Disneyland Day 2

Whew! What a day! It started out super stressful, but turned out to be super fun. We left for the parks at about 9am and when we got to the parks, we decided to go check out Downtown Disney first. When we had first got there, I thought that we were going to go into the park so I had pulled my ticket out of my wallet and when we headed over to Downtown Disney, I stuck it in the same pocket as my cell phone. Well... a few texts, a couple of cute photos of Charly, and an Instagram post later we couldn't find my ticket. We searched everywhere where we had been frantically for what felt like forever. Finally, we defeat, we headed over to the ticket booths to see if someone had turned it in. I was nearly in tears and we were pretty stressed out. When we got to the the booth, they simply scanned Bill's ticket, asked to see our IDs and I had a new ticket! It was such a relief to have it easily remedied!

We love Vinylmations!

After that drama, we went over to California Adventures and met up with the Woods. We watched their 2 year old, Elsie, while they went to ride California Screamin'. We took the girls on King Triton's Carousel. After we got done there, the Woods had a Fast Pass for Cars Racer that the window had just opened for and since Elsie couldn't ride that one either, we took her while they did that. Elsie fell asleep as soon as we walked away, so Bill took Charlotte on Flick's Flyers while we waited. After they were done, Bill and I rode the Racers and LOVED it! We then hit up Tower of Terror (the things I do for love!)

After our obligatory nap (and one epic melt-down by Miss Charlotte), we went back to Downtown Disney (with my ticket safely tucked into Bill's wallet!). We got some fun Vinylmations while there and then met Aviator Minnie outside of Soarin' California. I personally was thrilled as I think that she looked great and that it was a unique look. We then met up with the Woods again. We hung out in the Animation area for a bit then split up for dinner. We ate at Flo's V8 Diner in Radiator Springs. It was super yummy. After dinner, we went on our favorite ride, Soarin' Over California while the Woods watched Charlotte. Then we watched Elsie while they rode. We took the girls over to Bugs Land and rode some rides with them... they had a blast!

mmm... Chocolate Pie!

We had tons of fun and can't wait for tomorrow!

Disneyland!

When we first moved to Arizona, we decided that we wanted to go to Disneyland while we were there since it is only about a 5 1/2 hour drive. We thought that we would go during Bill's spring break in March, but about a week and half ago, our friends from Utah, the Woods, invited us to meet up with them on their "we are about to start grad school" trip. We decided that because we have been a bit bored waiting for school to start and we had the money, why not go!?!?! So, we left yesterday afternoon and made the drive. We got here about 630 and celebrated our arrival with dinner at Cheesecake Factory. Today we met the Woods at the park at 7am for Magic Morning. Soon after being let into the park, the Woods (who have 2 daughters, aged 2 and 6) heard that they could go see the Frozen princesses first thing, so they took advantage of that while we went to FantastyLand.  Unfortunately, not much of the park is open for Magic Morning. We went to Dumbo, the tea cups, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, and Pinnochio. The first two were hits with Charlotte, the second two were Disneyland fails. By that point, we decided to try our luck at California Adventure and headed over there.

Charlotte, our official navigator

We HAD to go to Toy Story Mania first and got right in. The we headed over to Ariel's Undersea Adventure. On the way, we saw Donald (who has always been one of my favorites) and got our photo with him. Afterwards, we wandered through Cars Land, then while Bill went on the Tower of Terror, Charlotte and I went on a couple of rides in the Bug's Land. We finished the morning on Monsters Inc. and at the Disney Junior Show (which was Charlotte's favorite by far).

We went back to our hotel for a nap and then headed back to the park to meet up with the Woods. We started our return to the park with a Dole Whip and a trip on Pirates of the Caribbean. By this point of the day, Charlotte was mostly resigned to the fact that most of these rides were a bit dark and moved. We then went on Winnie the Pooh and then met Mickey. We had to fight parade crowds on our way out, but I told Bill that that was the best way to see the parade (while walking by!)

We have completed our day chillin' at the hotel and look forward to another fun filled day at the park!  

Fun in the Sun

We have been living in the desert for 3 weeks now and part of me can't believe that we have almost been here for a whole month already! Bill finally had something school related this week- he had orientation. It was a super long day, but he got to meet classmates, teachers, etc and is encouraged by the job prospects... the average salary from last year's first graduating class in this field is higher than we anticipated and one alumni who spoke to them had accepted a job offer by October of last year... just 2 months into the program! The next 9 months are going to be intense, but we feel that it will be worth it!

Because Bill hasn't had school or work, we have been getting in lots of play time! We decided to get annual zoo passes and we love it! We are going to try to make it a Friday tradition to go and went the last two weeks. It is nice to be able to see the zoo at a leisurely pace instead of trying to get everything done in a day. This last Friday we took an opportunity to feed the giraffes. It was so much fun! Charlotte even fed "our" giraffe a lettuce leaf... she wasn't overly impressed, but she didn't cry, so I consider it a victory.

Bill's birthday was at the end of July and we celebrated by eating at a pizza place in Phoenix called Cibo. It was mostly authentic according to Bill and pretty good.

We tried gelato at a nearby Italian grocer and enjoyed it! Bill got melon just like they serve it in Italy he says. I love that whenever I take a picture of Charly and Bill, she only has eyes for her daddy!

We have also found a splash pad that is fun for all of us... you know, the splash pad part for the kiddo and shade, misters, and an Orange Julius a few feet away for Bill and I! It is at a really cool outdoor mall, so it is fun to wander through stores while we are there!

Bill also found a place to play hockey and will get to play twice a week. Once for pick up games and another for league play. It is only about 15 minutes away and much earlier in the evening than the groups he played with in Utah so hopefully it can happen more frequently than it has in recent years!

We are having a lot of fun in the desert sun so far, but we are going spend our last school-less week someplace sunny, but a little cooler ... the Petrosino's are going to Disneyland!

Things Learned in Our First Week in Arizona

We have officially been Arizonians for a week now. We are starting to feel more settled and are learning where things are. We can even venture to a few places without the aid of the GPS! We are incredibly spoiled with where we live. We have often said that our ideal location would be within a 5-10 minute drive of a Costco, Winco, and Target. We have that... AND a Sprouts, a mall, Trader Joes, Hobby Lobby, Culvers, two Wal-marts, and a Cheesecake Factory. After living in Spanish Fork for 5 years, we feel like we have died and gone to conviently located shopping paradise. We have learned a few things in our week here and I thought I would share those with you :)

#1: Arizona is hot (ok, I may have known that already). And right now it is unusually warm. As in record breaking. And as in record breaking, I mean 115 degrees. Charlotte still thinks that she lives in Utah and has been getting up WAY to early. After she woke up at 6am one morning, we decided to go for a walk before it got too hot. (yes, you read correctly, a 6am walk). It was quite pleasant and Charlotte was happy to play at a park for a little bit. We got home and and commented on how much cooler it was. We then looked up the current temperature and it was 95. Apparently we have started climatizing already!

#2: When it is this hot, you go to desperate measures to stay cool! Charlotte has claimed the kiddie pool in the backyard as her method of choice. She has even gotten in with her pajamas on! I have resorted to carrying a towel around in my purse to lay on Charlotte's car seat when we come out of a store. Trust me, it is the only way to prevent her from running away from the car screaming when she sees the car in the parking lot. We went to an aquarium on Thursday, which was fun, but we decided to extend our "cool" time by walking around the mall the aquarium was in. It was seriously the most bizarre mall ever. It was a weird combo of outlet and regular stores. And once we started walking, there was no hallways to connect us to the other side of the mall... just a perfectly large square of never ending stores that you had to walk down because you kept thinking, surely the exit by our car is close. But it just kept going and going and going... at least it was cool though and not so blistering hot.

#3: Haboobs are real. A haboob is a dust storm and we got to experience our first one last night. We got text message warnings and everything. It cooled the air down immensly, for which we were grateful and I thought it was kind of cool to watch it come in. From the safety of the house of course. I should of popped some popcorn...

#4: For being the 6th largest city in the country, Phoenix is missing a couple of things... mainly a dedicated computer store (we can't find any!) and a decent alternative music radio station. I never thought  I would say this, but I miss x96!

#5: Go to Backyard Taco, but DON'T go on Taco Tuesday. Unless you like waiting for over 30 minutes for your tacos. Then go. It was mighty tasty though!

Despite the fact that we kind of feel like we are on vacation (since Bill hasn't started school yet) we are getting adjusted and are happy that we made it down here safely (we are NEVER driving our own moving van again. EVER!!) and have enjoyed spending the week with our friends the Nelsons. We have plans to start visiting other friends and family that live down here this weekend, so we are excited to do that.

    (Charlotte's crib is the cool place to hang out these days!)

We love and miss all of you!

Mariah

Goodbye, Utah... Hello, Arizona!

This has been a very bittersweet week for us. We made our big move to Arizona. We had to make some pretty tearful goodbyes as we left Utah. Bill and I spent our last night in our house by having a slumber party in the living room since most of our stuff was already loaded onto the moving van. It felt that it was appropriate since we spent our first night before officially moving in by doing the same! If I remember correctly, I had a hard time sleeping that first night... because I was so excited about our first house! I had a hard time sleeping on Thursday night... because I was so sad to be leaving so many good things behind in Utah!

I moved to Utah almost 10 years ago... I got there in October 2004, not long after getting home from my mission. A lot happened in those 10 years. My two biggest and most difficult trials and so many good and amazing things. I truly feel that Utah was exactly where I needed to be for all of those experiences. As reflected on those things in the middle of the night, I was struck with a feeling of gratitude to the Lord for putting people and experiences in my life to bless me... especially the people that came into my life at just the right time, exactly when I needed them. I feel that I need to take a minute and reflect on the people and experiences for which I am so grateful that Utah brought me.

Of course, the most important person in my life is Bill and I got him in Utah! We met when we lived in the same apartment complex. The first day I met him wasn't exactly a memorably first meeting, but the next day was Halloween and he offered to give me and one of my clients a ride to the ward Halloween party. He told me that my client could sit in the front seat of his car and I will never forget the look of sheer terror on his face when I told him I would put her in the backseat with me since she had a tendency to choke the driver. Too bad I wasn't joking. After our first date a few weeks later, my roommate told me that we were going to get married. I laughed at her. We will celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary this December. My life is so much better with him in it!

And what would our family be without Charlotte? We truly would not have her if it weren't for Utah. We waited a long time for her to join our family and we needed a lot of help! We are so grateful for all of the doctors and nurses and IVF coordinators and doctors at Maternal Fetal Medicine in both Provo and San Fransisco who helped us make her being here possible. She will always get to claim Utah as home and that makes me happy!

We have so many friends that have blessed our lives in so many ways. I met Janel Jasper when we ended up sharing a room when I first moved to Provo... oddly enough, though, I don't think we met for over a month despite sleeping in the same room! We eventually bonded over our horrible roommates and are still friends! Janel really helped me get out of my comfort zone and meet new people and be more social.

When Bill and I first got married, we lived in a tiny apartment in Orem. On our first Sunday there, he ran into a girl (Emily Morgan) he had known years earlier who was now married and living in that ward. We started hanging out with them and became really good friends. Right after my mom died, I was really feeling like nobody I knew understood what I was going through and one day while hanging out with the Morgans, Emily said, "you know that my mom died, right?" and I suddenly felt like I had an ally! We spent many afternoons together canning food and talking about our moms and life without our moms. It was very therapeutic for me and I will always remember those days fondly.

 When Bill and I first moved to Spanish Fork we had a hard time making friends. We felt that people didn't want to be our friends because we were the childless weirdos. For several years we tried and felt like we failed at establishing any kind of connection with anyone in the neighborhood. Until finally Roger and Shauna Phillips came into our lives. We have been greatly enriched by their friendship and have spent many many hours together since then. Shauna became my crafting buddy, answered many random mommy questions when I was a new mom, introduced me to BYU football,  encouraged me to actually be a runner, and cheered me up many times during the in vitro process, the triplet drama we experienced, and many times since then. The Phillips have been true friends.

During our childless weirdo years, we often admired a family in our ward (the Woods) who spoke about frequently about their infertility struggles. I don't think Kelli ever realized how much I admired her strength and willingness to be open and share with others how her struggles had strengthen her faith. Last year Kelli and I were assigned to fulfill a church assignment together and we got to know each other better and I found that I liked everything about her! We really grew close during our few months of serving together and I was sad when our assignment ended! We have stayed good friends since then and I appreciate the support and love she has shown me as we have had some similar life challenges.

I have been blessed to work for a great company called TURN Community Services for the last seven years. They have given me opportunities to grow in my profession and have taught me how to properly provide services for people with disabilities. They really are a premier provider. I have enjoyed so many co-workers and the family members and the clients throughout the years. I am so glad that I get to still work with them. One of the greatest associations from working there is Kendra. We miss her so much already! She has become one of my best friends! Charlotte adores her. I value our time we get to just chat and hang out. Her family has welcomed our family into theirs and I hope that they feel like they are apart of ours!

The night my mom died, Bill and I drove to Sandy to spend the rest of that long sleepless night with my grandparents. I have thought a lot about that night since then and especially during the last week or so and I have come to realize that that night was the beginning of a new relationship with my grandparents. For the last 7 years I have needed them to help me fill close to my mom and they have needed me for the same reason. They are wonderful examples of showing love to all of their grandchildren and helping them through hard times and I am grateful that we were able to live in close proximity as we all mourned the death of a wonderful lady. I have been especially grateful for my grandma's recollections of how my mom was as a baby so that we can compare Charlotte to her. It is fun to see how similar they are! And of course, I value her stepping up to help fill some of the "I still need a mom" void that I have experienced. And my grandpa is the absolute cutest with Charlotte. I watched him sit on the sidewalk and play with her for a good 45 minutes on the 4th of July. It melted my heart.

Thanks for taking this trip down memory lane with me... in this incredibly long blog post. Maybe I should I have put a disclaimer at the beginning!

TTFN

Mariah

Wahoo! A Blog!

Okay, folks, here it is... our very first blog post! Finally! I only started setting a blog up when Charlotte was born!! Now that we are moving, I feel that this will be a great way to stay in touch with everyone that wants to know about our comings and goings. We leave for Arizona in a week and we have mixed emotions... we are super excited to start this next chapter in our lives, but we are sad to be leaving all of the friends and family members that we have enjoyed living near for so long. We are also a little bit sad to be leaving our first house... but I am happy that our forever house isn't too far away!

For those of you who don't know why we are moving, Bill has been accepted into grad school at Arizona State University. He will be getting a Masters degree in Business Analytics, which is a basically a lot of statistics and database manipulation. It is a fairly new field of study, but companies are paying people with this degree good money, which is exactly what we are after! The program is only two semesters long, but it will be intense for Bill for those 10 months! My boss is fantastic and is going to let me keep working from Arizona, which will be really nice. At the end of the program, we are going to go where ever a good job will take us. With Bill being from New Jersey and myself coming from Nevada, we feel that we can lay down roots just about anywhere and travel to visit family as necessary. We will most likely end up in one of four places: the Pacific Northwest, Northern California, North Carolina, or New Jersey (with Bill commuting to work in New York City). We will have a better idea of where ASU grads are getting hired at come September, but last year was ASU's first year offering a Business Analytics degree, so we don't have the job stats yet.

We just decided this week that the best housing option for us is going to take our good friends up on their offer to live with them. Since I will be the only adult not in school as a full-time student, we feel that it is a good cost saving option for all of us. Our friends, the Nelsons, have 2 kids, so Charlotte will have insta-friends (she adores their 4 year old, Riley) and we have missed the Nelsons since they moved to Arizona 7+ years ago, so it will be nice to be able to spend so much time with them!

We are excited to get on the road next week and to start our new adventure!

Best Wishes!
Bill, Mariah, Charlotte and Cinnamon