Tick tock

You know your work day has been longer than normal when you type "sayd" instead of said. 

Sydney agrees.

Halloween spirit

Jackson is already getting in the Halloween spirit with his short lived eyeball-ball  (tore a hole in it within about 30 minutes)  The hunt for a costume begins...

Steven Martin Live

Having enjoyed a lovely weekend packed with; cooler temps, cycling, running, hiking, dinning out, adult beverages and some NFL games, it's time to get down to business and play a little catch up on Huppdates.

A couple of weeks back Jonathan and I saw critically acclaimed, award winning banjo player Steve Martin accompanied by the equally renown Steep Canyon Rangers. Yes, Steve Martin was pretty hilarious as he joked between songs and even in the lyrics of his own songs but the highlight of the show was the combine musical talent. Being a bay area girl for 18+ years I would have never imagined I'd be attending a Steve Martin blue grass concert in Mesa Arizona, but having been, I would undoubtedly see them again and encourage anyone who has the opportunity to do the same.

Thinking that the area surrounding the lovely and impressive Mesa arts center would contain equivalent dinning opportunities we arrived early, looking forward to dinner and a few drinks. Wow, talk about wrong,wrong,wrong. One restaurant was booked, two were at capacity and moving painfully slow, one option was lacking air conditioning and contained dinners about quadruple our age so we ended up at a pizza place eating slices of pizza that tasted like they had been sitting out since the day before. Delicious.

 Dry pizza resting unhappily in our bellies we made our way back to he arts center in hopes of finding an adult beverage. We did indeed find said beverages however I can state with confidence that they were served in the equivalent of an adult sippy cup. I mean honestly, check out this cup and it's dissatisfied consumer.  

Disappointment in the pre-concert adventures quickly faded away with the awesome musical and comical talent of Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers. Ok, well perhaps that is a bit of an overstatement, as it's more appropriate to say instead of the disappointment fading it became a rather entertaining dichotomy to the fantastic concert we enjoyed.

Below are a few more concert pictures.  They're not the greatest but I feel strongly about following the non-flash rules.  Plus, it really didn't help that Steve Martin was wearing a white blazer.  Blinding white coat + bright lights and movement = blurry mcblurr.

Labor day weekend

 

We started our labor day weekend with a lovely 30 mile ride early Saturday morning.  Nothing too crazy, but definite progress in our ridding routine.  Its only been 3 weeks back in the saddle and we are definitely improving our endurance and speed.  About 8 hours later we voided the calories expended during our ride by enjoying a belated birthday dinner and mojitos at Fuego Bistro, a local, cuban influenced restaurant.

Sunday we set about on a hunt for some new hiking shoes for Jonathan's up coming Grand Canyon hike.  We tried two stores and ended up buying $70 hiking booties for Mr. Jackson. Our plan for Monday was to head to Prescott for a hike in the Prescott national forest and seeing that Jackson would be joining us we thought it might be a good idea to get him some foot protection.  He is undoubtedly a mighty dog, but his paws are mighty tiny so despite our best efforts we could not keep the little shoes fastened on his feet. The marketing on the box informed us that these booties would unleash the inner canine athlete. Thanks marketing department, but Jackson doesn't need no stinkin booties to unleash his inner athlete!

Our Sunday drew to a close with a lovely visit and dinner with Jonathan's aunt, uncle and cousin.  Its been quite some time since we've had a get together and we greatly enjoyed getting to hang out and catch up.

Bright but not too early Monday morning we started our adventure to Prescott, pronounced by many in this desert state like "biscuit" but replace the "b" with a "p".  The drive north included a very pleasant and much appreciated 20 degree drop in temperature.  We started our adventure at around 9:30 as we headed up trail 307.  The first 3.2 miles would take us up in elevation and provide a nice little rest/picnic spot near the observation tower where either a ranger or volunteer (we were not sure which) observes the forest keeping an eye out for wildfires.   When the towers are manned (or womanned in this case), given their consent, you can climb the steep stairs to view the forest below.  I'm not keen on heights, but the remarkable view was well worth setting aside the minor fear. The woman residing in the tower was very nice, quite informative and absolutely loved Jackson.  While she discussed the features of the tower and the way the maps and tools in the tower worked she held Jackson like a little babushka in her arms and he didn't fight it one bit.

             

                                                                                        

                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                           
After a refreshing break including a tasty lunch of jerky, crackers, cheese and trail mix we opted to head back down the trail.  The original plan was to make a loop which consisted of 3.2 up to tower stop, then finishing with another 5 + miles down, but recognizing that hiking really isn't my cup of tea and out of concern for J Bone, we opted to head back down the trail we came up.  At times Jonathan would carry Jackson to give his feet a break from the rocky patches and give his legs a little time to recuperate.  He was quite the trooper and a happy little pooch throughout the trip.  He was very tuckered on the drive home and for the remainder of the day, but overall seemed to have a great time.  His little puppy paws held up just fine, no cuts or raw skin even without the booties. 

                                                                                                                                 
When we got home and showered about a pound of dust off I set to baking, cutting and decorating cookies using the new Star Wars cutters I bought a week back.  Sure it looked like a good challenge, but doable.  Ha.  The cutters worked great.  But the frosting attempt, well, not so good.  I would have needed finer tips for the frosting application, and a whole heck of a lot of free time to get them the way they are supposed to appear.  It was refreshing not really caring that they were not achieveable because no matter how the frosting is applied, they're still down right delicious!

Harsh reality

                                                                                                                                        

Moment of weakness

  

It's been a long time since Mr. Jackson destroyed anything, but apparently a sweaty leather cycling glove was just too much to resist. He sure didn't give away his guilt when I got home, but when I slowly and silently confronted him with the glove he was quick to ask for forgiveness. And honestly who couldn't forgive a face like this?