Pop Culture Trivia Night...

Tonight we had Sara (Ryan's sister), Alex and Genni (Sara's college friends), and Lori (Ryan's mom) over for dinner (tortilla soup and beer bread)...sorry, I know I'm out of hand with these parenthesis!...and a game of pop culture trivia. Team Ryan/Abby tied with team Sara/Lori....we played for a couple of hours, but no one got the final question right!...Don't be fooled...I wouldn't have made it that far if it had not been for Ryan answering at least 99% of the questions correct for us! :) I did however know that Tony the Tiger's home was Battle Creek, MI...too bad that it wasn't our question though...

Game Night...

Last night we went to the park and played some tennis, got dairy queen and then sat at a park and watched a little league game...followed up by a hardcore scrabble game when we got home...we love the game of scrabble!!

p.s. the pictures from my Sabino Canyon hike are finally up if you want to check them out...

Outdoor shows galore!!

In the past 3 days, Ryan and Cameron have had 4 outdoor concerts! It's been so great...two of them were in Tucson and two were in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I had always thought that New Mexico would be super hot like it is in Tucson, however it's not...it's actually 5,000 feet above sea level and thus a little chilly...however a little chilly out here means like 75 degrees.


We are heading to the midwest on Wednesday for some shows...we'll be in Kansas on Wednesday/Thursday, the guys are going to North Carolina while I go to Michigan to visit my family for a total of 18 hours on Friday, and then we're all meeting back up in Missouri on Saturday...then next week it's off to the rainy state of Washington for 10 days! :) (We ordered airplane neck pillows so that we can be sleeping soundly through all of this traveling!)

Easter!

I experienced the hottest Easter day of my life! This weather is crazy, but I love it! :)
We went to church in the morning at Ryan's grandparents' church...

(left to right: Ryan's dad, Abby, Ryan, Great-Grandma, Grandpa, Grandma)

Then spent the afternon/evening at his mom's house with her side of the family....

(left to right: Papa David, Aunt Terri, Lori (Ryan's mom), Ryan, Sara, Genny (Sara's friend), Grandma Bonnie, Alex (Sara's friend)

The view we had at dinner from Lori's backyard...

Sabino Canyon Hike

Last Saturday I woke at 6am to go hiking with some people that I had met at a church I visited the week prior. Now, 6am is a VERY early morning here in the Green household. Our days usually start somewhere between 8am and 9:30am usually... Nonetheless, I woke up and was suprisingly wide awake and ready to go! I had been hiking at Sabino Canyon once before with Ryan on my first trip ever to Arizona (just over 1 year ago), however this time we took a different trail and made it a new experience. The trailhead we took was called Seven Falls...and the name came from the fact that you actually hike into the canyon until you reach 7 beautiful waterfalls that at the bottom create a pool of water that all the water-deprived Arizonans hike to so that they can go swimming in! It was an amazingly beautiful hike...and I even got to see an endangered species, albeit extremely poisonous, a gila monster--one of the only two venomous lizards in the world! Supposedly the younger gila monsters are more dangerous than the older ones because they don't know how to control their venom and let it all out at once when they bite you...good thing no one was attacked on this trip. :) I had such a fun time...I told Ryan that it may have even been the most fun I've had since moving to AZ while not with him (he was in WA for a show)..

The first natural body of water that I've seen in AZ...


The area we were hiking in....


The gila monster...


Seven Falls...


Tucsonans swimming away...



The group of people I went hiking with...



That evening, Ryan and Cameron played a show at the U of A out on the lawn. Due to some technical difficulties, they ended up doing the show acoustic and sat on the edge of the stage with everyone gathered close and sitting on the ground...it was a pretty memorable show!

LA part 2

Tuesday afternoon we set out for another roadtrip to LA...


We stayed in one of the shadiest hotels that I've ever been in that night. We were so nervous that someone was going to break in to our room while we went for dinner that hid the laptops under the bed and then put the guitars under the covers to make it look like someone was sleeping there! But, it was pretty humorous to look at...


That night we went out for dinner at a great Mexican restaurant to celebrate Cameron being a new homeowner!! He got a great house WITH a pool!! And...he'll be living very close to us, which is nice. Afterwards we went and played some putt putt golf...Ryan reigned, with Cameron being a close 2nd...I was a not very close 3rd. :) ALTHOUGH, I was the only one with a hole in one...although saying that probably makes it more embarrassing that I still came in wayyy last. :)


We got back to our hotel safe and sound...nobody stole a thing! :) The guys practiced for a bit....


Wednesday the guys rehearsed all day with the drummer who will be on their next album. They had a great time with him...said that he was just a really good guy, and overall they are super super excited that they get to play with him! While they were with him, I spent the afternoon with my friend Katie (I know her from City Year in Boston)...we walked around UCLA, sat, talked for 7 HOURS straight! And, just had a really good time. She is new to LA and doesn't really have any close girlfriends there, so I think we were in the same situation and just really excited to have another girlfriend to spend the whole day chatting with. We had dinner with her boyfriend Adam...who is also from City Year. I love the perk of traveling all over and getting to see friends who have dispersed throughout the country! :)

Dinner with Grammie

Today started out with me getting lost on my run. I had only planned on running 3 miles so that I could get back in time for us to eat breakfast before we had to leave for Ryan to get his hair cut. Well, my 3 miles turned into 7 miles because I couldn't find the road I was looking for to turn onto and I just kept running and running and running...eeks! I ended up getting back 5 minutes after the time we should've left...thankfully Ryan's mom owns the hair salon, so they showed us grace for being late. :)

Part of this afternoon we spent at Cameron's house so that the guys could rehearse for awhile....


Tonight we had Sara (Ryan's sister) and Grammie over for dinner and a game of "Give Me 5" (a family game of their's). Sara and I won 5 games to Ryan and Grammie's 2 wins!

Farmer's Market

The first week we were here Ryan and Cameron played a show that benefited
the Tucson Community Food Bank and ever since then we've had an extra soft
spot in our hearts for them and have wanted to find other ways that we
could help out. We found out that there is a farmer's market on Thursdays
that also goes to support the food bank, and it also accepts WIC,
foodstamps, etc. I've been missing haymarket dearly and the thought of
going to this place was soo exciting for three reasons: 1. farm fresh
produce, 2. helping the foodbank, and 3. it sounds like a great socially
just place in the fact that it accespts foodstamps and WIC..
Well, we drove a 1/2 hour to get there and found 5 small tents set up and
about 3 other customers....not at all like the haymarket experience I am
used to. I still love the whole idea behind them being there and the
causes they are trying to support, however I must admit that I was quite
disappointed. Afterall, I had been looking forward to this ALL day!
First off, there was hardly any produce there. It was mainly homemade
jams and crafts...and then a couple of stands of grapefruits that were the
size of small oranges...which, I ended up buying 2 of because I felt bad
for the people selling. And even that was a cultural shock...they
actually weighed the grapefruit and instead of throwing in a couple extra
like they do at hay market, they carefully made sure that they found two
grapefruit that would equal a perfect 1 pound.
The one great thing that I did get to buy there however, was a basil
plant! I'm really excited to put it in a big planter and be able to eat
fresh basil all the time! I had originally planned on planting in the
ground, but I was quickly warned that basil grows really well in the heat
and it will take over our entire yard if we do that.

Well, here are a couple of shots of us working on our flower beds with
grammie a few weeks back. We're still trying to get the bank roses and
pink jasmine to crawl over the fence...Ryan spotted this morning that one
of the branches is out far enough that we can begin weaving it through the
fence... :)

Long overdue wedding picture...

So, I've heard many many MANY requests from people to have a website where y'all can look at our wedding pictures...however we were never able to create one due to the means by which our photographer gave us our proofs back. But, a dear friend (Jessie!) did send me a digital picture from our wedding just the other day and I thought I'd share it with all of you!



Today was a pretty mellow day of trying to finish/(start) our taxes...eeek...trying to figure out how to do them for a small business is not fun at all! But, the evening was brightened by doing an iChat with Jana and Jill in Boston. Technology is really amazing. Now, I know I'm the first one to dis on it and get frustrated by it, but honestly, the fact that we can have a conversation and see eachother (with little time delay) while living thousands of miles away is really quite incredible!

Ryan and I bought a glow-in-the-dark frisbee yesterday and had fun playing with it at the park last night. We're trying to do an hour every night of exercise/outdoor fun at the park in our neighborhood. So far we've gone rollerblading, played paddle ball, basketball, frisbee, and glow-in-the-dark frisbee. Next we want to try playing tennis on the courts that are lit up at night... It's pretty funny b/c right next to the park is a golf course that many retired "snowbirds" live at and they drive around the streets in their golf carts...it makes me smile to see them. :)

Oh, and just a "correction" on the photo of a lizard from when we were at Saguaro National Park...we don't actually have lizards IN our house...but they are all around on the outside of our house...Ryan claims they are the squirrels of Boston...or Albion for any Brits out there! :)

Road Trips...

In my short time of being "on the road" with Ryan and Cameron, I've already spent over 40 hours in the car in just 2 trips. It has been so much with playing electronic board games (Taboo, Outburst, and Scattegories), traditional Tri-Bond, 2 truths and a lie, the cities/states/countries game, and of course the best ever hand-made car game by Jill!

Our first trip was to LA to meet with the producer who is recording their next cd. This trip was for "pre-production" work, the actual recording will hopefully begin in the next couple of weeks. On our drive home we went through San Diego and then into western Arizona...the green rolling hills and forever-wide sand dunes were gorgeous!

Driving through San Diego...


This is where one of our favorite bands got their name...


Western Arizona...


The desert as many imagine it to be...


Last weekend we drove through Arizona and Utah to get to Idaho where they opened for Better Than Ezra! It was a great show...sold out to 1200 people! We sold out of all of our cd's and only had 1 t-shirt and two hoodies left at the end of the night...it was crazy cool!

The drive home was BEAUTIFUL!! If anyone plans on taking a cross-country roadtrip, you HAVE to drive through these states! Northern Arizona is all painted canyons...







Utah is beautiful redrocks...







and Idaho has incredible white capped mountains...



On the way home, we actually missed our exit and re-navigated our trip and ended up going up a mountain. At the base we had no snow, by the time we reached the top, we were in about 6' of snow and the road we needed ended up being closed....and we only had 7/10 of a gallon of gas left in the car! Fortunately we found a gas station that happened to accept credit/debit even though they had no one working there. Then we had to drive all the way back down the mountain and about 20 miles back to the exit we had originally missed. It was such beautiful scenery though that no one seemed to mind too much... :)

The license that never expires...

It's official, I am an Arizonan! Driver's licenses here don't expire until you turn 65 years old! I guarantee that I will not look like this when I'm 65! :)