When we bought the house last October, this is what the backyard looked like:


Nothing but dirt. And we were thrilled because that meant clean slate and we could do what we wanted with it.
Our first big accomplishment back there was Jonathan built Pergola. He only worked on it on Saturdays and only for a few hours at a time because of family activities we participated in, but it is finally done!










 See how all our junk accumulated in the back yard too? Those are just Jo's things to keep her occupied while we work in the backyard. It will look better when we finish the patio and deck and get rid of the junk and borrowed tools.

A few weekends ago, our family of 3 took a trip down to Tucson for a morning of birding. Jonathan had seen on the birding website that there were some pretty rare birds recently there and we were anxious to find them. Bright and early in the morning, we packed Jo up in the car with lots of distraction just in case and headed south. We completely thought Jo would fall back asleep once in the car- but she did not. Surprisingly, she was not cranky despite the lack of sleep! She actually was rather pleasant! We arrived just after 7 and found that our research of the weather (which was supposed to be 60's and overcast) was dead wrong. We opened our car doors to 40* and rain! We had not planned for that at all. Luckily for Jo, I always over pack a diaper bag. I had a jacket and leggings I could put under her pants.





 I also had brought a towel just in case our shoes got muddy, so we could wipe before getting back in the car. That towel quickly became another jacket.


For me being preggo, I admit it was cold, but it felt SOOOOO good! I am recently constantly hot! Jonathan froze his cuttie patootie off. Jo was somewhere in between. I think she was so excited to be outside roaming where ever she wanted that she didn't want to admit she was cold. About an hour or more into it, she gave in and admitted she was cold. She insisted mommy hold her to keep her warm. Mommy. 8 months pregnant mommy. 8 months pregnant mommy who also had been nature walking for over an hour with no rest. Get where I'm going with this? I quickly grabbed the keys to the car from Jonathan and we ventured back to the parking lot.



We sat and ate some snacks, but mostly just defrosted for about 40 minutes or so.


Then, she was ready to go back out! We found Daddy and finished the trail with him (about another hour). Jo zonked out in the car on the way home. She was exhausted. But it was so much fun to get out and just walk in cooler weather (or cold weather, depends on your expectations lol).

For our 4 year anniversary, Jonathan and I went to Sedona for 2 days/1 Night. It was a lot of fun! We walked (a lot) around different boutiques and did small (very small) hikes.... if you can call them that... Basically we parked and walked away from the road to go birding. Jonathan didn't spot as many new birds as he was hoping but we still had fun. We also visited the Page Springs Fish Hatchery. There, they have a trail specifically for birding. It was really pretty! We really enjoyed eating out and window shopping. It was a nice break of routine and only a 2 hour drive from home (double plus).
For some strange reason, I only have 2 pictures from the weekend- the first is from our "walk off the main road" to go birding. We ended up finding a spectacular view of Sedona and Red Rock.


The second picture is from a diner we found to eat breakfast at- Red Planet Diner. It was... interesting in theme ("Welcome Earthlings") but the food was DIVINE! I would totally eat there again.

I decided it was time to get our family pictures taken. Baby #2 is rapidly approaching arrival and we have yet to take a Family Of Three photo. Despite feeling rather large these days, I was all in for a photo shoot with my dad. Here are some pictures from the day:

Jonathan's work is pretty awesome. He loves it there and they treat their employees really well. On the 24th of March, they had a work picnic for employees and their families. Jolene was in heaven all day. They had inflatable bounce houses, free face painting/glitter tattoos, free balloon animals, a massive BBQ, music, etc. Here are some pictures from the day:

During one of our family outings, we took Jo to Rainforest Cafe for dinner. It was her first time ever going, and we hadn't been in forever either. She was very hesitant at first. Trying to soak everything in. The moving snake freaked her out, and she wasn't too sure about the elephants. Once we got her coloring, and chocolate milk she warmed up a little more. Then she saw other kids loving it, so she decided to fake laugh at it all until she was finally comfortable towards the end of our meal.