july is hot & busy! honeymoon, lemon, hp7 & house hunting

wow - this has been a hot, busy month - but so amazing!

quebec city was outstanding; the weather was so beautiful while we were there - cool, but only rained one day, so we were able to enjoy the city on foot. we spent 3 nights at the auberge saint antoine, which was absolutely beautiful. they knew it was our honeymoon, and upgraded our room to one with a small terrace, & delivered some desert treats the first evening to us. and can i just say three words: turn down service. ridiculous (in a good way)! oh, and room service - we ordered breakfast one morning, so that was fun (something neither of us had done before). then we rented a car and drove 30 minutes to ile d'orleans and stayed 2 nights at the b&b, dans les bras de morphee, which was wonderful in such a quaint, country way. breakfast there was some of the best food we had the whole trip. and there was this great little restaurant on the river in the st jean part of the island that we went to for dinner, cafe bistro de la plage - yum! then we drove back into the city center and stayed our last 2 nights at chateau frontenac. it's this big beautiful castle that has been converted into hotel, and really a tourist hot-spot for viewing and exploring, but honestly, and probably because we did not stay in the $600+ per night room, i'd put it on par with a radisson or sheraton room - nice, but nothing super special. still, nice to say, 'yeah, we stayed there' :)

we were 'lucky' enough to have our flight home cancelled - twice. the first time, due to weather, we could not get back to phoenix (on the phoenix based us airways, none the less), and after much waiting, rearranging, and purchasing of new tickets, we decided it to be cheaper and more beneficial to rent a car from quebec city and drive down to visit tim's family in upstate new york, about 3-4hour drive away. how (slightly) spontaneous of us! so we were able to stay with his sister and visit with family, which was a great way to unexpectedly round out the vacation. the second cancellation happened when we tried to fly out of vermont, but due to maintenance on the plane. so we had to get a room for the night, then fly out the following day, 3 days later than our original plan. eventually, we made it home, and decided promptly that we will never fly us airways again. stay tuned; photos to come - i'm sorting through all 1000+ that i snapped :) see some photos here!

a week after getting back, while shopping and wandering about on a saturday afternoon (july 16), tim decided it was time we look for a dog. semi-reluctantly, we hit up a couple of pets-mart stores, and at the third (and i said final for the day), we found her! she was 3 months, 15 lbs, boxer-terrier mix, tan colored with a little grey beard, and we named her lemon (after liz lemon from 30 rock). i had picked out the name a couple of years ago, stating one night that lemon would make a cute name for a dog. tim has always amused me by agreeing :) so when we found our pup, she actually fit the name, and it fit her, and so here she was the day we brought her home (she's already grown so much since this photo!) and yes, her one ear is always up like that, isn't it adorable?

tim & i saw HP7-II - go see it. of course it's amazing, what else would you expect?!

and then last week, a week after getting the dog, and two weeks after getting a letter from our apartment complex letting us know that rent is going up almost $200 a month to re-sign another lease, we decided to seriously start home shopping. (we've been browsing online for months). so we got a realtor, got a pre-approval, and viewed a couple of properties today! it's really exciting and a little scary making such a big, sort of permanent decision like where to live, and what to buy, etc. but we've decided to not shop for the full purchase price we were approved for so we don't end up, as my boss put it, "house-poor," where all you can afford is your house and your lifestyle goes out the window (no pun intended - okay, well maybe a little).

so, on top of the unusual humidity, haboobs, and 110* weather we've been dealing with this monsoon season (like everyone else in the valley), this is what we've been up to!
how are you?