July 9-12, 2009
For the 2nd weekend in a row Erica and I found ourselves up in the White Mountains for the weekend. However this time our trip was actually planned. Erica and friends were throwing a baby shower for Katie at Erica’s parent’s house. My wife is amazing! (as i think these photos prove!)






We left Thursday evening and were able to spend Friday morning helping Erica’s dad install a new roof on their house. Truth is I am not sure we were very helpful, as it is a very large and labor intensive job. Friday evening I headed over to Pinetop to spend some time with my family while Erica and her mother began their baby show preparations. Saturday morning I understand that the shower went off without a hitch.


As for me, I helped my mother clean out the garage in Pinetop, did some tree trimming, and then headed up to the Sky High Cinder Pit to go shooting with my dad and brother Dallas. I finally got to fire off the AK-47 that my parents got me (truthfully I am sure my mother had no knowledge or part in buying me a gun) for Christmas. At Dallas’s request we also did some skeet shooting. He had spent a day with friends in Utah skeet shooting just before he moved back to AZ (about 2 weeks ago). Truthfully Dallas is a better skeet shooter than I am.








That evening Dallas and I played in the SHOW LOW ALUMNI SOCCER GAME 2009. Now most people reading probably know that Show Low is the cross town rival to Blue Ridge, the High School that my family attended. Well Show Low was putting on this game as a fund raiser and couldn’t quite fill two full teams. (11 players per team on the field at a time, thus they needed at least 22 players) Well it turns out there were actually 6 players (my brother and I included) from Blue Ridge to play in the game. Though the 6 of us were hoping that we would be allowed to play on the same team, they split us up 3 on one team, 3 on the other. As the age of players ranged from just graduated to this guy who was on Show Lows inaugural team of 1993, we played four 20 minute quarters (for those of you who do not know the beautiful, usually we play two 45 minute halves) just to give some of us older and out of shape guys a chance. The offense was on display, not so much the defense. Final score 10-6. My team lost, but the one bright spot. Of the 16 goals, 11 were by Blue Ridge players! GO BR!

4th of July in the Mtn's

We were not planning on going up the Mtn for the 4th, but when my little brother woke up Thursday morning with what we then and still think was a kidney stone, we figured driving him up to see the family doctor in Pinetop (my dad) was as good of an excuse as any to escape the heat, and get some good family time in.
Friday morning Erica, my mother, my sister, and I drove out near Alpine Arizona (not to be confused with Pine Arizona) and went for a little hike up Escadilla. It was amazing up there, surrounded by Aspen Trees. We did however, only make it about half way up the Mtn before we turned back. I was wearing barrowed tennis shoes and was getting a mean blister on my big toe. Then, not wanting to pass up the opportunity, we drove over to Alpine, mostly just to say we did. Then on our way back to Pinetop we drove into Greer, again mostly so we could say we had been there. At the far side of Greer we got out and walked around the creek a little. Again it was a very pretty place, and I am told that it is a very “cute” little town.

We followed up our Friday morning hike with a Friday Night game of Ultimate Frisbee. Erica and I play almost weekly with a group of friends in Tempe on Wed nights, and thought it might be fun to get some of my little brothers friends together to try it out in Pinetop. Somewhat to our surprise, my good friend Tyler and his wife Careena saw a Facebook post I made about the game and decided to join us. Well us 4 played together on 1 team with 2 or 3 of my brothers friends, versus an even number of pure high school athletes who are used to running around at an elevation of 7k feet. Much to my surprise, we ended up killing all those young ones by a score of 21 to 11. The most difficult part of playing in Pinetop was the lighting. We always play at night with a Frisbee that lights up, but in Tempe the field has enough street lights around it that you can tell who is on your team and who is not. In Pinetop, the town of…..5 stop lights, there was next to no lights on the field, but luckily we anticipated this. Just as luckily we found 50 light up glow sticks that could be connected and turned into bracelets, anklets, necklaces, or even just loops hooked to belt loops. All in all, the game went well and I think my little brothers friends actually enjoyed themselves, despite the fact that most of them had their butts handed to them by 2 old married couples.
Saturday we headed over to Erica’s parents house, before ending up at her brother Nathans house for a 4th of July BBQ with lots of friends and family.
Sunday we obviously headed to church, and again to my surprise one of my good friends, Jaron Watson and his wife Bethany were blessing their baby in that very sacrament meeting. They live the valley as well, but Bethany’s dad is the Bishop of the ward that my in-laws attend (in fact they live on the same street, about 150 yards away from each others) It was neat to be able to be part of little Jaylee R. Watson’s baby blessing and to see Jaron and his whole family. After a good steak and potato dinner, a nice nap, and a short walk, Erica and I headed back down the mtn to good old Mesa.

Recent Events

Final month of baking?
Though we are not sure, it does look that way, at least for now. We had been baking anywhere between 1500-2000 cookies every month since September. The month of May might have been our last month. Erica’s boss, under budget pressure as asked up to take a break from the baking for the summer, though we both think it might extend longer. Though all the baking is extremely intense, the additional income was nice, and we were able to do the baking and packaging together so it wasn’t all too difficult.
For the month of May instead of dozens of cookies we made about 135 White Chocolate Bundt cakes with lemon icing. It wasn’t our best month, but overall they turned out good. It will be nice to get our house and refrigerator back as both are often consumed by ingredients and the final product.

Memorial Day Weekend
We needed to make a visit to Snowflake, so with Memorial Day Weekend upon us we decided it would be a good long weekend to get out of the heat. As it played out, the weather for the 3 day weekend was actually very pleasant here in the Phx Metro area, so our weekend turned out to be less of an escape than previously thought, but still enjoyable. Snowflake was cool and often wet as rain showers continually fell. Two of Erica’s siblings now live in Snowflake/Taylor, and another two had the same great weekend getaway idea as us, so 5 of the 6 Scott children were in town, making for some WILD and CRAZY moments with so many kids running around, but it is always fun to be around so much family!

Friday Date Night!

Erica is finally getting used to the idea that it often takes a couple of weeks worth of begging before a Date Night will actually take place. Well this last Friday was just one of those Date Night that was a few weeks in the making.

Venturing out we decided to try something new and take the LIGHT RAIL to Mill Ave in Tempe. Those who know where we live realize that this might seem a little ridiculous considering we are less than 5 miles from Mill. Well the truth is that for some odd reason, I am pretty obsessed with the LIGHT RAIL. Not sure why really, but I just get excited whenever I see one of those trains. So our taking the LIGHT RAIL for a short trip to Mill Ave was really an attempt to get it out of my system. Well it was kind of fun to try out but not that big of a deal, BUMMER!. It is unfortunate that Public Transit has such a bad reputation, but typically (I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings if they do use Public Transit, KUDOS in fact if you do.) Public Transit is full of the CRAZY CREW. We sat across from a guy who CLEARLY was talking to himself. and it was not a casual or polite conversation. (I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt that he had a small BLUETOOTH device, but no such luck.)
So arriving on Mill Ave we went to RA for a little sushi. We are both big fans of the Sushi! That green Wasabi stuff! WOW, what a kick! As you will see in the pictures, though we enjoy Sushi, we often find our selves torn, FORK or CHOP STICK? Neither of us can use the CHOP STICK well, Erica actually tries everytime, i am too stuborn to even try! Give me the good old fashion WESTERN FORK!
We then had some sort of Ice Cream Cookie Sandwich from some place called COOKIEZ on Mill Ave. I don’t think either of us would recommend the place.
Then we went and watched a Movie. I am ashamed to say we actually sat through the movie GHOSTS OF GIRLFRIENDS PAST. Overall it ended on a good note, but it was chalk full of naughty raunchy language/discussion. Neither of us would in any way recommend this movie to anyone. (should have seen STAR TREK, bet you can guess who wanted to see which movie) Check out our pictures, Thanks!

Visit to the Mtn

When ever we talk to people from around the Phx Valley area, and the topic of "Where are you from?" comes up, we both get asked the same question. " Do you visit often" in refernce to our parents living up in the White Mtns. Truth is.... No, we dont visit often, and before you judge us, let me explain. #1 Our parents, both her's and mine, come down to the valley at least monthly. So its not that we don't see our parents often. Seems we might make 3-5 trips up the mtn per year. So we don't visit our parents in their homes very often, but they visit us in our home frequently. #2 Though SNOWflake is not actually known for its SNOW, Pinetop (where my parents are from) is known for being COVERED with that wet, white, cold stuff. In fact, 4-6 months of the year Pinetop can be covered in snow. Erica and myself, we don't have a vehicle that can handle the wet, icy, dangerous roads in the winter, so when we do visit the Mtn in the winter, we have been known to get SNOWED IN. (as was the case this Christmas, as well the weekend we got engaged, in 2006 when 4 feet of snow fell in Pinetop in the month of MARCH.)

That being said, we realized that Easter weekend us upon us, and we had not been up the Mtn to visit since Christmas. (starting to feel like those UN-NAMED religous type that only attend church twice a year, Christmas and Easter) So up the Mtn for Easter we went.

We figured that it is now mid April, we shouldn't have to worry about getting snowed in again, for the 2nd time this year. Well.....we woke up Saturday morning in Pinetop to about 4-6 inches of snow. Granted, the roads are clear, and we didn't get snowed in..... but just a reminder that either A) we need to avoid the mtn during the 'Winter' season, or B) we need to get us an ALL WHEEL DRIVE car/truck/suv if we want to brave the Mtn during the winter.

Anyway.... thats my rant for now.... here are a couple pictures from the snowy Easter weekend.

A first time for everything. Even for Brett

So this is the 1st time I am creating a blog post. This 1st blog post is about my 1st ONLINE video. I'm made a few little video/photo type things in the past.... but this is the 1st one that I've ever posted online. It's simple... and basic... but i really love this sort of thing. I spent the better part of a month last summer editing our Hawaii videos and photos, from about 7+ hours of vacation memories down to about 2 and a half.
After seeing the success of my older brothers photography efforts, a part of me would really like to get into the video/editing... world.... I really enjoy creating something.... ANYWAY. Who knows, right!? Well if you are interested, follow the link and check out the short video/commercial I made for my brother. Take Care All!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPKLgozY620

2000 cookies in 2 weeks

Wow! Another month of baking done. I have to let everyone know that without my assistant Brett, there is no way on earth I would still be doing this crazy cookie biz! It is quite possible that he does more work than me now. The 1st month he mostly helped with the dishes, but now he pokes 'em, fills 'em, rotates 'em, cools 'em and does all the dishes. What a love!