Hear that?

I never thought I would ever say this, but one of my favorite things about springtime is Spring Training. I love driving by Tempe Diablo Stadium and watching the current year being placed under the “Big A.” I love opening day watching everyone get excited to see the new players and the returning favorites. I love soaking up that not-too-hot-yet Arizona sun while catching an early afternoon ball game.  Most of all I love sharing an afternoon at the ballpark with Todd.

Now, growing up I was not interested in sports at all. I never watched them, never really played them…well I did try out for basketball once…and I did run track in Junior High. However, the best part of track was meeting boys from other schools at the track meets and let’s not get into it, Todd, but I didn’t make the basketball team. INTRAMURALS!  Yeah, I had priorities in school

(Maybe I will explain the Intramurals thing later)

Anyways, along comes Todd and he is a baseball FAN-A-TIC. Angels Baseball is practically a religion to him. When I first met him the most I knew about Angels was probably ‘Angels in the Outfield,’ which I guess is a time in Angels’ history most fans would like to forget.  At first I started to care about Angels’ games just to impress Todd. I watched a whole game once because he had to play an away soccer game and couldn’t watch it. I sat there for two hours sending him text updates. Probably the first sports event I watched all the way through to actually watch the game. I was determined though, because I liked Todd and Todd like the Angels and I wanted Todd to like me so I liked the Angels. This would be a good time for me to tell you not to ask me for relationship advice.

The first Angels game Todd took me to was a spring training game. I was more concerned on what I was wearing than anything else. I wanted to look cute for Todd and still support his team.

I had fun, but I don’t think I really started to enjoy baseball until we actually watched a game in California.

It was so much fun being there with the crowd cheering and just the energy of the stadium, the fact that one of Todd’s student’s parents let us sit in their Diamond Club seats wasn’t hurting at all.

But the real reason I started to love Angels’ baseball is because of how much Todd loved it and wanted to share it with me. How can I not just love everything Angels when it makes my husband so incredibly happy and he wants to share that happiness with me? 

 It makes me feel so important to him to know that he enjoys taking me to games; he enjoys sharing one of his favorite things ever with me. I love that he doesn’t try to escape from me to an Angels’ game, but rather escape with me so we can lose ourselves for a couple hours in the fun and carefree feelings of watching baseball.

Happy spring,

Mrs.J

Guess it is time

Playing Catch Up…

I guess I should probably play a little catch up with everything that has been going on in our lives. See, the problem is that I go do all these fun things and I forget to take pictures of everything. Then I am left here trying to explain all the incredible things we did. So, unfortunately I don’t have a ton of pictures of the last month and half, but I will post what we have.

We spent MLK weekend in California visiting Todd’s family. I wish we could get there more often. Any time we have a three day weekend, I try to give Todd first dibs on going to see his family before we make any plans. Anyways, we enjoyed that trip so much. The weather even cleared up enough for Debbie (my amazing, incredible Mother- In-Law) and me to walk around San Clemente’s farmer market on Sunday.

We found a cute little bakery and split a yummy cookies and cream cupcake.

We also got to meet one Todd’s best friends, Jason and his wife Kimi’s new little baby.  They did not disappoint. Little Luke was beyond perfect; they are two very talented baby makers. I think I could have cuddled him all day.  We went to Baby Gap to buy a little gift for them since we wanted to give them something when we were actually able to meet Luke. If I didn’t have baby fever already, walking around Baby Gap and seeing those cute clothes made it a million times worse.

March first I celebrated my, eeek, 25^th birthday! The only picture I have from that is of the birthday flowers my sister Laura got me.

 It really was a fun day though. Katie and Laura came to meet me for lunch; poor Katie only had enough time to buy me lunch and then she had to go back to work. I felt so bad she didn’t get to enjoy lunch with me. Laura brought me balloons and flowers. It was a great break to the work day. That night Todd, Laura and Katie all went to Kabuki with me for sushi.  That weekend we made an escape up to Three Sisters’ Lodge and spent a couple days relaxing. Most of the snow had melted, but we did find one hill where Todd and I tried to race up. How he was able to stop from sinking in the snow is beyond me. I just gave up and ended up crawling up the hill.

I call this "The Great Race"

We also celebrated the first game of Spring Training. That I do have a few pictures of and I think it is worthy of its own blog…I mean it is the Angels after all.

-Mrs.J

The Key To His Heart...

For Valentines I surprised Todd with is favorite food, BBQ chicken pizza. I even made my dough before work so it could rise during the afternoon. When I got home I just threw on the toppings and let it bake. For dessert I made him cream cheese swirl brownies I cut into hearts and served with ice cream and a little caramel sauce.

Here comes the bad news.

I have no pictures of our Valentines delicious dinner; I had it all planned out in my head how I would bake this delicious pizza in the shape of a heart and then wow you all with my domestic abilities. However, when making my pizza dough I just wrote down the ingredients from the blog I found it on and didn’t think to look to see if I was making one pizza crust or two, most recipes made enough for two.  I even thought all day about what I would make with the extra pizza crust. Then after I punched down my dough, and despite the screams of my cooking guardian angel, I decided that it couldn’t be enough for two pizzas. Guess what, I was very wrong. My cute little pizza heart turned in a massive puffy dough heart with sauce, cheese and chicken. Needless to say I left the camera in the case. If you want to look at pretty pictures check out Pioneer Woman’s take on the BBQ Chicken Pizza. Todd still said it was delicious and he loved it.

Then desert happened…and it looked cute…and it looked delicious…and then it tasted delicious…and then it was gone and I didn’t take a picture. Trust me it was yummy and cute.

So really I have nothing to show you about how my Valentines went, but I promise it was perfect.

Before we fell asleep last night I asked Todd if he remembered our first Valentine’s Day. He, of course, said no. So I told him the story. It was when we were still at Graceland University and Todd kept saying he wasn’t my boyfriend but still spending every single day hanging out with me and making out with me. I was still trying to convince him that he should probably wake up and see the awesomeness that would be having me as a girlfriend. I went over to his apartment while he still was in class (He let me have a key and wouldn’t call me his girlfriend, really?!) and I made him Engagement Chicken and mashed potatoes. He came home from class with a card and some daises. He told me he told the lady at the shop to give him whatever flowers were there because he didn’t want to take flowers away from people who were trying to buy roses for their girlfriends. What a romantic. I still remember what his card said though. That was when he first gave away that he really was falling for me.

It said. “Heidi, you are peach. I have had a lot of fun with you this year and hope to have more fun in the future. Love Todd” He shouldn’t have said future; it was all downhill from there.

I still have the card and some of the daises. What can I say, I have been smitten by Todd from the moment I saw him in a crowd outside an ice cream social 5 years ago.

How was your Valentine’s Day?

-Mrs.J

P.S.

That Engagement Chicken Recipe is seriously the best and the only way I roast chicken. It is so easy and such a delicious way to impress people if you are cooking for them. I ALWAYS allow extra time to roast the chicken though, the lemons inside make it not cook as fast. I recommend slicing the lemons up and still add for extra roasting time. Sometimes chickens just don’t want to roast.

Time for a

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I know I should probably write about how much I love my husband, I do and I will recap our weekend and Valentine’s Day coming up, but I wanted to write today about another very important Valentine that Todd and I have in our life; our beautiful baby girl Scioscia Michelle Jaramillo. (Yes, we give our cats middle names, deal with it.)

I can hear everyone now, moaning and groaning “we get it Heidi, you love your cats. We are thankful that Todd married you and saved you from a life of collecting cats and an inevitable episode of Animal Hoarders.”  Just bear with me. Valentines is now forever in my mind the anniversary of when Todd and I adopted Scioscia.

 Last year Todd and I decided that we needed to find a little friend for Nunu who was lonely after she moved out to Queen Creek and went from having one loving dog and one spastic cat as company to having nobody. We felt sorry for her home alone all day and thought she would like a little company. We started scouring Pet Finder and even found a little kitten that we thought would be the one. We called and called and nobody would call us back! Even though Todd was pretty bummed I convinced him to go to PetSmart on Valentine’s Day because they were having a weekend long adopt-a-thon.  That was when I first set eyes on Scioscia.

Originally I was looking at the other cat in the cage with her and really trying to get it to like me because it looked more like what Todd wanted. However Scioscia, who was named Keila at the time, would not stop rubbing on my hands, purring and just in general being the most loving adorable cat ever, even though she had a little bit of a gremlin face. Todd knew I was attached the moment I picked her up and even though I ho and hummed it, he said he knew we were taking her home. She has been a perfect cat for the last year. It is funny because even though I was the one who originally fell in love with her, she is such a Daddy’s girl it is ridiculous.

The amount of love that Scioscia gives Todd and me is just incredible. We come home, she purrs. We wake up in the morning, it is like she never thought she was going to see you awake again. You give her breakfast; it is like you just gave her the meal of a lifetime. You walk out of room and come back in; it is like she thought you had left forever. She really is so loving and you can’t help wonder why she would be. How can something that was abandoned be full of such love?

Scioscia is a rescue cat. She was the smallest out of a litter of cats that was given up alongside their mother after they were born. Everyone was adopted except for little Scioscia. Anybody else would be bitter but, this is the most amazing thing about rescue pets, they never stop giving up hope that there is a family out there for them who will love them unconditionally. When they find that family, they give every ounce of their being into being loyal and loving. I see it in Nunu and I see it in Scioscia; they just want your love and they will give you the world.

I hope that next time you are looking to adopt a pet you might start out by looking at rescue pets; some animals like Scioscia who never even got the chance at a home and some animals like Scioscia’s mom who were given up by what should have been a forever family. I am so grateful for the rescue organization that took care of Scioscia and the foster mother who raised her for the first 7 months of her life. These organizations are angels to pets in need and we should all be thankful for the work they do. Also, please, please, please spay and neuter your animals. There are so many innocent pets out there that are put down because of pet overpopulation.  

Tonight I am going to be giving my Scioscia and Nunu extra love, although I don’t know if that is possible!

-Mrs. J