Babymoon Reading List

Honestly, I don't read very much. I don't seem to have (or make) the time in everyday life. But, get me on a relaxing vacation, and I'm all about it. On our Arizona Babymoon I read four books! That's probably more than I've read in the past year altogether. Sad, I know. It was so much fun to relax and get lost in some great books, so I thought I'd share what I read with you (It was quite the variety, too!). I also started reading on my new (to me) kindle, which is flipping awesome. I love it - way better than trying to read on the kindle app on my ipad. 

The Night Circus

This book was good, but at the same time I feel like I need to read it again to fully "get it" and pick up on all the intricacies. In a nutshell - two illusionists are pit against each other to the death... with a couple twists, of course.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)

Loved this one. But how could I not when I love Mindy Kaling so much? She's hilarious. Reading this book is like listening to her talk. So funny. In a nutshell - read about hilarious stories from Mindy's life, including The Office!

The Great Gatsby

I wanted to re-read this one before I saw the movie (hello, Leo!) and was glad I did. I remember reading it in high school and that is mostly wasn't very happy. In a nutshell - a dude tries to get back together with his lover from five years ago. It doesn't end well.

Gone Girl

I had heard the hype on this one and decided to take the plunge and read it since it had, you know, 10k+ awesome reviews on amazon. Why not, right? SO GOOD. In a nutshell - I can't even tell you because there are so many twists. Just read it. 

Name of the Wind (currently reading)

This one my sweet hubby suggested I read. It's one of his fantasy books that I don't usually like, but I thought I'd give it a try since he said it was so good. I'm about 25% in so far, and it is pretty good. I'm just waiting for the promised love story though... :)

That's it! Quite the variety, no? What have you been reading lately? This reading binge, along with my kindle might have gotten me motivated to keep this up! :)

Arizona Babymoon

First of all, sending big hugs and lots of prayers to those in Oklahoma... Mother Nature can certainly be a B sometimes... 

I thought I'd share a little about our Arizona "Babymoon" trip with you today. We stayed at my parent's house in Goodyear, AZ (Thanks Mom and Dad!), which is pretty awesome. There's actually not too much to say about our trip other than we achieved total relaxation. It. Was. Glorious. Ten days of sun, pool, and reading (I read four books!) as well as some pretty tasty food. Here's a few pictures of our trip!

Where we were parked for most of the trip... by the pool!

Our first stop - In n' Out! Tasted SO good. I think by now you all know how I feel about burgers and fries at this time in my life. :)

My view for the ten days we were there. We could move the umbrella into the pool too to keep it shady.

 

Prego shot!

Beautiful sunsets!

I did a little shopping for Little Miss BK - so much fun. Of course I had to get her her first pair of converse! Also, did you know H&M not only has a baby/kids section (that's where I got the chevron romper on the top right) but also has some maternity clothes! 

I also went to this place called the Brass Armadillo, which is a huge (and I mean huge) antique mall in Goodyear. I probably spent about three hours or more walking through every aisle and looking at every booth. I'll do a post later this week about some of my cool finds. I didn't purchase much since we didn't have much room in our suitcase, but I did purchase this vintage map of the Atlantic Ocean for $20. I love it! I'm not sure where it will go yet... possibly the master bedroom or maybe even the nursery? We'll see...

We played a lot of cribbage too. Zach won overall (and I was not happy about it. Competitive much? YES). We only had one poolside tragedy the last day of our trip... the five, ten and two jacks were mine dang it! :)

Our one big outing was to the Wildlife World Zoo where we saw a ton of animals. The cool thing about the zoo was that it felt a lot more relaxed than a regular zoo - you could get a lot closer to the animals. They even had a couple different spots where you could walk underneath the cage to the leopards. I think you could even reach out and touch them if you wanted (there were a couple layers of chain link between you and them, so still safe). Unfortunately, we went during the middle of the day, so the leopard was in the shade instead of on the overhead hang out. 

Baby giraffe!

Albino alligator!

Ostriches! (Remember our other ostrich adventures?)

Camels!

The zebras were my favorite! It was so cool being so close to them!

Antelope!

Rhino!

Chameleon! I so bad wanted him to change colors, but no such luck. He did use his super fast tongue to get a bug though - that thing is fast!

Me and the huge tiger! Such huge paws.

The peacocks were just roaming around on the paths... I was a little freaked out because Zach wanted to get closer to them, but for some reason I remembered that they could get violent (I don't know, is that even true?!) so I steered clear.

They had a Kangaroo path where the Kangaroos just roamed free. You had to stay on the path, but could still get really close to them!

Albino Peacock!

We got to catch up with some friends from our Arizona days and meet their 130 pound Great Dane named Ole! Only a year old and he was so huge, but such a sweetie! Seriously, biggest dog I'd ever seen!

We had such a great time in Arizona. We can't wait to go back - which will be next summer for Zach's graduation (with the little one too!).