Thankful

The longer I'm away from home, the more I find myself missing, loving, and admiring my family. As a kid growing up in your parent's home, it's easy to take things for granted and not enjoy life. Being away has shown me many things, and today I'm thanking God for them and counting each of them as blessings.

I'm thankful for my parents, and how dedicated they were to protecting me. I'm thankful that I grew up in a conservative household, and that my parents took/take raising us as a high responsibility. I'm thankful that they homeschooled me, and that they allowed me to continue living at home until my wedding day. I'm thankful for their rules, discipline, teaching, and how they gathered us into the same room multiple times a week for dinners and family times.

I'm thankful for my siblings, as crazy as they are, and I'd do anything to just be around them and surrounded by that silliness now. I was so blessed to grow up in a family that knows how to have fun! I love looking back and remembering growing up with all these people, and even though it could be annoying, loud, insane, I wouldn't want to have grown up any other way.

I'm thankful that we lived so close to grandparents, and that family was always priority over holidays. My grandparents are the best ever, and now that I'm married I'd say what I'm most thankful for are the marriages in my family. Every couple is different, yet works together so well, and each is a great example for my marriage. I miss them all, but I'm so thankful I get to go back in a month to spend more time with them.

I hope they all know my heart is with them today, and that I'm very much looking forward to seeing them again!

 Last Thanksgiving, eating lunch with my family on Mt. Lemmon in Tucson

So blessed!

Rainy Road trip in Cochise County

The rain may have altered some of our plans, but it definitely didn't spoil today's adventure! We successfully found 8 letterboxes and enjoyed more of Arizona that we hadn't seen before. However, we weren't able to see as much as we wanted of Chiricahua National Park due to rain, cold, and snow causing closed roads. But from what we saw, it looks amazing and we're looking forward to going back and doing more hiking someday!

Every week I am more and more amazed by God's creation all around. I love everything I've seen, and I keep hearing about more places that I need to visit! I'm certain He put in overtime when designing Arizona's mountains and rock formations. ;)

I hope you enjoy the pictures of this adventure as much as I do!

Texas Canyon

Dragoon, AZ

 It might have been windy, rainy, and cold, but the clouds were amazing!

 If you go to Arizona and only drive on interstates, you are seriously missing out on the beauty of the back highways.

 Willcox, AZ

 Dos Cabezas, AZ

Driving toward Chiracahua National Park:

 Some pictures from inside the park:

 Jaguars in AZ? Yes!

 I love the red bark on this dogwood tree:

 We also visited the gravesite for John Ringo

 Back at Texas Canyon on the way home. There are some quality boxes around here! :)

Panoramic view from highway 186 heading toward Chiracahua National Monument

Hiking in Saguaro National Park

Winter is coming - it's getting much cooler and is starting to rain. Thankfully, we were able to get out and go hiking and boxing before the rain started today. (it's been pouring off and on since last night!) Because Curtis has school and we only have 2 hours until sunset when he gets home, we split up this hike into 2 days. On Wednesday, we hiked around 3 miles up toward Wasson Peak on Sweetwater trail, and Thursday we hiked the other way, down Thunderbird trail. All of the hiking was on Saguaro National Park West of Tucson, but the 2 boxes we got were cleverly hidden off of the park territory.

With these 5 more miles hiked, we have now hiked around 100 miles since we got married, almost 4 months ago. The longest trail that we've hiked together was around only 5 miles, so with that you can see that we have done lots of  <5 mile hikes on many, many trails. Someday I'll be strong enough to hike to one of these mountains with Curtis, but for now I'm enjoying what short hikes I can take to get used to the elevation and endurance. With all the beauty that we find in Arizona, it really isn't hard to enjoy!

See the cactus with the weird growth on the top? It is a crested saguaro.

Being here makes me wish I was better with photography to be able to capture all the beauty!

Hopefully we'll be able to have another Saturday adventure this weekend despite the predicted rain and Tour de Tucson!

Slideshow from our Wedding

This was the slideshow shown at our wedding - first of Curtis and I growing up, then of how our relationship progressed over the years. The songs I used were "Waited for You" by Matthew West and "Foreverandever Etc." by David Crowder Band. No copyright infringement intended, please enjoy :)