Blowtorch Fires and Tug-Of-War!!

So since it was so cold today, I decided that it would be fun to have our first fire in our fireplace! So Brandon goes outside and grabs some wood and heads to the garage, which I think nothing of because he probably goes in there at least 20 times a day. In the meantime I head to the kitchen to grab the matches and as I am walking back to the fireplace, Brandon strolls on by with a blowtorch! I look down at my matches and think, "Silly me, apparently we light fires with blowtorches in this house!" So I thought I would take a few pictures and share them with everyone, sorry if they are a bit blurry, I snapped them really quick with my phone. Also the video below is of the dogs playing with one of Brandon's socks, which is their favorite thing to do. Banks gets really mad at Diesel when he won't give him enough attention. I also took this on my phone so I'm not too sure how it's going to look, and I have never put a video on the blog, so I hope I did it right. We'll see, I may have to go back and do it differently if it doesn't work. Enjoy! 

Diesel was mesmerized by the massive flames. Banks on the other hand decided he was going to go into his kennel to take a nap.

I still think doing it the old fashion way with some matched and newspaper works pretty good, but this way you get to enjoy the pretty colors!!

Diesel and Banks playing on the couch which they know is not allowed, but it's a bit hard to keep a combined weight of 150lbs off of something when they really want to be on it!!

Christmas Lights!

This past Saturday Brandon and I(or mostly Brandon doing and me directing) put up Christmas lights on our house! I was so excited to start putting up all of our Christmas stuff and Brandon had an excuse to use an air powered staple gun! I was confused when he started unrolling the air hose thinking he had a regular staple gun that you just squeeze with your hand, but oh no that didn't work for Brandon. He needed something that could emit staples at dangerous speeds! For those of you who know Brandon, you know how much of a perfectionist he is with everything that he does. This was reiterated to me when he insisted that every single bulb was facing down the same way. This meant that every bulb was stapled about 3 times, I swear there must be at least 500 staples in our house now, but they look great! It was fun being able to be outside enjoying the great day and having the dogs outside with us playing.

Brandon making sure the lights are all facing the right way

Extreme close up!

Banks taking a well deserved nap after playing with Diesel

This is one of my favorite pictures. Banks was tied up in the yard and his leash only allowed him to get right up to the sidewalk, but he couldn't get any closer. Diesel figured this out and he would take his toy and go sit right on the edge of the lawn on the sidewalk so Banks couldn't get his toy! Banks was getting so mad!

The end result! The lights look a little blue, but are actually supposed to be white. We went with LED Christmas lights and they are so bright they give off a blueish tint! They light up the whole front yard! If you enlarge the picture you can see Diesel and Banks in the yard, they were not happy with me that I was making them stay in the yard instead of coming across the street with me!

2009 Jason Schechterle Ball

Brandon and I were able to attend the 3rd Annual Jason Schechterle Ball this year to support his dad Willie who received the Investigator of the Year Award! The Ball was created not only to award outstanding Police Officers and Firefighters, but to also award scholarships to deserving students.  It was so much fun to be able to dress up and go and support his dad who is an outstanding Firefighter and Arson Investigator, and to be able to support the other Officers and Firefighters who do such a great job. Here are a couple of pictures from the night! Enjoy!

This is a picture of the family who could make it to support Willie. 

Brandon, Me, sister Kim, stepmom Marion, Willie, sister Mandy, Marion's mother Grandma Wiehrdt, sister Kristi, her husband Austin

Brandon looking studly as always and making me look pale with his ridiculously tan skin! 

Brother Jim, Willie, Grandpa Nelson

Jim, Jack, Jason, Willie

Santa Came Early This Year!!

Christmas started a little early this year!!

Brandon has wanted a Rhodesian Ridgeback for a couple of years and so we decided to start looking, but never seemed to be able to find one here in AZ. So this past weekend Brandon had the idea to look on azcentral.com and we actually found someone who happened to have a litter of puppies! We originally wanted to adopt one from a shelter but were not able to find one so we decided to call about the puppies.  So needless to say we ended up leaving with a puppy! He is 7 weeks old and the cutest thing I have ever seen, we named him Banks. Diesel is still getting used to him, but once he is a little bigger he will be able to play on Diesel's level.  

This picture shows you just how big Banks already is even though he is only 7 weeks old. Diesel weighs about 120 lbs Banks is going to be a big boy just like his older brother!

This picture shows the ridge on Bank's  back which is a characteristic of the ridgeback.

This is Bank's favorite place to sleep besides our bed!

Halloween!

For Halloween this year Brandon and I went trick-or-treating with Brandon's sister Kristi and her two boys Cayden and Jaxon. Cayden was Chicken Little and Jaxon was the cutest tiger I have ever seen! It was so much fun watching Cayden go up to the door and saying knock knock before he actually knocked on the door! The first house we went to Cayden knocked on the door and once the lady opened it he ran right in, it was hilarious. Thanks for letting us go trick-or-treating with you guys we had so much fun, and thanks for letting borrow your pictures from the night Kristi(my family would have been mad if I didn't post any!)

Cayden as Chicken Little and Jaxon as the cutest Tiger! 

Cayden had to hold someone's hand while we walked and he only wanted to hold Brandon's, it was really cute! 

Brandon's mom had some really cute pumpkin lights along her walk way and Cayden kept running up to them and kicking them. It was really funny, so Brandon had to keep running after him to stop him! 

At one house they had this monster that would lift up his own head while it lit up and talked. Cayden was fascinated by it.

Cayden informed me that he was holding me and not the other way around! 

Fish tank part II

Brandon laid down so I could take a picture of how long 8 ft really looks like!

We used the old 125 gallon fish tank as the filtration system for the new tank. Brandon was starting to plumb the two tanks together.

More plumbing... I thought this picture was funny because Brandon looks like his face is going to explode!

Here is the 125 gallon tank underneath the new tank.

This is what the 300 gallon tank looks like so far in the process. Brandon built a top canopy piece out of crown molding which will eventually be painted black.  He is also going to encase the entire bottom stand in wood and dress it up a bit. When it's finished everything will be painted black and it will look great! Way to go Brandon!!

The fish tank, or as I like to call it Brandon's baby! (Part 1)

For those of you who haven't seen our fish tanks get ready, they are what I like to call a tad on the GINORMOUS side!! When I first met Brandon he had recently set up a 125 gallon fish tank in the house, and as we began dating it became a fun hobby for us to do together. Now this fun hobby has turned into a bit of an addiction for us (maybe a little bit more for Brandon!) Once Brandon and I got married, he informed me that the measly 125 gallon tank was just too small and insignificant and that he wanted to upgrade.  I thought really? You think its too small? How much bigger of a fish tank can you get? Oh I found out very quickly how much bigger it could get... Brandon began his search for the new and improved fish tank immediately and found the tank of his dreams on Craigslist, which just happened to be 300 gallons...Yea I found out very quickly how much bigger of a tank you could get!  So we went and picked it up, or should I say they pushed and shoved it from its stand into the back of Brandon's truck, I though for sure someone was going to bust a vein! 

Once we got it home we were faced with the dilemma of how we were going to get an 8 foot long 300 gallon fish tank that weighs who knows how much(I'm sure Brandon knows the exact weight) out of the back of his lifted truck into our house.  Thankfully we have wonderful family and neighbors who were more then willing to help. Although I think many of them quickly thought what the heck am I doing here once they started carrying it into the house. In all we had about 6 grown men haul it into the back room of our house, unfortunately this was not its permanent place and it had to be moved again into the front room of our house a few weeks later. Thanks again to everyone who helped move the tank! Now the hard part began... We had to take apart our old tank and transfer all of the water, sand, and rock into anything we could find, and move the fish into some of these buckets. Once everything was cleared out, we began to put together the 300 gallon tank. Here are some pictures of the whole process so far, we are not finished with the tank yet so I will post more pictures as we go. Enjoy!! 

Here is our old 125 gallon fish tank

(Most of the fish were hiding behind the rocks because they didn't like the camera's flash)

Brandon welded this stand for the new tank. This is just the support for the tank and once it is done it will all be covered with wood and will look much better!

Brandon is such a handy guy!!

Brandon got inside of the tank to clean it out, this made me very nervous, but it shows you how big the tank really is! 

Diesel was such a good helper, although he really wanted to get into the tank with Brandon! 

Ok so I have been told by our families that I need to get on the ball with this blogging business, so here we go! Brandon and I were married on June 19 of this year, and it was the best day of my life! Oh and Brandon's too! We are living in Gilbert in our wonderful house (that Brandon spent who knows how many hours remodeling) which we share with our 120lb Italian Mastiff Diesel, or at least try to share. Diesel likes to think he runs the house and that he is entitled to sleep, drool, and eat whatever he likes! He is an amazing dog so we, or should I say I, let him get away with almost everything! We also share almost an entire wall of our house with our 300 gallon saltwater fish tank, which has become such a fun hobby for Brandon and I to do together, although I do draw the line at cleaning out their fish poo... We had a 125 gallon saltwater fish tank, but according to Brandon that was much too small, so we are in the process of setting up the new, more acceptable sized 300 gallon tank. People are always a little shocked when they walk into our house and see the fish, it is definitely something you don't see every day. I have lots of pictures to post of the new fish tank as we set it up, so those of you who haven't seen it can get an idea how big 300 gallons really looks!!! I feel so blessed to have been able to find and marry such an amazing man, Brandon is the hardest working person that I know and I love him so much it's ridiculous! I hope our first post passes the test and I promise there will be many more to come! 

Diesel doing what he does best, drooling!