AZ Weather

It would seem that the monsoon season is upon us. For those of you who may not know, every year around the end of July through the end of August AZ suffers from monsoons. That means that not only is it 110 degrees outside, but we also get humidity, with the occasional rain STORM -- including thunder, lightening, and dust clouds (we're talking dust clouds like the one from the Mummy movie). This is a picture I took in 2006 outside my front door during one of the dust storms. The temperature today is only going to get to a balmy 108 degrees. There is a huge difference in the feel of the weather when it's monsoon season as opposed to when it's a "dry heat". I've included a few photos of the varied AZ weather with this post. This one I took on the way to work during January of 2006. We actually had snow down into the valley as far as Phoenix and Scottsdale. In Mesa we just had a TON of hail and freezing cold rain. The snow covered the Superstition Mountains for over a week.

It's days like this that I miss AZ winters. There's nothing better than throwing open your doors and windows and letting the cool evening breeze blow through your house. Oh well only 5 more months and hopefully the winds of change will blow through.

Another fun online toy

So I was checking out my cousin Natalie's blog and found this really fun toy. I made my own little slide show about one of my favorite topics...FOOD! Check it out. I've included only my favorite eats.

SHE'S BAAAACK!!!

Yes, I am back from my 5 day family reunion in Red River, NM. Let me tell you, the blast of hot air that hit me when I climbed out of my dad's truck in front of my apartment, made me want to climb right back in and spend another 10 hours in the car getting back to Red River. When we left NM yesterday morning it was 48 degrees, when I arrived in Mesa, AZ 10 hours later it was 110 degrees. Aggghhhhh!!!! However, it was nice to sleep in my own bed last night.

As you will notice I only posted on the first day, that was because it was just too much trouble trying to upload photos onto my brother's lap top each day. When I finally sat down to upload my photos last night, I had 690 pictures about 15 short video clips. Needless to say it took a while to get everything uploaded. Now, I know you're probably thinking "Oh, I sure hope she's not planning on posting all 690 photos!" No worries there, I'm just going to give you the highlights. So sit back and get comfortable, because it's going to be a long one...

Day 1 - Wednesday: We arrived at the Copper King Lodge in Red River, NM, which is located about 45 minutes north of Taos and situated at about 8,500 ft. It's a cute little OLD ski town. We got there in time for some food on the green behind the lodge. As everyone had been traveling that day, we called it quits early.

Day 2 - Thursday: PHOTO day! Started the day at Millet Park having family photos, which took almost 2 hours, cuz there were some many of us. We actually looked like blue locust descending upon the unsuspecting population. Did I tell you that there were 63 of us?!? After the photo shoot we just hung out in Red River for the rest of the day (please refer to the previous post, as I'm too lazy to re write anything).
Day 3 - Friday: Family Fun Day! That's right an entire day spent elbow-to-elbow with fellow Johnson clan members. My mother had to rent a portion of the Red River Convention Center in order to get enough room for all of us to convene. The days festivities started off with the "Three Piggy Opera" as performed by all my nieces and nephews and a few of my brothers. My sister-in-law video taped the program and as soon as I get a copy of the video I'll post it because it's a production that can't be missed. The rest of the morning was filled with kid games, a candy hunt (for roughly 11 pounds of candy -- and I'm not kidding you should see the loot the kids got), and a family jeopardy game.
We had lunch and then started back in with the fun. I prepared a family history mini-scrapbook album for everyone to make and then my cousin Adele and her husband Matt handed out a FABULOUS family cookbook which they had compiled. If you're lucky I'll post some the secret family recipes. Finally we of course had the Johnson Family Talent Show. It's actually weird how much talent this family has! Agghh!! So we had some dancing, original songs, hula, and more dancing. Wow! The day ended with a ukulele/guitar jam session in Auntie Andi's cabin. There were about 12 of us on ukuleles, at least 1 guitar and a harmonica. Fun, fun, fun!



Day 4 - Saturday: This may have been the funnest day! We went white water rafting down the Rio Grande! It was a total blast. It was a relatively short trip, but tons of funs and the pictures tell the story.
Back Row: Uncle Reed, Justin, Megan, Jared, Kiki and Ryan. Front Row: Jeff, Ellie, Dennis, Reed and Jamie.

I rode in a boat with my Dad, Kiki, Jared and Justin. Our guide was "Rojo".

After rafting we just played games and hung out with family until dinner. For dinner we went to a place that puts on a cowboy dinner including a barbeque, cowboy music, and some great photo ops. It was a lot of fun, too.

Day 5 -- Sunday: My Uncle Steven prepared a wonderful short church service for the family. I love having testimony meeting with my family. It's such a wonderful experience and confirmation of the amazing blessings the Gospel brings into my life. After the service it was time to hang out with the family and do some site seeing around town. I watched a munchkin or two while my siblings took the ski lift to the top of the mountain. Later I helped Reed and Jamie pedal their kids around the town in a Surrey bike for 8 and I ALMOST DIED! AGGGHHH!!! I don't know that I've ever done anything as hard as pedaling that stupid bike at 8,500 ft -- I was sucking wind like there was no tomorrow. It was ridiculous! But the kids seemed to enjoy it.

We spent most of the rest of the day eating and playing games. We taught our cousins how to play "speed scrabble" which is a ton of fun and then we also got everyone hooked on POP 5 (a game by Cranium co.), another AWESOME game! We stopped playing games long enough to eat a ton of food for dinner, pack up for departing on Monday, and then we played Pop 5 again until 10:30pm ("Is it a J or an L??"). I love playing games with my family.Day 6 - Monday: Everyone had to hit the road relatively early. Fortunately the drive was uneventful. I did finish 2 books -- Fablehaven and Goose Girl. I LOVED them both and will be checking out their sequels today at the library.

Anyways, a huge hug and thank you goes out to all the Johnson Family members. I love you all!! It was a blast and I can't wait till 2011! I'll post my pictures to Picasa and send out the link for those that are interested in seeing the other 645 photos. :)

Red River, NM -- DAY 1

I'm reporting to you live in Red River, NM, from the confines of room 27 at the Cooper Creek Lodge along the banks of the Red River.  It's approximately 70 degrees outside, overcast with a cool breeze.  We've spent most of the day enjoying the small town sites and playing games. However, this morning was an exercise in patience and futility.  We rounded up all 63 participants in the Johnson Family Reunion -- that's right...63 people and about 25 of them are under the age of 8.  You can only imagine the chaos that ensued when we tried to get EVERYONE to sit/stand/kneel still for this monumental undertaking. Of course we not only had to take a GIANT family photo, but then we had to take photos of each and every family.  It took no less than 90 minutes.  But in the end it was worth it.

After the photo shoot my brothers Jeff and Ryan and my sisters-in-law Ellie and Jamie and I walked into "down town" and had lunch at Shotgun Willie's Cafe.

 Later, after a few games of Yahtzee and Skip-bo, we walked with all the kids back "down town" for some ice cream.  The evening was caped-off by a few old stories about Hawaiian myths from Grandma Johnson.  It's been a very full day and a great beginning for this family reunion.

Vacation to the wilds of New Mexico

I'm headed out the door in a matter of minutes for the Johnson Family Reunion 2008 in Red River, NM. That's right my mother's family converging on this poor unsuspecting town. I'll be making the 10 hour drive with Jeff and his wife Ellie. I've filled up my iPod and borrowed a few books from my friend (Fablehaven and The Goose Girl -- I'll let you know if they are any good.) If I happen to get access to the internet in Red River, I'll try to post pics from our fun family reunion. You know it's going to be interesting -- food, oodles of family (63 at last count), talent shows, ukeleles, white water rafting, more food, games and more food!

Just what you wanted to know about me...

So here are 5 of my favorite things (not including people, because that would require much more than 5 and not including gospel related things either, because that is just one ALL ENCOMPASSING thing; anyways....)


1. My mom's homemade rolls fresh out of the oven with a bit of butter (my mouth is watering just thinking of it).



2. BORN shoes. I love BORN shoes. They are always the most comfortable and the best made shoes. If I could afford it, I would buy nothing but BORN. Fortunately, places like Dillards, Ross, and TJ Max often have BORN shoes for ridiculously low prices (i.e.- $13). I actually had to retire my first pair of BORN sandles this year (I had them for 6+ years and they've been to 4 different countries.)


3. Flowers. I absolutely love flowers. I always tell myself that when I get rich someday, I'm going to have fresh flowers in my home every week. Till then I occasionally splurge on a bouquet for Costco.


4. Italian gelato. Note that it is ITALIAN gelato that I love. I have yet to find a single gelato shop here in the States that makes gelato anywhere near as good as it is in Italy. I loved it so much that I made it a point to have some every single day while I was in Italy. Yummmmm!!


5. Scrapbooking. If you know me at all, you know I love to scrapbook. If it's important to me, I've put it in a scrapbook somewhere. Besides that, It's a terrific artistic outlet. As I tell everyone, I can't paint or draw a straight line, but I can put stickers on a page with photos.


Enough about me...What do you love??

A little bit of everything & Happy Birthday, Jacob!

So it's been a couple of weeks since I last posted, not that a whole lot has happened in the mean time. Rather than bore you with all the monotonous details here are the highlights.

My nephew, Jacob's birthday is today and he's turning 5. Happy birthday, Jacob. Yesterday my mom and I took Jacob and his brother Tyler out to lunch for his birthday. He chose Chick-fil-A as his restaurant (I think it was more for the play area than the cuisine) and we made a stop at Party Place (a party supply store with a pretty good unique candy isle) so that he and Tyler could pick out a candy. Feeling nostalgic, I picked out some Pop-Rock candy. Of course the boys wanted to try some, that is until I put some of the candy in my mouth and they heard all the snapping and popping. Nevertheless, Jacob decided he wanted to give it a try. It was all rather humorous.

This past Sunday night my parents and my brother Jeff with his wife Ellie came over to my apartment for dinner. We ended the evening with a pit of Wii. My dad has recently discovered the joys of Wii Sports, in particular Wii Golfing. He's really taken with, even more than Guitar Hero. So Sunday night we all did a few rounds of Golf and played a few Bowling games. Even my mom got into it. We're now considering getting Grandpa Schaub a Wii, once we figured out that you can play Golf while sitting down. My Grandpa has always loved to golf, but now that he's 89, he doesn't have the physical capacity to play, so we think this may be a great alternative.

I just heard some great news this week. My adorable cousin Jeana recently got engaged. Yahoo!! Congrats goes out to Jeana and her man (whom we've not met yet). He is one lucky dude.