Exploring Phoenix

A couple weeks ago, Scott and I finally planned a day to get out and explore "the valley". We are on the east side of the valley so we went downtown and to the west side. To get from the farthest side of the valley to the other side takes anywhere from an hour to 90 minutes. I was amazed at how long it took us to drive all around. "The Valley" is HUGE! We started with downtown and uptown. There are actually 2 districts of Phoenix. You have downtown which is the business and sports district and you have uptown that's the arts district.   

In the middle of downtown is this old Victorian home. It's the only home of it's kind still in existence in Phoenix. We didn't take a tour. It was expensive and lasted an hour. I'm not sure what you'd see in this house during a full hour. But the outside is beautiful and I'm sure one day we'll do the tour just to say we did.

After exploring downtown and uptown, we headed to the west side which is Glendale and Peoria. We stopped by the University of Phoenix Stadium where the Arizona Cardinals play. We will attend a game while living here. Probably a Monday night football game next year. It just wasn't in the budget this year.

After that we drove 30 minutes north, to the north end of Phoenix to see where the Phoenix Temple is being built. I was surprised at how small it was but it's still going to be an amazing structure, and blessing to those members in that area, so they don't have to travel 90 minutes to the Mesa Temple.

 As we were headed back to the freeway we stopped in this nice neighborhood in Glendale. Another gorgeous neighborhood. But I much prefer the southeastern portion of the valley.

We pulled over to take some pictures and the goose and ducks hurried to us, anticipating a treat. I want a duck.

 At the end of our day we went to the local outdoor mall, which was great. They even advertised that they have snow every night at 7pm the weeks before Christmas, so I'm excited to go in my shorts and short sleeve shirt to witness that. ;) 

Finally we finished our night with going to Bass Pro Shop. I was pretty tired and I can only take so much of outdoor stores so we put a time limit on how long we'd spend in there. Luckily for Scott will live about a mile away from it so he can go and hang out whenever he wants... while I do other things and without his wallet. :)

 And of course we had to see the fish.

There is still so much to explore here and we are loving the opportunities and variety of activities we can do.

Home Sweet Home

 Welcome to our home! During this tour you will get to see the before and after pics of our cozy apartment. The first pictures you will see are pictures taken in the days after arriving here. I'm so glad we are passed that point. Moving is not the funnest thing. But I'm thankful that the next time we move will be a lot easier. 

This is what you would see if you were walking in our front door. This is part of our kitchen and the dining area, with the master bedroom in the background.

Our dining room at the opposite angle.

 This is our living room.

Our bedroom with a very confused dog.

The hallway leading into the extra bedroom. 

The extra bedroom.

 The view from the patio, looking at the living room, dining room and kitchen.

And now to the finished product. It only took us 2 months to post.
Our living room.

 The wall is meant to be left without pictures so we can use the projector. It works out nicely.

The dining area, with a much less confused dog.

The master bath.

The laundry room. Which is right off of the kitchen. A lot of apartments have the laundry in a storage closet off the patio. I'm really glad ours is inside. 

The kitchen.

The master bedroom.

We left out the pictures of the extra bathroom and and extra bedroom. The bedroom is used as a storage room for right now. So it's got boxes and random stuff everywhere, along with our food storage. It's kind of messy. The other bathroom is mainly used for Cosmo's bath time, to give him baths so it is bare and has no shower curtain or anything. We'll eventually make it more presentable if we get some visitors. 

We are loving the smaller space. It's a lot easier to keep clean and everything isn't spread out. It's a nice area and a nice complex. We feel so lucky to be here!

5

Technically 5 years and 16 days. That is how long I've been Mrs. Westwood. I can't believe how the time has gone by. It seems to have flown. But there are so many great memories and moments we've shared over the last 5 years. We are definitely not where we thought we would be after 5 years of marriage. But we are so grateful for the journeys we've taken, and the people we've been privileged to meet. It's been a great 5 years and I'm so excited to see what our next unplanned journey will be. 

We had a fabulous anniversary. We spent the day together which was awesome. We explored Gilbert and Chandler and ended with some sushi. Here are some pictures from the day. 

The Gilbert Temple. We have heard that even though the Mesa Temple is only 3 miles away, we will probably be in the Gilbert Temple district which is about 20 miles away. Either way is fine, we are just so grateful to have a temple so close!  It is on the corner of a main intersection which is interesting.

This is a neighborhood in Gilbert that we decided to stop and see. Everyone has a boat on their back dock. I really want to live here but alas, I probably never will. A girl can always dream....

 And finally dinner. It was oh so yummy!

And this is what we look like after 5 years of marriage.

 

So happy together. 

Cosmo's latest trick

This is for my parents so they can see Cosmo's latest trick. It's the last trick that Scott does. We filmed this the first day we tried it with him. He can sniff the hands and picks which hand has the treat. And for the record they were very small pieces of a treat. He's so fun! We just love him!(Don't mind my obnoxious voice at the end, yes that's how I talk to him).