We have a great group of friends, and our home is a lively place around birthdays and holidays. We love to cook, and with our large kitchen, backyard and pool, we regularly host dinners for our friends and their children and dogs.
With Brandon working in resorts, he often works on traditional holidays, so we celebrate on our own choice of day instead! We have a “Tuesday before Thanksgiving” feast yearly, and there’s never a shortage of great food and desserts with multiple friends who are head chefs and pastry chefs at area restaurants.
Our parents also enjoy celebrating with us and our friends when they can, but we also enjoy more quiet time with them, helping them around the house and listening to the seemingly endless cache of stories they have.
We are animal lovers, and have two Black Labs, Baller and Sooner, as well as a grey tabby cat named Boomer that we adopted from the animal rescue that Jen volunteers for. They’re all very social animals and love to have their dog friends come visit.
The cat believes she’s a dog, and though she’s sixty pounds smaller than the dogs, she often races around during games of fetch and runs through the dogs to grab dropped scraps of food in the kitchen.
All the pets are amazing with our friends and their children who come visit. They love to be pet and know to play gently with people (and dogs) that are smaller than themselves.
Our home is in Scottsdale, Arizona, in a friendly neighborhood with a top-rated public elementary school practically next door to us.
Although the summers are a little hot, we really live in an ideal location for being outside and active the rest of the year, and it’s a great area for raising children.
We have a backyard pool, are within a mile or two of several parks and hiking areas, and fields for the youth soccer leagues are just around the corner.
The city hosts regular food and arts festivals in a plaza nearby, and just down the road are the Phoenix zoo and botanical gardens.
Our schedules both allow lots of time for travel and enjoying time together, but we’d love even more to share these places and experiences with a child.