I Love New York

No, not that New York.



There, that's better!

So my boss and I are off to New York, the city that never sleeps, on Sunday for a whole week. And I'm very excited. Every other year, our office takes a groups of students to New York City to learn what its like to live and work in NYC. We have some pretty cool site visit planned for the students including Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, and Standard and Poor's.

On a non-work related point, Pam and I are hoping to do some pretty fun stuff while we are there. We are going to see Legally Blond on Broadway and dinner at the Rainbow Room. A student told me to go to Billy's Bakery as it has the best cupcakes. And if I can get a black and white cookie (circa Seinfeld) I hear they are pretty good at Cousin John's.

I am open to suggestions about places we should visit. New York here I come!!!

Went for a bedroom, left with a family room

So Deo and I's nice tax return finally came in and of course it's been burning a hole in my pocket. Ever since last tax season, I've had a list of house projects on my "to do" list. I wanted to put a back-splash in our kitchen, finish the backyard, etc., etc. One of my main goals was to finally finish our bedroom. Right now our bedroom is a hodge-podge of old, hand-me-down dressers, white walls and a ripped up comforter. It's the last room in our year old house that really hasn't had anything done to it. So Deo and I decided that with this tax return, we could finally finish our room.

So we went out looking this weekend to see what kind of deals we could find. And we ended up coming home with a new couch, love seat and entertainment center. I guess I should have premised this blog by saying the majority of our furniture in our house are hand-me-downs and hodge-podged together. The massive sectional that was given to us by Deo's parents is way too big for our family great room. Our entertainment center, which was given to us by a friend is actually a Southwestern motif (which doesn't go with our house at all) and our TV doesn't even fit in the place for the TV.

To get the point, we found a deal we couldn't pass up on the leather couches and entertainment center. It was one of those things where it looked like they were made for us. Even though I really wanted to finish our bedroom, we compromised and decided I could do with just painting the room for now and getting new dressers as we go along. Besides that, it's really nice to have our own furniture for once that we picked out and is what we want. It's our first new couch EVER that we bought with our own money!!! And as my friend Marisa says, it's our "grown-up furniture!" It doesn't get delivered until next week, so I'll post pics when I get back from NYC! YAY.

So I've Decided to Change My Name...Again

Fooled you!!! But I thouht this survey was cute so I thought I'd post it. Thanks to myspace bulletins...we can all enjoy random facts about other people!

Crazy names
1. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother & father's middle name)
Ann Gerard

2. NASCAR NAME: (first name of your mother's dad, father's dad )
Frank Paul

3. STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name)DiaSa

4. DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal)
Purple Dog

5. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd fav color, fav drink, add "THE" to the beginning)
The Yellow Water...ewww..haha

6. FLY NAME: (first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name)
Saaz

7. GANGSTA NAME: ( fav ice cream flavor, fav cookie):
Mint Chocolate Chip Snickerdoodle

8. ROCK STAR NAME: (current pets name, current street name)
Hannah Ribero

9. STRIPPER NAME: (name of your fav perfume/cologne, fav candy)
Princess Peeps

10. PORN NAME: (1st pet, street you grew up on)
Midnight Wonderlick

My Favorite Tucson Hike

So it's spring time (or as close to it as we can get in Tucson) and that means it's time for my favorite hike...Seven Falls at Sabino Canyon. Deo and I went last Sunday with my brother, sister-in-law, and niece.





It was an especially perfect time to go as the mountains recently had tons of snow, which is now melting and running through the mountains. We were all kind of nervous about how Ella (a one and half year old) would do on the hike. But Adam was a trooper and carried her all the way there and back in the cool back-pack-kid-carrier-thingy.



The soft bobbing she felt from Adam hopping from rock to rock across the stream must have been smoothing because she fell asleep about mid-way in.



Once we finally made the 4 mile hike to the actual falls, it was amazing. This was the first time I had actually seen all seven falls going and the water was extremely high (and very, very cold).



The crispness of the water, however, didn't stop some people from swimming in it and "cliff/rock" jumping into the pools. This was the most difficult part as Ella woke and wanted to run around and explore, which we had to be super, super cautous of everything as there's not really any completely flat surfaces.









After about an hour relaxing and snacking on some fruit, we made our 4 mile trek back to civilization. The weather was awesome and the hike was beautiful. If you haven't done the seven falls hike, I would definately recommend it. Especially now...it's the perfect time of year for it!!!

Office Space Moment

So I totally had an Office Space moment yesterday. On my way home from work, I was stuck in bumper to bumper traffic on Park heading South. There's really no good way for me to get home, especially during rush hours, so I have to decide on the best of the two evils: either Campbell or Park. So anyways, I'm sitting on Park repeatedly releasing my break and then pushing it back in again. And I look over and see a man with leg brace on, walking a dog, limping down the sidewalk faster than the traffic was moving. He even got through the light faster than I did. It totally reminded me of the Office Space scene where the little old lady with her walker is moving faster than the traffic.

Oh...so is my life right now....