Summa-Random, Summa-Greatness

Summer is full of long nights, days spent being lazy (not hardly actually), lots of playing and so much more. In a word: Randomness.

So I share with you, some randomness over the last few months. Part 1, anyway.

Have you found a Girl Scouts Coffee Creamer? You need to!

Decided it was time, and chopped my  hair off. New change

I donated my hair to help children in need of hair for wigs.

The sunrises + clouds are so beautiful this time of year.

Even without clouds, still a pretty way to start the day.

Playtime is serious business over here! So is his cuteness :)

Drool. S'mores bars.

Chobani Champions yogurt for breakfast

Pool time playing outside.

Hey Soul Sister, Meet Virginia

Summer concert series! 

Source

This summer I've been lucky enough to attend a good handful of concerts, and mostly accompanied by the lovely Jessica from work :)

Imagine Dragons, Gavin DeGraw, The Script, Train (saw these guys last fall, too!).

Great concerts here in Phoenix. Too bad they have to come when it's so dang hot.  105F in June for an outdoor concert. 107F in August for an outdoor concert. Luckily, we missed the 119F record heat day. That would have been brutal! The only good thing about that kind of heat, is baking cookies.

This was back on June 29, 2013. The official temperature recorded that day at Sky Harbor was 119F, setting a daily record. This is a capture from my phone. It felt that hot! Yowza!

Imagine Dragons concert at Comerica Theater in June 

Gavin DeGraw as an opener at Ak-Chin Pavilion in August

The Script was next in line at Ak-Chin Pavilion in August

Train as a finale at Ak-Chin Pavilion in August

All of these bands were so great to hear live. Imagine Dragons is a new fav group of mine and they have some really great, catchy songs that just make me want to sing as loud as I can. But I won't.  You're welcome.

Gavin DeGraw I'd never seen in concert, but now I want to see as much of him as I can. He's got a great voice! The Script I didn't know much about, but some of their songs I'd heard before. They surprised me and were really good. Train, of course, was no disappointment. This was the second time I've seen them in a year and I'm so excited I was able to see them. I'll admit, I'm one of the people singing as loud as I can (who cares?!) to every single song. They are all great!

I'm thankful to have a friend to attend these shows with. Thanks Jessica :)

Drink Order

Happy 1st Day of April. Or April Fools day. Spring is here, still, and summer is right around the corner. At least for us here in the Southwest summer is quickly approaching. Yesterday we got up to 94 degrees, wowza! Still beautiful and not so "gross-ly" hot yet. But that is soon coming too. Right now it reminds me of summer in Colorado with warm temperatures and being outside. Which brings me to this post.


Normally my cooking and baking adventures don't include drinks. I'm not one to drink much else than water. That could be its own post right there, because I'm pretty sure there might be something wrong with me with the amount of water I drink during the day. Seriously!


We had some friends over for dinner the other night and I made a great meal and had hopes to whip up a cool, refreshing drink other than just ice tea or water. Well I forgot and didn't get to make it. So I made it a few days later. This turned out great and just came to me while I was in the produce section at the store. It is a great little refreshing drink, good for summer time events. Could probably be spiked with alcohol if you so pleased.

Cran-Apple Up

7-up (2 liter)

Cran-Apple juice 

1 orange

1 lime

1 lemon (optional) 

You could add just about any fruit combos you like and I chose the Cran-Apple juice to get some other flavors other than just cranberry and 7-up. Maximize the variety of fruit, was my goal.


The amount of 7-up and Cran-Apple juice I used was almost equal, with maybe a touch more 7-up, just to avoid it being too sweet. But start with small amounts and add more to taste. I only made 1/3 of a pitcher not knowing how it would come out. Slice 1 lime and 1 orange into slices and add slices to juice/soda mix. Then with remaining ends of fruit, squeeze juice into soda mix. Stir/swirl and chill or serve over ice. SUPER SIMPLE! This would be great at a baby shower, wedding shower, BBQ, ladies brunch/dinner, book club meeting, Thursday evening when you want to make something awesome, the possibilities are endless! 

Plus, 7-up is caffeine free so you won't be up all night and I used a little less juice so it wouldn't be so sugar-y. PLUS, all of the fruit, score!


Enjoy!

Check out my girl Hanna at {Bouffe e Bambini}

Open your ears, let some music in & rock your Sunday!

 Sharing some music love on this beautiful Sunday in August. Enjoy!

 One of the Foo Fighter's new songs "Walk" is a great new song with a great beat. I really enjoy it!

I'm learning to walk again
I believe I've waited long enough
Where do I begin?
I'm learning to talk again
Can't you see I've waited long enough
Where do I begin?

Lee Brice "Love like crazy". I have really loved this song since it came out. I like the message it gives. Now it has a bit more meaning to me...

Upon losing my grandma earlier this year and recently losing my grandpa, this year has been tough to say the least, and that is an understatement. My grandparents have been such a huge influence and two people I really look up to in life. They were ones that worked hard for what they had and were very down to earth people, my kind of people. They were a couple that was married the longest time I've ever known someone to be married...ironically 58 years they were married before they parted ways on this earth. Listen closely in this song..."They've been together 58 years now...ain't that crazy". Hits home pretty dead on.

And another one just for fun. I'm not a huge OneRepublic fan, but this is a good and catchy song. "Good Life". Pretty enjoyable beat.

Happy Sunday to all :)

Our Visitors aka Family

About 3 weeks ago (wow already?!) we had some visitors come. My mom, step dad and brother all drove down from Colorado and stayed for a week! It was so nice to have them here, it really felt like we were back home in Colorado just hanging out.

I didn't take too many pictures, some on my phone that I'll share with you. We mostly just enjoyed spending time together. Drove around to show them the area, saw lots of areas around Phoenix, had some tasty food at Rula Bula (local irish pub & restaurant - Yum!) and spent a whole day walking around old town Scottsdale. So much fun!

 A day spent in Scottsdale. We all had a blast and it was so much fun!

Apparently it was too cold in the pool for the boys, so they went to the hot tub. How funny!

 Stopped by an old car dealership and found this little "ride". My brother was so intrigued by it. Actually thinking of buying it! Yes, it is a bar stool set up on a go-cart base. Get's up to 35 mph!

Took lots of photos with the phone camera and some pretty random photos too.

I had a blast! Thank you guys for coming to visit!

Summa Time & New Hair

Summer has officially started. Well I guess not "officially" but here in Phoenix, it has warmed up enough to say it has. However, we've just barely hit the 100 degree mark, and our warmest day so far was June 5th with a high of 105. This time last year we were well into the 100's consistently day after day and on track to hit double digits above 100 toward the later part of June. So far, we've only had a handful of days actually at or just over 100. Take it while you can, because once it gets to 110+ it won't stop. So it has been nice, but odd. 

Satellite images of two large fires burning in Arizona; Smoke now spreading into mid-west states

 Also with our "warm" up, but not so warm start to summer has been the dryness. Yes, we know Arizona is a desert, but consistent days of 2-3% humidity? This has only aided in the growth and devastation of two of the large fires burning in Arizona. The Wallow fire, as shown in the above satellite image, is now grown to 389,000 acres and burning with no end in sight. It is just massive and very sad. So many people evacuated. The smoke plumes reached parts of Colorado, Wyoming and beyond. It has become the #1 fire priority in the nation, growing by the hour.

Smoke has been seen as far east as Iowa, Wyoming, Colorado. Forced planes to divert. Ash has fallen over New Mexico.

Not a great start to summer in that sense, but just a heads up as to how dry it is here in Arizona. 

 Since summer is fast approaching, so is our Monsoon Season here in the desert. I can't wait and hope we get some great storms this year! This week has been Monsoon Awareness week as we look for all of the weather hazards that will become evident this summer. 

Now on to the personal life a bit...

That's right, I've chopped my hair again. Thought it was getting a little long and wanted to change it up a little. Do something fun. Well it sure is a lot shorter now! A little shorter than I really wanted, but its grown on me and I like it. Plus, at this rate, it will be nice and long by Christmas.

The before hair picture

...And the after! Way short!

 Shorter, but I like it so far. Can't put it up in a pony tail but its so nice to dry and takes almost ZERO time to get ready in the morning (or whenever time of day I'm working!).

Labor Day Cookout

Didn't get a chance to post pictures from our Labor Day cookout. I had the day off and Josh had to work but he got off early, yay! So I threw together a quick bunch of food to through on the grill and we had a cookout. We grilled over by the hot tub area near our apartment, but we didn't get in the hot tub, it was still 104 degrees outside! A fun afternoon!

I was having fun playing with my camera!

Our feast!

She's not in pain, just didn't want to pose for a picture!

Josh made a self-watering container for plants. These are the photos of how he made it. It's amazing!

Amazing job Joshy:) We planted zucchini and cucumbers.

 Josh loves to plant and anything to do with plants. He has made our little apartment full of plants and veggies we're growing!