Captured Moments = Priceless

It seems the more things I want to post about, the more I can't keep up!

Since I feel this way, this post is going to be mostly pictures of some moments I captured over the last several weeks.

I hope you enjoy!!

The skies are always so beautiful and forever changing in Sedona.

I fell in love with a bug! 

 This was the first time I've EVER seen one of these fantastically, beautiful bugs. 

This super shiny spider, that I have yet to identify. I thought it had its front legs picked up but I count 8 legs on the ground...must be fangs! Yikes!

Chili Moon spotted these guys!

A hot air balloon almost carried us away....

Just kidding! 

But it did actually land about 50 yards away from us!

And then another one landed just up on the hill

I guess you just never know where the next adventure will come from.... maybe the sky!

The last of three Super Moons 

The view from one of our favorite spots in Sedona

The beauty of Tlaquepaque and Los Abrigados Park

And (some of) the great people that make this life one more (big) part of why we love living in 'the wild'

I think I was set up! haha

PEACE

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A Little "Help" Goes a Long Way

J' got some super good shots of the "hotties" this morning...I guess I'm getting used to the sounds they make, I didn't even budge when he got up.

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Over the last couple of days we have acquired some good stuff. Our friend, Mikey, did some spring cleaning in his rig and asked us if we wanted his cooler...reflectix and all! He will be leaving us and going East for about a month and during that time will buy himself an actual fridge, he will not have room for both and rarely uses the cooler for cooling, more so for storage, so we happily accepted the offer and now have a sweet set-up for cooling. The cooler we were using and this cooler are actually the same size (50 Quart), but the new cooler is an extreme 6 day, it locks down, it's thicker and with the already fitted reflectix it's like another barrier, the ice actually does stay ice much longer. We've had to get used to the length of it just a bit: we have to use a long funnel now to put water into our water bottles and it sticks out a little bit more to use the potty in the middle of the night...but nothing we can't get used to and overcome. There are some advantages as well. The top of it is all flat, it doesn't dip in the middle so I can use it as a table now...couldn't do that before. The outside also has two handles so it's easier to get it out of its hole, PLUS, the wheels are in the back...easier for sliding it out and in (yep, that's what she said). It's made a huge difference and we are very happy with the decision. The other cooler, for now, is storage...great more stuff! haha

[gallery ids="4805,4804,4801,4803,4802"]

Remember when J' got me those awesome clips at O'Reilly? We were there getting leaf spring helpers for Joon. In case some of you don't know what leaf spring helpers are, (I didn't), here's a little run down...**copied right out of Wikipedia:

**Leaf springs are a simple form of spring, commonly used for suspension. The leaf spring acts as a linkage for holding the axle in position and thus separate linkage are not necessary. It makes the construction of the suspension simple and strong.** The leaf spring helper attaches to the bottom of the leaf spring providing more support. Our helpers will provide 1,500+ lbs. of support to the back leaf springs.

It was great to find some wood in the cactus and bushes around here when we set-up camp because they were a great help to the jack stands, keeping them on more firm ground than the soft sand here. J' got under the van and put the leaf spring helpers on by himself...how handy is he!!?

Now we have more support in the back! Woo hoo...we've wanted and needed that for a 'minute'. Also, having the tires off and being able to see underneath Joon was a good thing due to us being able to see our muffler hanger had broken. A quick trip into a good auto body shop in town, ABC Auto Body, to weld it back together was all we needed and we were back in business. We may have a few tweaks here and there with the helpers but, so far, so good!

We've been busy little bees, haven't we?

Not as busy as this little guy though...he was partying hard in the pollen!

[caption id="attachment_4820" align="aligncenter" width="350"] Bee Butt[/caption]

PEACE

The Weekend Wedge

Here's a little wedge of our weekend for ya...

Just about every morning, especially on the weekends, we get woken up by the "ssshhhhhhhhhhhhh" of hot air balloons over the van. I think we may be part of their fly over tour now!

Savannah is finally chewing on the bone we bought for her almost a year ago! Well, she carries it around more than she chews on it but she's paying attention to it and that makes me happy. See, I found it in the depths of her crate the other day and saw it had not even one single bite mark on it, so I put it in a ziploc bag, poured a little bit of bbq sauce, some bacon molasses seasoning and a few squirts of water in and let it marinade for two days. Needless to say, she carries it everywhere with her now...silly girl...but it does make me happy!

Miss Cheri popped in for a little lunch date. It was a nice surprise...and she brought these amazing rolls from Fry's. Oh.My.Goodness...these rolls (or whatever they were). They are considered gourmet bread, J' calls them bagels, I call them rolls, Miss Cheri calls them amazing bread...and we all call them scrumpdiddlyumptious! The bread almost looks like a big croissant and has cheese and green chiles baked into it. They are to die for, we are definitely going to have to throw these into the mix!

It was nice to see her and she was able to see Mikey again as well.

Even though most of our weekends are just like any other part of the week, it's always nice to be able to take a load off, sit down, enjoy good food, good conversation, have a few laughs and bask in the ambiance of knowing how good we have it out here. Some people think we are just wandering aimlessly through the desert and for those people, I feel sad that they don't get to experience the amazing life we have made for ourselves out here or get to meet the totally awesome people that have become like family to us. If this is wandering aimlessly through, well...anywhere...We'll take it!

PEACE

Waiting Upon Arrival

About 4 out of our 7 days of the week we are woken up by loud 'whoosh' noises. One morning we rushed out of the van to catch a glimpse of the noise maker...

[caption id="attachment_4659" align="aligncenter" width="224"] Top o' the mornin'![/caption]

We have been hearing the noise from time to time in the early mornings but due to how our camp is situated with an awning and these great trees, it's kind of hard to see them...but today we would see them, 'shoot' them and even talk about what we were going to have for brekkie with the people in them! Pretty cool place here.

 I've grown a little "concerned" with Savannah these days. She just can't seem to get comfortable no matter what she does. Poor little baby.

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I'm sure she'll get over it due to another piece of man candy making a grand entrance from Denver tonight! Our friend, Micheal, left Denver yesterday and should be getting here any time now. We are quite excited, other than our daughter, no one has really stepped into our world of the travelling lifestyle and while we will only have a limited time together it should be super duper fun to get out and explore with him and show him what this life has to offer. He's a HUGE trail rider so I'm sure the boys will have their fun riding the trails and just being boys together.

[caption id="attachment_4671" align="aligncenter" width="350"] Down the trail already[/caption]

Now with him coming, it makes me want ALL of my peeps from everywhere to come be with us. The invitation is always open my lovies!!

Have you checked your calendar today??

PEACE

Just as nice as a Desert Breeze

Snoozing away last night and got joustled out of bed by a loud knock, knock, knock and barking from the Nana Bug. It was about 1 a.m...I think. The rule in our rig is if we ever get a knock on the van, I have to answer it because I'm cuter than J'! haha I looked out to see who was there...guess who? Security, of course. I answered the door, only opening it a tad...dressed, but in my undies. The guys name was Rudy, he asked if we were guests of the hotel (Yep, that's why we're sleeping in our van, duh) he said that we weren't supposed to be sleeping in the van. I told him I had the okay from Ernesto...he got the biggest surprise look on his face. All in all, he said that Managers (Ernesto) had no say in a topic of that nature and that I should have talked to Security...(I thought I had). He asked how long we would be here and I told him we were leaving in the morning (not true but didn't want to get into it with him). He just told me to lock my doors and please be sure to be gone in the morning. I think he might have gone back and had some words with Ernesto the next day!! We got our nights' sleep in though, got up this morning and were on the road (not doing anything but getting in and driving away) by 8 a.m.

[caption id="attachment_2249" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Good Morning & Goodbye[/caption]

I guess we'll have to use the other places on our list for the rest of our stay. I seriously doubt that if we had stayed among the big trucks, we would have never been scoped out, but we wanted our space so we were being watched. I saw him sitting behind us earlier in the night and if our TV wasn't so bright, he probably would have never known anyone was even in the van...oh well. We'll just move on! While we were researching Vegas, we had looked into things going on around the Vegas area for the weekend. We found a balloon festival with a carnival that was going on, starting Friday going through Sat. & Sunday so we drove toward that direction, finding a Wal-mart on the way.

[caption id="attachment_2248" align="aligncenter" width="300"] I think we're going the right way![/caption]

We pulled over to the back lot of Wal-mart and did our morning duties: rolled up the bed, got dressed & cleaned up and bought a couple of necessities inside. When we were done, we drove over to the Hospital where the festival was being held....we were definitely the first ones there!

After walking around and seeing everyone still setting up for the afternoon, we got back in Joon, made coffee and looked online for some nearby parks. Since our van is pretty stealthy, no one ever knows there is anyone sitting in it. We watched some carnies (small hands ~ Austin Powers) next to us go through their morning rituals of being disturbing, disgusting and down right disrespectful. I'll spare you the details! It just goes to show...you never know when you're being watched. They had no clue all eyes were on them for a good half hour! I wish I could take it back! It was very displeasing to the eyeballs!

[caption id="attachment_2247" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Just nasty[/caption]

As soon as we found a park to go to, we started her up and drove over to Desert Breeze Park, it was only about 3 miles away. I haven't seen a park like this since we lived in Denver. This park had everything imaginable: one whole entire side of the road was dedicated to just Soccer fields, the other side of the road had a rec. center with a fitness center and a pool (they only wanted $4 per person for the day, plus showers...we declined...not bad though), they had a skate park, basketball courts, bike and walking trails, softball fields, more soccer fields and get this...a dog park!

[caption id="attachment_2256" align="aligncenter" width="300"] B-ball[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2257" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Couple's Skate...Ladies Choice[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2251" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Happy girl rolling around[/caption]

This dog park was one of the cleanest nicest parks I've been to. We parked and walked the trail all the way back to the dog park...finally Nana can really stretch her legs!

[caption id="attachment_2253" align="aligncenter" width="300"] ...and she's off[/caption]

She chased dogs and barked at everybody, a little dog even turned right around and chased her back.

After she realized she wasn't the boss of anyone here, all she wanted to do was sit on the bench with us....with her back turned to the other dogs. She's such a brat!

[caption id="attachment_2255" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Faced AWAY from the park[/caption]

We kept walking after we realized she wasn't going to play with anyone. This park is huge and just beautiful. We stayed here the rest of the day. We walked over to the pool to check it out and they were having early voting so it was a mad-house.

[caption id="attachment_2258" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Desert Breeze Pool[/caption]

 We found a great spot in the parking lot where there were no cars and where we could have a little privacy...we needed to scrub-a-dub-dub it up. This was a great spot to do it, we just backed up to where we had even more privacy and bam, we had a shower! I threw on my bikini and scrubbed down...feels good to be clean!

[caption id="attachment_2260" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Scrub-a-dub-dub...who needs a tub?[/caption]

We figured we would go back over to the park for the day so we chilled and got some work done. When we felt like we needed to take a break and stretch our legs again, we headed back over to the dog park. It was almost 5:00 p.m. so there were sure to be more dogs there and we were more than right...most people and dogs I've ever seen at a dog park. It felt nice to know that people are taking advantage of this great park, every park I've been to there's never anyone there. I had also never seen so many wiener dogs in one place at one time....it was a Wiener Fest! haha

[caption id="attachment_2261" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Cute lil' Wieners![/caption]

There was a dog there that looked like Tony (Miss Cherry's pup) but much smaller....soooo freakin' cute!

[caption id="attachment_2263" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Are you Tony's cousin?[/caption]

Savannah played a little more than she did this morning, but it always ends up the same...we end up running and fetching balls more than her...like she's the one that took us to the park! haha I just think it's because none of the dogs let her bully them around so all the fun is taken out of it. At least she got some exercise, that's what counts.

[caption id="attachment_2262" align="aligncenter" width="300"] RUN!![/caption]

We did one more big walk around the park. There were people at the skate park this time, with boards and bikes so we watched them throw down some skills.

[caption id="attachment_2264" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Flip & Spin[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2265" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Thank goodness for helmets![/caption]

It was starting to get dark, so we ran a few more little errands and figured we would just go sleep at the Wal-mart we were at this morning. When we first learned about the balloon festival, we thought we would just sleep there amongst the carnies, but after this morning we decided against it and went to go blend in with the other campers. This Wal-mart had some good parking but we noticed on the backside of the store there was a bunch of semi-type trucks and RV's along this strip of road...we joined right in. Good thing we got there when we did too because as soon as we found close to one of the very last spots along the strip, we saw a couple of small campers/RV's driving up and down looking for spots...the early van gets the spot! Even though it was only about 6:30p.m. it is pitch black and I am not getting out of the rig to take pictures...so you're going to have to use your imagination on what this one looks like!  We will be going to bed a little earlier tonight due to us actually setting an alarm for tomorrow morning. The balloon festival launches at 7 a.m., we have set the alarm for 6 a.m. that should get us up and there in plenty of time to see every one of those suckers get up in the air. I'm totally stoked about this, I have always wanted to go to one of these but have been too busy or lazy in the past to do it. So, Hot Air Balloons get ready because here we come...wee hoo!!!

PEACE