Another Year Older

This weekend we celebrated Ryan's 26th birthday. For his gift, our parents and I gave him money so he could buy whatever he wanted. We spent Saturday afternoon shopping and after careful consideration, he decided he wanted a new gun. (There's no doubt that Ryan is ALL "boy.")

Luckily, his birthday fell on Labor Day this year so we were able to spend the day together. To celebrate, we went to the Diamondbacks game with his brothers. Although the D-back lost, it was fun getting to spend the day with family and friends. I hope you had a great birthday Ry!

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Home Owner Nazi's

Today marks a momentous occasion as it is the day we received our first HOA violation. When Ryan walked up the stairs to tell me we received a violation, my mind began thinking of what we could have done to get ourselves in trouble. As far as I'm concerned, we're the best residents in the neighborhood - we always pay our outrageous HOA fees on time, we haven't put anything obtrusive in our yard, and we always take our garbage cans in and out on the right days. So take a look at what our wonderful home owner's association had to say...

"The following non-compliance issue with respect to your property was noted on 08/17/2009: All trash containers must be identified by the owner's unit number. Identification stickers will be provided by the Association and attached to the front of the container by the unit owner. Stickers were mailed to you when you received your pool keys. If you did not receive a sticker, please contact AAM."

Not only did we never receive the stickers, but we've never even heard anything about this policy until now. I just can't help but laugh at the thought of someone actually taking the time to notice something so inconsequential and then taking the time to report it.

So today will officially go down in history as the day we received our first HOA violation. And from the looks of it, I'm sure there will be many more to come!

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Family Vacation - Part III

Some other highlights of the trip included rafting, hiking, lounging by the fire, and...

The beach at Lake Tahoe

Pony riding

Hanging out with our new niece, Hurley

Thanks again for the great vacation Mom and Dad! We had a blast!

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Family Vacation - Part II

One of the days during our family vacation, we decided to go down to San Francisco to spend a day in the city. We started the day off at the Pier and made our way through the city stopping at Ghiradelli's and China Town.


As always, our nephew, Brooklen, got a ton of attention on the streets as he routinely "put on a show" for everyone around. Although the only attention he really cared for was his parents, it was fun watching San Francisco's newest street performer. At one corner, we came across a man who was playing the saxophone. When Brooklen heard the music he started dancing all over the place. When his parents gave him a dollar to give the guy, the man gave the money right back saying that Brooklen was the one who really deserved the money.

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