for dinner and we are now all back at the house finishing up our packing and preparing for our flights tomorrow...we have to be up at 4:00 am in order to make our 7:00 flight...YUCK!

All in all it was a true vacation and we had a great time! We can't wait to come back and spend some more time here as you literally get the best of both worlds! Some fun in the sun when it is COLD outside at home, but you have plenty to do in the area so you don't get too bored. It will be good to get home and see the puppies and I suppose we all need to get back to reality!

Hometown Victory!

Today we decided to spend our time by the pool instead of going to the game. The outside patio has a big flat screen TV so we took advantage of the sun and watched the game poolside! I am sure most of you know by now that the Arizona Cardinals won the NFC Championship game today, which is not only a victory for the Arizona fans, but a victory for us Iowans as Kurt Warner led the Cardinals to the win! It will make watching the Super Bowl that much better for me as I generally don't love watching pro sports (obviously Mike does not feel the same way).

We are still enjoying ourselves and really enjoying the weather. We heard it was snowing back in Iowa, so we are certainly in no hurry to get home. However, we both miss the dogs terribly! We have been checking in on them at Camp Bow Wow, they of course are having a ton of fun despite not being home with their Mom and Dad. I am pretty sure we always miss them more than they miss us, there is a lot of fun stuff to do at Camp that doesn't involve Mom and Dad repremanding them!

Our plans for tomorrow are to go to Superstition Sunrise, where my Grandma and Grandpa Harvey have a place and drive throught the mountains to Tortilla Flats. Then we will head back to Scottsdale to finish up the few things we want to do before heading home on Tuesday...back to reality!

On another note...Mike felt the baby move tonight! It was amazing! I am so thankful that he can now feel the same joy that I do everytime I feel her move! What a milestone! It truly is an amazing moment between a husband and wife when you can both sit there with your hands on your belly and feel the miracle you have created!

Going once, going twice...SOLD!

What a day we had! We headed to Barrett Jackson today and it was quite the experience. When we pulled up I really had no idea what to expect considering the little exposure I have had of the auction is what I have seen broadcasted on TV. When you pull up to the grounds there is tent after tent and tons of semis and storage trucks that have come in with various items to make this huge event possible.

Walking into the main tent was quite the experience. It was crowded with thousands of people and hundreds of vendors trying to sell you their great product and the craziest thing is only about 1/3 of them are car related. The other vendors are selling autographed memorabilia, art, clothing, jewelry, you name it they probably had it there.

We eventually got through all of the vendors and made our way into the back of the tent where the auction takes place. Believe it or not, it is a lot more disorganized than it looks on TV. The auction itself seems pretty organized, but there are truly people all over the place in the tent which on TV it seems as if they have it pretty under control. It is a wonder that the auctioneers and such can keep their attention on the coralled people that are the actual bidders.

It was pretty amazing to see the cars come in from outside as they lined up to get auctioned off. We watched several Corvettes, a Studabaker, a Shelby Mustang and many more classics get auctioned off. Believe it or not we even saw a Batmobile replica go through, it was seriously ridiculous! The most amazing part of it was that it sold for $150,000. None of us could believe it that some of the beautiful vintage cars were going for less than the Batmobile...what?!

I have to admit that the day did get somewhat overwhelming, so the girls ended up taking off and doing some shopping while Dad and Mike stayed back to watch Gary Holub's cars get auctioned off. It sounds as if it was quite the disappointment for Gary considering one of his cars appraised at over $1M last year and it sold for just over $250,000. That is quite the loss. It is pretty amazing that Barrett Jackson can get these owners to agree to sell their cars without a reserve to make sure they at least get a set amount out of them. But I suppose you know what you are getting into before you sign up for it. Below is a picture of one of the Yenko edition cars that Gary put up for auction.

All in all it was a great day and a great experience! I know that Mike truly enjoyed being there around all the amazing cars. I of course was able to find a little something for the baby while shopping today, which was fun! Mike and I snuck away tonight to have dinner, just the two of us which was very nice and now we are off to bed. We need to decide whether or not we are going to go to the NFC Championship game tomorrow...to be continued!

Another beautiful day in paradise...

It was another amazing day today here in Arizona! We woke up to sunshine and a cloudless sky and what looked to be the makings of another 75 degree day! We started our day off with a yummy breakfast and then the girls got ready for spa appointments at Aura Salon & Spa (Sarah Ament formerly from CR owns it) and the boys headed off to the Russo and Steele car auction. This is much like Barrett Jackson, but on a smaller scale and dealing with your more exotic cars. Mike took some pictures of his favorites, including a Porsche Speedster (my dream "fun" car)! He keeps telling me that someday we will have our own, I was hoping that day would be today, but no such luck!

The boys had a lot of fun at the auction and are all very excited to head to Barrett Jackson tomorrow! We are planning on spending a full day there as Gary Holub's Yenko's will be auctioned off tomorrow in the early evening.

The girls welcomed my Aunt Marge here from Colorado today, my Grandma's sister! She decided at the last minute to come and we are happy to have her. She definitely adds spice to the group and we laugh a lot when she is around!

We hosted the Thompson-Hankal-Suter clan over at the house tonight, it was a ton of fun to see all of them. There was a ton of catching up, giggling and even a "what you don't know about child birth" discussion that I was privileged to have with my cousins...my butt cheeks are still clenched, thanks Trina!

As promised I took some better pictures of the house this morning for all to see. It really is beautiful and we are so thankful we took the route of renting the house over all staying in a hotel where we wouldn't have the ability to just hang out the way we have, it really does make it a true vacation!

Leading to the front door

Family Room

Kitchen

Pool

Back of the house and courtyard w/ pool

Casita

We are having a great time so far and not looking forward to coming back at all! If someone could just send out Baxter and Luca we would be perfectly happy staying right where we are!

75 Degrees and Sunny!

We arrived in Arizona this afternoon after escaping the bitter cold of Cedar Rapids! This trip could honestly have not come at a better time. There are 7 of us total at this time, Dad, Laura, Carson, Cade, Grandma Smith, Mike and I. Unfortunately Jason, Jen, Celia and Ruby were supposed to join us, but the girls are under the weather and they aren't sure they are going to make the trek out here, which is totally understandable, yet they are dearly missed!

We were a little delayed getting out of CR, but the minute we got into the warm sunshine we quickly forgot about the small delay! At the airport to greet us was my Grandma and Grandpa Harvey who are snow birds in AZ from January to April (they are clearly much smarter than the rest of us)! It was nice to see a friendly and familiar face as we got off the plane! We picked up the rental cars and headed to the house. I must attach the sweet mini van that Dad is driving around in...remember we are heading to Barrett Jackson, can't wait to pull up in a mini van!

We piled into the rental cars and headed towards the house, which was about a 20 minute drive. We pulled into what seemed like a housing community, NO...it was the house and the property it was on. It truly is beautiful! It is a 5 bedroom home, with 2 master suites and a casita that has another 2 bedrooms and a full kitchen and bath. There is a pool, a putting green, huge patio with a fire pit, an outdoor kitchen with a flat screen tv and the list goes on and on. I didn't get great pictures today as the sun was setting and making glares, but here is a shot of the front door, look for more to come!

We all headed out to dinner to a family favorite...P.F. Chang's! We then headed back to the house to enjoy the evening weather and have a fire in the firepit. We decided to call it an early night so we can hopefully rest up from the travel and get started bright and early tomorrow!

We will be sure to update often with more stories and pictures, we hope you are all at least warm and snug in your homes if you are battling the cold!

The Countdown Begins...

It is amazing to think that we are about 15 weeks from our due date! The time truly has flown by! We had our 24 week check-up today and everything is going great! Baby Eddins has a strong heartbeat of 150 and both Mom and baby got a clean bill of health and the green light to go to Arizona tomorrow! We can't wait to get out of this ridiculous weather we are having!

We had the pleasure of touring both Mercy and St. Luke's birth facilities last week and are proud to say that it is pretty amazing that we have two equally great and capable hospitals to choose from in this town. I had some questions for Dr. Olson to clarify a few things, but I am guessing if we had to choose at this moment we would deliver at Mercy. We are both going to discuss it further in Arizona, but even Dr. Olson said "it sounds to me like Mercy is the better fit!" It really puts things into perspective when your own doctor has nothing but good things to say about them both, we truly are lucky to have two great hospitals right down the street from each other...when we can't even keep a GAP open!

We are quickly realizing how much we have left to do before we welcome a newborn into our home. We have been working diligently on cleaning out the room that will become the nursery. I have ordered a swatch of the bedding I believe we are going to use, called the painters and the crib is on order, but we have A LOT left to do to consider ourselves "ready!"

Our next appointment in February will be our last monthly appointment and then we move on to the two a month schedule and then before we know it we will be seeing the doctor every week, until the baby arrives. We have been so blessed that the pregnancy has been so easy for us, it has really made time fly by. We hope and pray that the next 15 weeks are just as easy as the weeks behind us and that we welcome a happy and healthy baby to our family in the near future!