Spring Is In The Air!

Except here in Phoenix - it's just dang hot.

I moved here with my husband and two small children a year ago this June 3rd from the beautiful, wonderful state of Washington.  While Sean (my husband) and I adore Washington, especially the Seattle area, being close to family was much more important to us, because we wanted our kids to grow up around them. So, we made the decision to pack up our little family and move to Phoenix, Arizona where my parents and my brother and sister-in-law live, as well as my maternal grandparents, and my favorite paternal aunt (who happens to be my father's twin).  Hubs' family lives in California and Oregon, but aren't too far a drive if we want to make a visit in the future - when my children are okay with long car rides and no internet/ipad for more than 8 hours.

Moving here has been an... adjustment.  I'll level with you, it hasn't been easy.  Sean and I love the ocean (you'll hear this a lot, and see evidence of this a lot in future posts - be warned...), so it is extremely difficult to be land-locked, especially when we are both certified divers and absolutely love diving.  Sure, there is a place to dive out here, called Lake Pleasant.  It is a very large man-made freshwater lake.  Sean and I were anxious to get in the water shortly after we moved here, mostly so we could escape the blistering 100+ degree heat.  When we got to the dive point and descended about 20-30 feet and putted around, we saw...a whole lot of nothin'.  Nada.  Zip.  Oh! I take it back - we saw a cactus skeleton.  -_-  Compared to the saltwater diving we had been used to in Puget Sound in Washington (where it is teeming with fish, crustaceans, all sorts of life), we were incredibly disappointed.  Looks like we will be saving our pennies and making weekend trips to California as often as possible to get our diving urges out.

I digress...I am supposed to be talking about Spring!

While the rest of the continental US was going through a Polar Vortex (or as I like to call it, SNOMG!), we here in Phoenix experienced very warm weather - warmer than it should be for this time of year, but not the Hellfire Heat we're used to in the summer.  So we kind of got our Spring early. I was able to plant my flowers and roses in February, and they've been flourishing since.  I was and still am pleasantly surprised at the number of flowers I can grow out here. When you hear the word "desert," cacti and sand are usually what come to mind for most people, not flowers and trees.  That's the nice part about the Sonoran desert - it's living!

Even out here, though, with flowers come insects, namely bees and flies.  I have never seen so many bees and flies in these massively large quantities before.  Around mid-March they both picked up in numbers as everything started blooming.  It was actually pretty neat to see the massive amounts of bees, considering their numbers are starting to dwindle in general.  We did our absolute best to not disturb them, and let them do their bee thing.  Here's a pic I got of one:

Anywho, recently, this really neat page on Facebook that I am a fan of ( www.facebook.com/AboveTheCurveNailPolish ) is holding a Spring Is In The Air! nail art contest from now until May 16th.  The general jist was to paint your nails in a Spring theme, and since Bees and Flowers first came to mind, that's exactly what I painted on my nails :) Check them out!  I'm pretty proud ^_^

Aside from my shoe obsession, you will learn that I adore painting my nails in really neat designs, patterns, pictures, etc, and that is the most girly thing about me.  I especially love doing so when using an indie-made polish.  Not only do they tend to be free of a lot of nasty chemicals commonly found in most commercial polishes, but they are unique, and I like supporting the unique artists of this world :) 

I suppose I should wrap this up since I've gabbed long enough.  Time to go wrap some presents and finish power-cleaning before my in-laws come to visit tomorrow for my youngest son's birthday!  I've been crazy busy this entire week cleaning the house and the yards in preparation for their arrival.  I'm pretty much crashed tonight.  My body is quite irritated with me, and needs a good relaxing night with an adult beverage.

Shhh...hear that?  I think it's my Moscato calling me... I'd better go tend to it ;)