Valentine's Day Strikes Again

It used to be considered "Single's Awareness Day," but it isn't such a shabby holiday now that I am married! Actually, I have always had good Valentine's Days. This particular one began with John sneaking out into the kitchen to get the huge bouquet of flowers ready for me when I woke up. He also made me breakfast, one of his delicious meals that he learned to make while he lived in Hungary for two years. He is quite the little foreign cook. In addition to the flowers, John special-ordered a novel that is personalized to us. He found it online at bookbyyou.com, and now we have a romantic vampire novel with us as the main characters! Pretty neat present! It was a nice, lazy day spent with my honey. While John went to play basketball with the boys, I stayed home to surprise him with homemade chocolate-dipped strawberries. Yum! That evening, we received a surprise visit from my brother, Jeff, and his wife, Megan. They arrived just in time for some pizza, then stayed long enough to beat us in Rack-O and Sequence. We then asked them to leave...you can't come to OUR house and beat us this badly! It was a great day, as every day usually is!

Hiking Camelback Mountain

In celebration of moving to the Phoenix valley two years ago this month, I thought it would be fun to post a slideshow of where I live. I hiked Camelback Mountain, a prominent landmark in town, and took pictures during the ascent. Keep in mind...the blue skies, t-shirts, and 70-degree temperatures were all taking place in February! I love this place.

Hershey, Pennsylvania - Need I Say More?

When I stop to think about the good things in life, I am usually lost in thoughts of animatronic animals describing how great chocolate is made. Luckily, this dream came true last week when I was at work! We took the boss and his family to the Presidential Inauguration. While the women stayed there for the week of festivities, we continued flying the boss around the country for work. It was a week of firsts for me, since we were able to stop in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and drive about twenty minutes to visit the original location of the Hershey Chocolate Factory. As we approached the town we could smell the chocolate drifting in through the car vents! Oh my...this IS heaven on earth! They have a make-shift factory where you hop on a ride and are guided through the chocolate-making process by talking and singing cows. It was a morbid combination of Splash Mountain and Jurassic Park, with chocolate samples given out at the end! The town is magical, with the lamp shades shaped like Hershey Kisses. The real factory is just down the street, and we drove past it on our way out of town. They also have a huge theme park with rides, a zoo, and a water park. I was hoping the "water" was also chocolate, but it was too cold to find out.

I am just proud of myself that the only thing I bought was a fridge magnet. I found out too late that the chocolate fresh from the factory tastes different and way better than anything I could have experienced! I regret not buying at least twenty pounds. Oh well. Smaller waistline will be the outcome anyway!